Mind Is Like Water Quotes & Sayings

I'm convinced that the best solutions are often the ones that are counterintuitive - that challenge conventional thinking - and end in breakthroughs. It is always easier to do things the same old way ... why change? To fight this, keep your dissatisfaction index high and break with tradition. Don't be too quick to accept the way things are being done. Question whether there's a better way. Very often you will find that once you make this break from the usual way - and incidentally, this is probably the hardest thing to do - and start on a new track your horizon of new thoughts immediately broadens. New ideas flow in like water. Always keep your interests broad - don't let your mind be stunted by a limited view. — Nathaniel J. Wyeth

Your soul is more magnificent, beautiful, and gigantic than you can possibly imagine. A human mind can only contain a tiny fraction of what you are. It's like sticking your finger in a glass of water to see if it's hot or cold. You put a tiny part of yourself into the vessel, and when you bring it back out, you've gained all the experiences it had. — Andy Weir

Those who don't feel this Love pulling them like a river,
those who don't drink dawn like a cup of spring water
or take sunset like supper, those who don't want to change,
let them sleep.
This Love is beyond the study of theology,
that old trickery and hypocrisy.
If you want to improve your mind that way sleep on.
I've given up on my brain.
I've torn the cloth to shreds and thrown it away.
If you're not completely naked wrap your beautiful robe
of words around you, and sleep — Rumi

Apply the blacksmith's homely principle when you are speaking. If you feel deeply about your subject you will be able to think of little else. Concentration is a process of distraction from less important matters. It is too late to think about the cut of your coat when once you are upon the platform, so centre your interest on what you are about to say - fill your mind with your speech-material and, like the infilling water in the glass, it will drive out your unsubstantial fears. — Dale Carnegie

The urge to explore has propelled evolution since the first water creatures reconnoitered the land. Like all living systems, cultures cannot remain static; they evolve or decline. They explore or expire ... Beyond all rationales, space flight is a spiritual quest in the broadest sense, one promising a revitalization of humanity and a rebirth of hope no less profound than the great opening out of mind and spirit at the dawn of our modern age. — Buzz Aldrin

i love good cries,
loud sobs that soak your pillow
that kind that come at the end
of a perfect book

you're gasping for air
as droplets of salt water
trickle down your cheeks
into the corners of your mouth
as your chest rises and falls
and your vision is blurred
by the tears

but your mind is so clear
and your every thought
in that moment
feels so meaningful
and important and right

it feels okay to just
let it all out
it makes you feel like
you are free — Madisen Kuhn

I forget myself sometimes, but then I look up, as I am looking up now, and I see in my mind's eye a sheild, strangely changed by a rich encrusting of jewel-like barnacles and cold-water coral, with an eight foot tooth sticking right out of the middle of it. I reach out and the edge of that tooth is still so bitingly sharp after all these years that just a gentle brush with the fingers might send a rain of blood down on these pages. And I bend my head, not too close, and I am sure I can hear, very faintly:
Once I set the sea alight
With a single fiery breath ...
Once I was so mighty that I thought
My name was Death ...
Sing out loud until you're eaten,
Song of melancholy blisss,
For the mighty and the middling
All shall come to THIS ...
The Supper is still singing. — Cressida Cowell

The mind is like a river. The thoughts are like the various droplets of water. We are submerged in that water. Stay on the bank and watch your mind. — A. G. Mohan

A positive mind is like a powerful stream of water that is gathering volume and force from hundreds of tributaries all along its course. The further on it goes the greater its power, until when it reaches its goal, that power is simply immense. A negative mind, however, would be something like a stream, that the further it flows the more divisions it makes, until, when it reaches its goal, instead of being one powerful stream, it has become a hundred, small, weak, shallow streams. — Christian D. Larson

The person and society are yoked, like mind and body. Arguing which is more important is like debating whether oxygen or hydrogen is the more essential property of water. — Marilyn Ferguson

