Rebecca J Hanna

Wishing you all a Peaceful, Merry Winter Solstice!

"What happens to us enters the body. It leaves marks. It alters the grain. Nothing passes through existence untouched. In the wild, being shaped is not the same as being lessened. Trees bend with wind and bear its imprint. Stone carries the memory of water and force. Seeds split open because they must. I have been changed by what I have lived through. I carry its marks and have been opened by it, made different by experience. But I refuse to be reduced by it. The earth carries its scars as part of its becoming. So do I." ——— • WORDS Brigit Anna McNeill • • ART Lucy Campbell •

𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐒𝐤𝐮𝐥𝐥'𝐬 𝐄𝐜𝐡𝐨 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐟 𝐁𝐨𝐫𝐫𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐝 𝐕𝐨𝐢𝐜𝐞𝐬! “It is said the Englishman’s home is his castle. And everybody needs a castle, a place where you can get away from it all and just be yourself. But even then, when you’re away from it all and you’re just being in yourself, you’ve unfortunately got a lot of thoughts inside your head that aren’t yours. Because you think in the English language, and that was given to you by other people and contains their prejudices; that you can’t avoid them in thinking. Japanese people will say that when they think in Japanese they can have certain feelings that are characteristically Japanese, but when they start thinking in English they can’t have those feelings. And so you are very, very much, really, in the sphere of public influence when you start to think. And if you listen carefully to your thoughts—insofar as they are uttered in words, and they very often are—try and discover the tone of voice in which certain of your thoughts are being said, and you will listen and hear your mother, or you will hear an aunt, or you will hear a school teacher, or will hear certain friends expressing their opinions and telling you who you are and how you ought to behave. And you think those are your thoughts and they’re nothing of the kind. An inner pandemonium under the dome of the skull is going on all the time. Myriads of voices, myriads of influences from outside working upon you even when you are physically quite alone.” — Alan Watts, 'COSMIC NETWORK', at 01:53:51

credit: Portal Ibis (Facebook) "He who ventures courageously into a labyrinth seeking to find the truth of his life is forced by its circuitous pathways to circumambulate the center of himself, to learn to relate with it and to perceive it from all sides. He can only reach it by passing through the entire interior space of the labyrinth beforehand, by relating to all of its dimensions, and integrating them all into the wholeness of his personality. In fact, in a labyrinth all passages lead into each other, making up an interconnected whole." — The Labyrinth by Helmut Jaskolski “We have not even to risk the adventure alone for the heroes of all time have gone before us. The labyrinth is thoroughly known... we have only to follow the thread of the hero path. And where we had thought to find an abomination we shall find a God. And where we had thought to slay another we shall slay ourselves. Where we had thought to travel outwards we shall come to the center of our own existence. And where we had thought to be alone we shall be with all the world.” — Joseph Campbell “Only he who finds the entrance hidden in the mountain and rises up through the labyrinths of the innards can reach the tower, and the happiness of he who surveys things from there and he who lives from himself.” — Carl Jung Art: Spiral Journey, c. 1962 by Remedios Varo

Credit: The Heirloom Gardner - John Forti (Facebook) “We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells, constellations.” ― Anaïs Nin Artist - Jef Bourgeau -Stopping by the Woods

Credit: Poetic Outlaws (Facebook) “The world will never lack wonders; what it lacks is wonder. We grow blind not because the light is dim, but because we forget to look. The moment a man learns to marvel again, he steps back into the richness of reality.” — G. K. Chesterton