Let Love,
the water of life,
flow through our veins.

Let a Love-drunk mirror
steeped in the wine of dawn
translate night.

You who pour the wine,

put the cup of oneness in my hand
and let me drink from it
until I can't imagine separation.

Love, you are the archer.
My mind is your prey.
Carry my heart
and make my existence your bull's-eye.

- Jalal al-Din Rume, 13th Century Persian poet and mystic

The idea of soul loss is ancient. This old intuition says that the soul can fragment, be stolen, break, or flee. It happens for a variety of reasons: physical or emotional trauma, a prolonged sickness, extensive neglect and shaming, and (a common modern reason) the chronic assault of a  mind-numbing existence that stupefies, dulls and renders our lives empty.

For many of us, the diminishment in our soul life began in childhood. We experienced what is now referred to as developmental trauma, or what I call slow trauma. This trauma occurs from an experience of absence rather than from something dramatic that happened to us. There may not have been explosive events in the home, no overt acts of violence, but there were more subtle omissions of attention and care. In those moments when we needed to be soothed or held, the touch often didn't come, or what was offered was a partial and distracted attention. What we were granted was too thin and didn't provide us with enough substance to calm the effect of the experience we were having. I see the remnants of this trauma daily in my practice. It shows itself in the inability to regulate internal states of distress as they arise and in feelings of self-doubt and worthlessness.

- Francis Weller, California Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, from his book The Wild Edge of Sorrow

Many people need desperately to receive this message: “I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not care about them. You are not alone.”

- Kurt Vonnegut, American author, from his book Timequake

To understand all is to forgive all, and I believe that if we knew everything we'd arrive at a certain serenity. Now having this serenity as much as possible, even when one knows - little - nothing for certain, is perhaps a better remedy against all ills that what's sold in the chemists. A lot comes of its own accord, one grows and develops of one's own accord.

- Vincent van Gogh, Dutch post-impressionist painter

Juliette Greco was not going to let anyone poison her life, and certainly not men. Merleau-Ponty (and already many others) had tried to woo her, and she had found the phenomenologist "terribly charming," as she freely admitted seventy years later. But the point for her was always to be her own woman.

- Agnes Poirier, from her book, Left Bank - Art, Passion, and the Rebirth of Paris, 1940-50

The leader who understands how process unfolds uses as little force as possible and runs the group without pressuring people.

When force is used, conflict and argument follow. The group field degenerates. The climate is hostile, neither open nor nourishing.

The wise leader runs the group without fighting to have things a certain way. The leader's touch is light. The leader neither defends nor attacks.

Remember that consciousness, not selfishness, is both the means of teaching and the teaching itself.

Group members will challenge the ego of one who leads egocentrically. But one who leads selflessly and harmoniously will grow and endure.

- John Heider, The Tao of Leadership

In the appreciation of beauty, which is closely akin to religious feeling, the American Indian stands alone. In accord with our nature and beliefs, we do not pretend to imitate the inimitable, or to reproduce exactly the work of the Great Artist. That which is beautiful must not be trafficked with, but must only be revered and adored...This is the spirit of the original American. We hold nature to be the measure of consummate beauty, and we consider its destruction to be sacrilege.

- The Wisdom of the Native Americans, edited by Kent Nerburn

The process of being seen, understood,and accepted by an attuned, empathic other engenders a sense of genuine self-acceptance, a feeling that we are profoundly okay. We feel safe enough, strong enough, sure enough to venture courageously into the world and develop the competencies we need to deal with life's challenges.

- Linda Graham, California Marriage and Family Therapist and authority on neuroscience