A 21st century poet is a woman who can speak her mind and stand upright like a mountain with her convictions, but can adapt like water in an ever changing season without losing her genuine elements. — Roseville Nidea

...this, he thinks, is the true curve of the world - now I glimpse it: all things are blended under the surface like the mass of us were blended in the water, it's the separateness of skin and rock and mind that is the great illusion. We are not discrete; we are not solid. People and things and even cities are meant to flow together, they are meant to connect, and this is why we're always full of longing, the way I long for the girl, and the girl longs for truth, and the truth longs for volume, and volume longs for people to hear it, and people long for - what? - for everything, air, home, violence, chaos, beauty, hope, flight, sight, each other. Always, whether to stroke or maim, each other, above all. — Carolina De Robertis

The more we study mind and matter scientifically the more we see that all things follow a natural sequence, a sequence as liable to work for our disadvantage as for our advantage. It flows like the water of a river, it falls like rain, it is as impartial as the sea. It is as innocent of malice as it is of compassion. — Llewelyn Powys

Each outing in a canoe is a journey of self-discovery. What person paddling across reflections in morning waters does not see the inner self? The serenity of canoeing strips us of all but the essentials and encourages us to consider our place in the universe. Mind clutter drains away, like water dripping from a paddle blade, and makes space for clarity of thought. — Jim Poling Sr.

Worry is like a kettle full of water, it felt as if my mind was on the boil at a ferocious intensity with no opportunity to let off steam. There is nothing you can do but get through it as best you can. — Philip Gould

Kind thoughts increase the flow of vital energy into your body and mind. Do kind acts now. Do not procrastinate. Kindness is like a healing balm. It soothes suffering ... Little drops of water make the mighty ocean. Even so, little acts of kindness make an ocean of goodwill. — Sivananda

The mind is like a lake lashed into waves. Make the water of the lake clear and calm. — Swami Prabhavananda

Regarding some of the super powers that I reference, like walking on water, I haven't seen people do that, but once you get into the science, a lot of it starts to make a lot of sense, for example, like people being able to read your mind. It's very logical, because words are just a grosser form of thought, and thought is just a grosser form of feeling. — Karan Bajaj

The purpose in a man's mind is like a deep water. Proverbs 20:5 — J.M. Brown

Since we are provided with both a body and a mind, we grasp onto the physical forms we see. Since we are provided with both a body and a mind, we cling to the sounds we hear. As a consequence, we make ourselves inseparable from all things, yet we are not like some shadowy figure 'lodging' in a mirror or like the moon in water. Whenever we witness what is on the one side, its opposite side will be in darkness. — Dogen

Franklin's inquisitive mind craved stimulation, consistently gravitating toward whatever community of intellects asked the most intriguing questions; his expansive temperament sought souls that resonated with his own generosity and sense of virtue. In five years in England he had found more of both than in a lifetime in America. "Of all the enviable things England has," he told Polly Stevenson, "I envy most its people. Why should that petty island, which compared to America is but like a stepping stone in a brook, scarce enough of it above water to keep one's shoes dry; why, I say, should that little island enjoy in almost every neighbourhood more sensible, virtuous and elegant minds than we can collect in ranging 100 leagues of our vast forests?" He left such people reluctantly and, he trusted, temporarily. — H.W. Brands

Being under stress is like being stranded in a body of water. If you panic, it will cause you to flail around so that the water rushes into your lungs and creates further distress. Yet, by calmly collecting yourself and using controlled breathing you remain afloat with ease. — Alaric Hutchinson

And so I lay awake, smoking and reflecting on many things, but, being of a practical turn of mind, chiefly on how we were to give those Masai villains the slip. It was a beautiful moonlight night, and, notwithstanding the mosquitoes, and the great risk we were running from fever from sleeping in such a spot, and forgetting that I had the cramp very badly in my right leg from squatting in a constrained position in the canoe, and that the Wakwafi who was sleeping beside me smelt horribly, I really began to enjoy myself. The moonbeams played upon the surface of the running water that speeded unceasingly past us towards the sea, like men's lives towards the grave, till it glittered like a wide sheet of silver, that is in the open where the trees threw no shadows. Near the banks, however, it was very dark, and the night wind sighed sadly in the reeds. — H. Rider Haggard

