Thought for the Day

[. . .] it does seem to me that attention is kind of the entrance

gate to anything and everything. [. .] Nothing in this world

can be done well if you're not paying attention. If you're 

distracted, if you haven't learned how to bring yourself in an

immediate and wholehearted way into whatever it is you are

doing, in a way, you don't have your life. [. . .]

~ Jane Hirshfield

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Quoted from "On Time, Mystery, and Kinship: An Interview with Jane Hirshfield" in Emergence Magazine, October 24, 2024 (Online) The conversation was conducted by Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee and is available as audio at the link.

Jane Hirshfield, Poet, Essayist, Translator; Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Thought for the Day

This is precisely the time when artists to to work.

There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity,

no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak,

we write [. . .] That is how civilizations heal.

~ Toni Morrison

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Quoted from Toni Morrison, "No Place for Self-Pity, No Room for Fear" in The Nation (150th Anniversary Issue), April 6, 2015 (Online)

Toni Morrison (1931 - 2019), American Novelist, Editor; Recipient, Nobel Prize in Literature

New York Times Obituary for Toni Morrison

Thought for the Day

Both emptiness and form are saturated with love.

And our love for each other and for the Earth is

the most natural expression of this one quality.

~ Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

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Quoted from Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, "Unborn and Undying" (Essay) in Emergence Magazine, November 3, 2024 (Online) An audio presentation by Vaughan-Lee also is available at the link.

Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, Sufi Teacher, Author, Editor, Lecturer

Thought for the Day

Who would dream for us to be better if it were not

the artist? And who would show us the way if it

were not for the storyteller?

~ Jamaica Osorio

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Quoted in Introductory Remarks to "Shifting Landscapes Film Series" in October 6, 2024, Newsletter of Emergence Magazine

See Adam Loften's and Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee's Film "Aloha 'Aina" with Jamaica Osorio

Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio, Ph.D., Native Hawaiian (Kanaka Maoli) Poet; Activist; Author, Remembering our Intimacies (University of Minnesota Press, 2021); Associate Professor of Indigenous and Native Hawaiian Politics, University of Hawai'i at Manoa

Jamaica Osorio Website

Thought for the Day

Home is a notion that only nations of the homeless fully

appreciate and only the uprooted comprehend.

~ Wallace Stegner

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Quoted from Wallace Stegner, Angle of Repose (1971, Winner, 1972 Pulitzer Prize; Viking, 2014) (This excerpt also is found in Christian Wiman, Ed., Home: 100 Poems (Yale University Press, 2021), p. 55

Wallace Stegner (February 18, 1909 - April 13, 1933), American Novelist, Environmentalist, and Historian

Thought for the Day

[O]ur eyes are not innocent. But we must hope to make them so.

We must refuse labels and prejudices, just try to see as a child sees.

~ Sister Wendy Beckett 

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Quoted from "Sr. Wendy on Art," Interview with Bill Moyers (YouTube), 2016

Sister Wendy Beckett (February 25, 1930 - December 26, 2018), Roman Catholic Nun, Art Historian, Art Critic on Television, Writer and Author

Obituary at The New York Times

Thought for the Day

Eighty percent of everything that is true and beautiful can

be experienced on any ten-minute walk. [. . .] On any ten-

minute walk anywhere [. . .] love abounds and abides,

 flirts and weeps with us.

~ AnneLamott

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Quoted from Anne Lamott, "Overture" in Somehow: Thoughts on Love (Riverhead Books, April 2024), pp. 1, 3

Anne Lamott, Author of Fiction and Nonfiction; Guggenheim Fellowship Recipient; Inductee, California Hall of Fame; Political Activist; Writing Instructor

Thought for the Day

[. . .] we need to look inward into our own pain, our own

loss, our own suffering, and see where we can heal. And

by healing ourselves, then we can truly be who we are,

which I believe is a complete gift to the world. [. . .]

~ Kalyanee Mam

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Quoted from "Documenting Shifting Landscapes: A Conversation with Kalyanee Mam," Emergence Magazine, September 5, 2024; Online (Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee interviewed Mam at Emergence Magazine's exhibition "Shifting Landscapes." The conversation was recorded live. A transcript is available at the link.)

 

Kalyanee Mam, Cambodian-American Filmmaker

Thought for the Day

[. . .] Prayer is a sweeping of forgetfulness, because it

is an honoring of remembrance. It is an affirmation,

and an affirmation is more powerful than negation.[. . .]

~ Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee

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Quoted from "Memory, Praise, and Spirit: A Talk by Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee" (Keynote at Conference on Spiritual Ecology and Peace-Building, St. Ethelburga's Centre for Reconciliation and Peace, London), Emergence Magazine, August 29, 2024; Online (The talk is available at the link as both podcast and transcript.)

Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee, Sufi Teacher and Filmmaker; Founder and Executive Editor, Emergence Magazine

Thought for the Day

The betrayal of a belief is not the same thing

as ceasing to believe.

~ James Baldwin

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Quoted from James Baldwin, Notes of a Native Son (Beacon Press,  2012)

James Baldwin (August 2, 1924 - December 1, 1987), American Writer, Novelist, Essayist, Playwright, Poet; Civil Rights Activist

James Baldwin Profiles at Library of America, National Museum of African American History and Culture, New York Public Library, PBS, The Poetry Foundation