John O'Donohue

“Let the flame of anger free you of all falsity.”

“On the day when the weight deadens on your shoulders and you stumble, may the clay dance to balance you.”

“Grace is the permanent climate of divine kindness; the perennial infusion of springtime into the winter of bleakness.”

“Perhaps your hunger to belong is always active and intense because you belonged so totally before you came here. This hunger to belong is the echo and reverberation of your invisible heritage. You are from somewhere else, where you were known, embraced and sheltered. This is also the secret root from which all longing grows. Something in you knows, perhaps remembers, that eternal belonging liberates longing into its surest and most potent creativity. This is why your longing is often wiser than your conventional sense of appropriateness, safety and truth... Your longing desires to take you towards the absolute realization of all the possibilities that sleep in the clay of your heart; it knows your eternal potential, and it will not rest until it is awakened.”

“It is a strange and wonderful fact to be here, walking around in a body, to have a whole world within you and a world at your fingertips outside you. It is an immense privilege, and it is incredible that humans manage to forget the miracle of being here. Rilke said, ‘Being here is so much,’ and it is uncanny how social reality can deaden and numb us so that the mystical wonder of our lives goes totally unnoticed. We are here. We are wildly and dangerously free.”

“Each of us is an artist of our days; the greater our integrity and awareness, the more original and creative our time will become.”

“The call to the creative life is a call to dignity, to a life of vulnerability and adventure and the call to a life that exquisite excitement and indeed ecstasy will often visit.”

“When our eyes are graced with wonder, the world reveals its wonders to us. There are people who see only dullness in the world and that is because their eyes have already been dulled. So much depends on how we look at things. The quality of our looking determines what we come to see.”

“I do not wish to criticize any system that can nourish people’s spirits, but I find that a lot of New Age writing cherry-picks the attractive bits from the ancient traditions and makes collages of them; it usually excises the ascetic dimension. In general it is not rigorously thought out, but is what I would call “soft” thinking.”

“When you become vulnerable, any ideal or perfect image of yourself falls away. (...) Many people are addicted to perfection, and in their pursuit of the ideal, they have no patience with vulnerability. (...)Every poet would like to write the ideal poem. Though they never achieve this, sometimes it glimmers through their best work. Ironically, the very beyondness of the idea is often the touch of presence that renders the work luminous. The beauty of the ideal awakens a passion and urgency that brings out the best in the person and calls forth the dream of excellence.The beauty of the true ideal is its hospitality towards woundedness, weakness, failure and fall-back. Yet so many people are infected with the virus of perfection. They cannot rest; they allow themselves no ease until they come close to the cleansed domain of perfection. This false notion of perfection does damage and puts their lives under great strain. It is a wonderful day in a life when one is finally able to stand before the long, deep mirror of one's own reflection and view oneself with appreciation, acceptance, and forgiveness. On that day one breaks through the falsity of images and expectations which have blinded one's spirit. One can only learn to see who one is when one learns to view oneself with the most intimate and forgiving compassion.”

“What you encounter, recognize or discover depends to a large degree on the quality of your approach. Many of the ancient cultures practiced careful rituals of approach. An encounter of depth and spirit was preceded by careful preparation.When we approach with reverence, great things decide to approach us. Our real life comes to the surface and its light awakens the concealed beauty in things. When we walk on the earth with reverence, beauty will decide to trust us. The rushed heart and arrogant mind lack the gentleness and patience to enter that embrace.”

“The beauty that emerges from woundedness is a beauty infused with feeling; a beauty different from the beauty of landscape and the cold perfect form. This is a beauty that has suffered its way through the ache of desolation until the words or music emerged to equal the hunger and desperation at its heart. It must also be said that not all woundedness succeeds in finding its way through to beauty of form. Most woundedness remains hidden, lost inside forgotten silence. Indeed, in every life there is some wound that continues to weep secretly, even after years of attempted healing. Where woundedness can be refined into beauty a wonderful transfiguration takes place.”

“So much depends not on how awkward destiny is, but rather on how openly it is embraced.”

“One of the deepest longings of the human soul is to be seen.”

“Though beauty is autonomous, there seem to be occasions when human presence can become congruent with her will. In creative work no amount of force or mechanical management can guarantee beauty. Suddenly, without expecting it, beauty is there. Yet ultimately beauty is a profound illumination of presence, a stirring of the invisible in visible form and in order to receive this we need to cultivate a new style of approaching the world.”

“There is a relentless search for the factual and this quest often lacks warmth or reverence. At a certain stage in our life we may wake up to the urgency of life, how short it is. Then the quest for truth becomes the ultimate project. We can often forage for years in the empty fields of self-analysis and self-improvement and sacrifice much of our real substance for specks of cold, lonesome factual truth. The wisdom of the tradition reminds us that if we choose to journey on the path of truth, it then becomes a sacred duty to walk hand in hand with beauty.”

“Unfinished PoemI would love to live like a river flows, carried by the surprise of its own unfolding.”

“Consumerism is the worship of the god of quantity; advertising is its liturgy. Advertising is schooling in false longing.”

“May you experience each day as a sacred gift woven around the heart of wonder.”

“Functionalism is lethal when it is not balanced by a sense of reverence. Without reverence, there is no sense of presence or wonder. ”

“One of the most beautiful gifts in the world is the gift of encouragement. When someone encourages you, that person helps you over a threshold you might otherwise never have crossed on your own.”

“When you steal a people's language, you leave their soul bewildered.”

“So at the end of this day, we give thanksFor being betrothed to the unknown.”

“You have traveled too fast over false ground;Now your soul has come to take you back.Take refuge in your senses, open upTo all the small miracles you rushed through.Become inclined to watch the way of rainWhen it falls slow and free.Imitate the habit of twilight,Taking time to open the well of colorThat fostered the brightness of day.Draw alongside the silence of stoneUntil its calmness can claim you.”

“For Equilibrium, a Blessing:Like the joy of the sea coming home to shore,May the relief of laughter rinse through your soul.As the wind loves to call things to dance,May your gravity by lightened by grace.Like the dignity of moonlight restoring the earth,May your thoughts incline with reverence and respect.As water takes whatever shape it is in,So free may you be about who you become.As silence smiles on the other side of what's said,May your sense of irony bring perspective.As time remains free of all that it frames,May your mind stay clear of all it names.May your prayer of listening deepen enoughto hear in the depths the laughter of god.”

“When one flower blooms spring awakens everywhere”

“The duty of priviledge is absolute intregity”

“Truth is paradox.”