A heart without kindness is like a river without water.
A mind without clarity is like a dark cloudy sky.
A life without purpose is like journey without destination. — Debasish Mridha

Happiness, like air and water, the other two great requisites of life, is composite. One kind of it suits one man, another kind another. The elevated mind takes in and breathes out again that which would be uncongenial to the baser; and the baser draws life and enjoyment from that which would be putridity to the loftier. — Walter Savage Landor

Never believe that body is permanent. Body is like a water bubble. Mind is like a mad monkey. — Sathya Sai Baba

The undisturbed mind is like the calm body water reflecting the brilliance of the moon. Empty the mind and you will realize the undisturbed mind. — Yagyu Jubei Mitsuyoshi

Why does one love? How queer it is to see only one being in the world, to have only one thought in one's mind, only one desire in the heart, and only one name on the lips
a name which comes up continually, rising, like the water in a spring, from the depths of the soul to the lips, a name which one repeats over and over again, which one whispers ceaselessly, everywhere, like a prayer. — Guy De Maupassant

And once again I am I will not say alone, no, that's not like me, but, how shall I say, I don't know, restored to myself, no, I never left myself, free, yes, I don't know what that means but it's the word I mean to use, free to do what, to do nothing, to know, but what, the laws of the mind perhaps, of my mind, that for example water rises in proportion as it drowns you and that you would do better, at least no worse, to obliterate texts than to blacken margins, to fill in the holes of words till all is blank and flat and the whole ghastly business looks like what it is, senseless, speechless, issueless misery. — Samuel Beckett

I beg young people to travel. If you don't have a passport, get one. Take a summer, get a backpack and go to Delhi, go to Saigon, go to Bangkok, go to Kenya. Have your mind blown. Eat interesting food. Dig some interesting people. Have an adventure. Be careful. Come back and you're going to see your country differently, you're going to see your president differently, no matter who it is. Music, culture, food, water. Your showers will become shorter. You're going to get a sense of what globalization looks like. It's not what Tom Friedman writes about; I'm sorry. You're going to see that global climate change is very real. And that for some people, their day consists of walking 12 miles for four buckets of water. And so there are lessons that you can't get out of a book that are waiting for you at the other end of that flight. A lot of people - Americans and Europeans - come back and go, ohhhhh. And the light bulb goes on. — Henry Rollins

Once you are present in the Energyfield of Self-discovery, it's like you are a piece of ice in warm water. The warm water is the Self. The ice is the mind. The warm water is not fighting with the ice. The ice can not resist the melting. It is a natural and fatal attraction. — Mooji

Like water which can clearly mirror the sky and the trees only so long as its surface is undisturbed, the mind can only reflect the true image of the Self when it is tranquil and wholly relaxed. — Indra Devi

She left her water pot because she had now found a well of 'living water.' She had come to the well for literal water and that was what her mind was set on. But now that she had obtained salvation, she did not think any more about her water pot. It is always this way. Once our souls truly perceive Christ, once we know Him and receive Him as our personal Savior, we turn away from what we used to think about. Her mind was now fixed on Christ, and she had no thought of well, water, or water pot." Granted, even after we come to Christ and learn to drink of His living water, there can be a time when we must learn how to leave the other "water behind" and it is certainly not always an instantaneous exchange of water, like the woman at the well did. We are not saying that it always has to happen in this manner, but what we are saying is that as we drink of Christ's living water we are able to leave behind the sinful water. — Arthur W. Pink

