Quotes About Renewal

The bookstore was a parking lot for used graveyards. Thousands of graveyards were parked in rows like cars. Most of the books were out of print, and no one wanted to read them any more and the people who had read the books had died or forgotten about them, but through the organic process of music the books had become virgins again.

I was a child, then, though now I look like somebody else.

reimagining your life is going to be messy.

Reflection opens up hope.

Repacking is all about the why; it's

And for the moments that the embrace lasted, and a little while after, I felt as clean as the breeze coming in off the sea.

We ourselves are the substance we withdraw to, not from, as we pull our overextended and misplaced creative energy back into our own core.

Our tears prepare the ground for our future growth.

We may have spent years and considerable energy getting to the top of our profession, only to be struck by a bout of inner restlessness and the unshakable, unpalatable, and unwelcome conviction that our life no longer fits us and we must try to find a new one. Tempted to "ditch everything," we may fantasize running off to the South of France or the north of Africa.

Growth is an erratic forward movement: two steps forward, one step back. Remember that and be very gentle with yourself. A creative recovery is a healing process. You are capable of great things on Tuesday, but on Wednesday you may slide backward. This is normal. Growth occurs in spurts. You will lie dormant sometimes. Do not be discouraged. Think of it as resting.

Practice being kind to yourself in small, concrete ways. Look at your refrigerator. Are you feeding yourself nicely? Do you have socks? An extra set of sheets? What about a new house plant? A thermos for the long drive to work? Allow yourself to pitch out some of your old ragged clothes. You don't have to keep everything.

In life, every ending is just the start of another story.

I was also gone in a sense that I was transformed, made over. You know that story of the man who wakes up and finds he's turned into a beetle? I was the beetle who woke up and saw the possibility of being a man.

The sky is a bruise, only a storm will heal it.

There's nothing more fulfilling in therapy than watching two people find each other again.

We draw our strength from the great oaks of the forest. As they take their nourishment from the soil, and from the rains that feed the soil, so we find our courage in the pattern of living things around us. They stand through storm and tempest. They grow and renew themselves. Like a grove of young oaks, we remain strong.

Meanwhile, the great ash would rest where she lay, and mosses would creep over her trunk, and tiny creatures make their homes her dim hollows. Even in death she was a link in the great chain of the forest's being.

Hope fought hard to stay alive. Even when you thought it was beaten to nothing, burned to ashes, drowned deep, still it flickered away, waiting to be found again.

We must touch the earth, we must look into the sky and feel the wind. Like pools in the same stream, we must meet and part and meet again. We belong to the flow of the lake and to the deep beating heart of the forest.

It is almost winter," said Conor quietly. "Out of winter's darkness comes spring's light. Out of winter's sleep is born spring's new life. We cannot be without hope, not when this truth is shown us year by year.

With the rising of the sun we stirred, and woke, and readied ourselves to face the new day.

My shoulders were light again, as though I'd been cured of the ague, and my tears stopped.

The great sadness cleansed me of the foul elements that had accumulated in my heart and body.

Nothing more exhilarating ... than saving yourself by the simple act of waking.