All great and beautiful work has come of first gazing without shrinking into the darkness.
-John Ruskin



Blind Willie Johnson, "Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground"

We inhale luminous, cool air, and our respiration is a prayer, as is the beating of our heart.
-F. Schuon

I have been woven among the meshes of long ropes
and fine filaments: older than the rocks and
fresh as the dawn of this morning today are
the everliving roots who begot me,
who poured me as one more seeker
one more swimmer in the gold and gray procession...

-Carl Sandburg

Things without all remedy
Should be without regard: what's done, is done.

Macbeth Act 3, scene 2

Bear with me, O mystery of existence, as I pluck the occasional thread from your train.
-Wislawa Szymborska, from "Under One Small Star"