Why are you being nice to me?"
The suprise on his face suprises me even more.
"Because I care about you." he says simply.
"You care about me?" The numbness in my body is beginning to dissipate. My blood pressure is rising and anger making its way to the forefron of my consciousness. "I almost killed Jenkins because of you!"
"You didn't kill-"
"Your soldiers beat me! You keep me here like a prisoner! You threaten me! You threaten to kill me! You give me no freedom and you say you care about me?" I nearly throw the glass of water at his face. "You are a monster!"
Warner turns away so I'm staring at his profile. He clasps his hands. Changes his mind. Touches his lips. "I am only trying to help you."
"Liar."
He seems to consider that. Nods, just once. "Yes, most of the time, yes. — Tahereh Mafi

Not aware of any boundaries or any rules or any traditions abiding upon them, the water flows free and wild.
Not bothered about anything gone or left behind she eagerly rushes to the new dimension of her life knowing the best is yet to come.

Learn to be like that soul clean, compassionate, loving and strong enough to endure. — Harshada Pathare

The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind. — William Blake

The vow of silence, that's the mind-blower. See, talking is what I do ... i t's a real need with me, a craving, I'm like a word junkie. I never shut up. I talk to myself, I talk in my sleep. The idea of voluntarily turning off that tap, I can't imagine it It'd be like, I don't know, all the rivers in the world just slammed to a stop. No churning, no flowing, no white water, just stillness, crushing stillness. I don't think I could stand it, locked up like that in my own psyche. I'd collapse into myself, I'd implode — Andrew Schneider

Of course I was happy to sit and listen, but I understood perfectly well that the Chairman wasn't telling these things to me because he wanted me to know them. He was clearing them from his mind, just like draining water from a bucket. So I listened closely not to his words, but to the tone of his voice; because in the same way that sound rises as a bucket is emptied, I could hear the Chairman's voice softening as he spoke. — Arthur Golden

The world outside your skin is just as much you as the world inside: they move together inseparably, and at first you feel a little out of control because the world outside is so much vaster than the world inside. Yet you soon discover that you are able to go ahead with ordinary activities - to work and make decisions as ever, though somehow this is less of a drag. Your body is no longer a corpse which the ego has to animate and lug around. There is a feeling of the ground holding you up, and of hills lifting you when you climb them. Air breathes itself in and out of your lungs, and instead, of looking and listening, light and sound come to you on their own. Eyes see and ears hear as wind blows and water flows. All space becomes your mind. Time carries you along like a river, but never flows out of the present: the more it goes, the more it stays, and you no longer have to fight or kill it. — Alan W. Watts

May the memory of the pain leave your mind instantly, and the memory of the person fill your heart forever

When anger dies, forgiveness is born

Love is like water - you can drown instantly, or swim in it forever — Karlene Logan

It is best if we do not listen to or look at the person whom we consider to be the cause of our anger. Like a fireman, we have to pour water on the blaze first and not waste time looking for the one who set the house on fire. "Breathing in, I know that I am angry. Breathing out, I know that I must put all my energy into caring for my anger." So we avoid thinking about the other person, and we refrain from doing or saying anything as long as our anger persists. If we put all our mind into observing our anger, we will avoid doing any damage that we may regret later. — Nhat Hanh

God must be a smell, one of those delicious dreamy aromas that float into the soul on the warm hopeful days of spring. What is God must be one of those smells that beguile and inebriate the mind, who like a fine drunken horse of water the heart now rides, galloping wild in every direction like a river flooding right through the topsoil of your youth, cutting and eroding a groove that will be your life, a canyon sunk deep into the virgin plains and unsawn forests of your early days. — Martin Prechtel

The mind is like an iceberg, it floats with one-seventh of its bulk above water. — Sigmund Freud

Amazingly, we take for granted that instinct for survival, fear of death, must separate us from the happiness of pure and uninterpreted experience, in which body, mind, and nature are the same. This retreat from wonder, the backing away like lobsters into safe crannies, the desperate instinct that our life passes unlived, is reflected in proliferation without joy, corrosive money rot, the gross befouling of the earth and air and water from which we came. — Peter Matthiessen

Your mind is like this water, my friend. When it is agitated, it becomes difficult to see. But if you allow it to settle, the answer becomes clear. — Bil Keane

