| "To love at all is to be vulnerable.
Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and
possibly broken. |
If you want to make sure of keeping it
intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal.
Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid
all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of
your selfishness.
But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change.
It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable,
irredeemable.”
C.S. Lewis
Sometimes your joy is the source
of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your
joy.
Thich Nhat Hanh
A Joy neuorn!
How beautiful, this is what happens in our brains when we feel
JOY
... joy and sorrow are inseparable. . . together they come and
when one sits alone with you . . . remember that the other is
asleep upon your bed.
Kahlil Gibran
“Loving is a feeling that brings both joy and pain
to my heart. Joy from being with you, being filled with an emotion
so deep and tender that no other feeling can compare. Pain from
knowing that I'm so in love, that I'm more vulnerable than I've
ever”
Auhtor unknown
Kahlil Gibran on Love
When love beckons to you, follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
And when he speaks to you believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams
as the north wind lays waste the garden.
For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify
you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest
branches that quiver in the sun,
So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging
to the earth.
Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.
He threshes you to make you naked.
He sifts you to free you from your husks.
He grinds you to whiteness.
He kneads you until you are pliant;
And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become
sacred bread for God's sacred feast.
All these things shall love do unto you that
you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge
become a fragment of Life's heart.
But if in your fear you would seek only love's
peace and love's pleasure,
Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass
out of love's threshing-floor,
Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of
your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.
Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.
Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;
For love is sufficient unto love.
When you love you should not say, "God
is in my heart," but rather, "I am in the heart of God."
And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if
it finds you worthy, directs your course.
Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your
desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the
night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another
day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart
and a song of praise upon your lips.