My short-term factual memory can be like water; events are a brief disturbance on the surface and then it closes back up again, as if nothing ever touched it. But it's a strange fact that my long-term memory remains strong, perhaps because it recorded events when my mind was unaffected. My emotional memory is intact too, perhaps because feelings are recorded and stored in a different place than facts. The things that happened deeper in the past, and deeper in the breast, are still there for me, under the water.
I won 1,098 games, and eight national championships, and coached in four different decades. But what I see are not the numbers. I see their faces.
'Pat should get a tattoo!' The kids laughed. 'What kind should she get?'
'A heart. She should get a heart.'
Little did they know. They are the tattoos. — Pat Summitt

Courage is the most important thing ... Wake up yourselves and others. Control your mind and have firm determination ... Be firm like a rock, deep and serious like the sea. Think of the earth as a mother. Have great courage and patience - and be not afraid of water, fire or great storms - face them bravely. Face the fire and it will turn to ice. This requires control of mind and a firm determination. — Haidakhan Babaji

Just being near the water makes me ache for it, makes my skin tingle with the desire to run until I am chest-deep and the water wraps around my skin like a satin ribbon, making the worries, the aches, the stress unwind. Sometimes, I wonder if this is how a recovering alcoholic would feel if someone put a beer in her hand. If her body would wage war against her mind as mine does. — Mandy Hubbard

There are three things you must remember about a woman. Never take her for granted. Never think you know what she is thinking. And never think you know what she will do in a given situation. A woman is like smoke. She will curl seductively around you one moment, burn your eyes the next, tickle your throat until you cough, and then poof! She is gone. She is a mirage. She is a thunderstorm. She is a sailboat on a sunny mirrored lake. She will run when you reach for her, and come to you when you wish her away. You can solve a problem. You can analyze logic. You can explain how vapor turns into water. But you cannot understand the mind of a woman. And do you know why? Because she does not understand herself."
"Then what do you do?"
"You love her and deal with her in all honesty. You earn her trust. And then you trust the Almighty, who made women the way they are, believing that He knew what He was doing."
"What if that doesn't help?"
"Blame Him. — Elaine Coffman

And so is another question that Sanderson's experience leads him to discuss: whether the mind is identical with the brain. He mentions a case of a man who died in a New York hospital, and who an autopsy revealed to have no brain, only "half a cupful of dirty water". This sounds, admittedly, like another of those absurd stories that are not worth discussing. But in the early 1980s Professor John Lourber of Sheffield University discovered a student with an IQ of 126 whose head was entirely filled with "water". A brain scan showed that the student's brain was merely an outer layer, only one millimetre thick. How can a person function with virtually no brain? Lourber, who specializes in hydrocephalis ("water on the brain") replies that he has come across many cases of perfectly normal people whose heads are filled with 95 per cent of fluid, and that 70 to 90 per cent is actually quite common. — Colin Wilson

You were willing. See here, Kamala: When you throw a stone into water, it falls quickly by the fastest route to the bottom of the pond. This is the way it is when Siddhartha has an aim, an intention. Siddhartha does nothing - he waits, he thinks, he fasts - but he passes through the things of the world like the stone through the water, without bestirring himself. He is drawn forward and he lets himself fall. His goal draws him to it, for he lets nothing enter his mind that interferes with the goal. This is what Siddhartha learned from the shramanas. This is what fools call magic, thinking that it is brought about by demons. Nothing is brought about by demons; demons do not exist. Anyone can do magic, anyone can reach his goals if he can think, wait, and fast. — Hermann Hesse

When water is still, it is like a mirror, reflecting the beard and the eyebrows. It gives the accuracy of the water-level, and the philosopher makes it his model. And if water thus derives lucidity from stillness, how much more the faculties of the mind? The mind of the Sage being in repose becomes the mirror of the universe, the speculum of all creation.22 [59a] The fluidity of water is not the result of any effort on the part of the water, but is its natural property. And the virtue of the perfect man is such that even without cultivation there is nothing which can withdraw from his sway. Heaven is naturally high, the earth is naturally solid, the sun and moon are naturally bright. Do they cultivate these attributes?23 [63b] — Alan W. Watts

Each person is made of five different elements, she told me.
Too much fire and you had a bad temper. That was like my father, whom my mother always critized for his cigarette habit and who always shouted back that she should feel guilty that he didn't let my mother speak her mind.
Too little wood and you bent too quickly to listen to other people's ideas, unable to stand on your own. This was like my Auntie An-mei.
Too much water and you flowed in too many different directions. like myself. — Amy Tan

A mind without kindness is like a river without water. — Debasish Mridha

We are like droplets of water in an ocean of consciousness; individual to an extent, but those droplets together make up the ocean
without the droplets there is no ocean. It is the same with this infinite energy mind we call creation/god. We are not part of that infinity
we are that infinity if we open ourselves up to reconnect with it. Wherever you stand in infinity, you are at the center of infinity. So everything that exists is everything that exists. I am everything that exists; and so are you
the more you realize that, the more you open up to the full infinity of who you are. — David Icke

They sat on the outcropping of stone and at bread and fruit. Kasta watched the long grass moving around them. The wind pushed it, attacked it, struck it in one place than another. It rose and fell again. It flowed, like water.
"Is this what the sea is like?" Kasta asked, and they both turned to her, surprised. "Does the sea move the way this grass moves?"
"It's like the sea," she said.
Giddon's eyes on her were incredulous.
"What? Is it such a strange thing to say?"
"It's a strange thing for you to say." He shook his head. He gathered their bread and fruit, then rose. "The Lienid fighter is filling your mind with romantic notions. — Kristin Cashore

I grab a chair. "I don't mean to pry," I say, "but we're in a hospital. You sure you're fine?"
She sighs heavily. "No getting anything past you, huh?"
"I also often notice when water is wet. I have a keen detective's mind like that. — Holly Black

I have dreamt in my life, dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas; they have gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the color of my mind. And this is one: I'm going to tell it - but take care not to smile at any part of it. — Emily Bronte

They had nothing to eat but Ryan's food, and they ate little of that because it was so dry, but it seemed to sustain them. Their greatest worry was water. Though they drank only a little each day, Westerly's flask was empty and the bottle in Cally's pack now only half-full.
"I wish I was a camel," Cally said.
Westerly said, "I wouldn't want
to spend this much time with a girl who looked like a camel."
She tried to laugh, but her tongue felt thick in her mouth, and her mind full of hopelessness. "When this is gone, we shall just die of thirst."
"We'll be out of the dunes by then," Westerly said encouragingly. But he knew that the mountains, though nearer now on the hazy horizon, were far more than a day's walk away. — Susan Cooper

When no buyers were near, he talked to me earnestly to impress upon me how valuable work would be to me in the future: 'Some men hate it. They make it their enemy. Better to treat it like a friend, make thyself like it. Don't mind because it is hard. If thou thinkest about what a good house thou build, then who cares if the beams are heavy and it is far from the well to carry the water for the plaster. Promise me, boy, if thou get a master, work for him as hard as thou canst. If he does not appreciate all thou do, never mind. Remember, work, well-done, does good to the man who does it. It makes him a better man. — George S. Clason

It is hard for anyone who has not given himself wholeheartedly to a belief (and I say again, Miss V., that is how it is: you give yourself to it, it does not fall upon you like sanctifying grace from Heaven) to appreciate how the believer's conscious mind can separate itself into many compartments containing many, conflicting, dogmas. These are not sealed compartments; they are like the cells of a battery (I think this is how a battery works), over which the electrical charge plays, leaping from one cell to another, gathering force and direction as it goes. You put in the acid of world-historical necessity and the distilled water of pure theory and connect up your points and with a flash and a shudder the patched-together monster of commitment, sutures straining and ape brow clenched, rises in jerky slow motion from Dr. Diabolo's operating table. — John Banville

The thing people don't understand about an army is its great, unpunctuated wastes of inaction: you have to scavenge for food, you are camped out somewhere with a rising water level because your mad capitaine says so, you are shifted abruptly in the middle of the night into some indefensible position, so you never really sleep, your equipment is defective, the gunners keep causing small unwanted explosions, the crossbowmen are either drunk or praying, the arrows are ordered up but not here yet, and your whole mind is occupied by a seething anxiety that things are going to go badly because il principe, or whatever little worshipfulness is in charge today, is not very good at the basic business of thinking. It didn't take him many winters to get out of fighting and into supply. In Italy, you could always fight in the summer, if you felt like it. If you wanted to go out. — Hilary Mantel

Have they forgotten that I'm in here? They'll have to bring more food, or at least more water, or else I will starve, I will shrivel, my skin will dry out, all yellow like old linen; I will turn into a skeleton, I will be found months, years, centuries from now on, and they will say Who is this, she must have slipped our mind, Well sweep all those bones and rubbish into the corner, but save the buttons, no sense in having them go to waste, there's no help for it now. — Margaret Atwood

Many historians have noted an interesting phenomenon in American life in the years immediately after a war. In the councils of government fierce partisanship replaces the necessary political coalitions of wartime. IN the great arena of social relations -- business, labour, the community -- violence rises, fear and recrimination dominate public discussion, passion prevails over reason. Many historians have noted this phenomenon. It is attributed to the continuance beyond the end of the war of the war hysteria. Unfortunately, the necessary emotional fever for fighting a war cannot be turned off like a water tap. Enemies must continue to be found. The mind and heart cannot be demobilised as quickly as the platoon. On the contrary, like a fiery furnace at white heat, it takes a considerable time to cool. — E.L. Doctorow

When the mind is turbulent, uncontrolled and restless, it is like a pond of water that is filled with mud. Therefore when we look within ourselves, all we perceive is the mud of our material conceptions of life. But when the mind is still through discipline, and through yoga, it is like a pond that has no waves and no turbulence. Then we can perceive through that crystal clear water the eternal nature of our soul. — Radhanath Swami

It's hard for comic actors used to pulling faces just to be on screen, but Tina Fey does a good job. I liked watching her. The part, though, isn't filled in. When Baker announces that she's gotten too used to the madness of Afghanistan, that she's worried she's thinking of it as normal, the sentiment comes out of nowhere. The dramatic arc in "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot" is nonexistent. The movie evaporates in the mind like water in the Afghan desert. — David Edelstein

She flies higher than she's ever flown before, maybe she is trying to leave the earth. She isn't sure, she isn't thinking about it. She's far in her mind, deep in her own thoughts, the air on her wings feels amazing, she is swimming, rolling through the air as if it's water. She lifts her head as she flies and lets out a series of loud chirps. And that's when she sees it. The largest bat ever. Flying faster than any hawk or eagle or owl, roaring like some sort of monster. She doesn't know the human word 'dragon' otherwise she would call it that. There is no time to flee. No time to turn. No time to shriek, and no pain. It is like being thrown into the stars. — Nnedi Okorafor

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 enough
to hear in the depths the laughter of god. — John O'Donohue

The Kitchen





Half a papaya and a palmful of sesame oil;
lately, your husband's mind has been elsewhere.

Honeyed dates, goat's milk;
you want to quiet the bloating of salt.

Coconut and ghee butter;
he kisses the back of your neck at the stove.

Cayenne and roasted pine nuts;
you offer him the hollow of your throat.

Saffron and rosemary;
you don't ask him her name.

Vine leaves and olives;
you let him lift you by the waist.

Cinnamon and tamarind;
lay you down on the kitchen counter.

Almonds soaked in rose water;
your husband is hungry.

Sweet mangoes and sugared lemon;
he had forgotten the way you taste.

Sour dough and cumin;
but she cannot make him eat, like you. — Warsan Shire