Breast Strokes
Inspiration
Weaving Words Into our Soul
We can make our minds so like still water that beings gather about us, that they may see, it may be, their own images, and so live for a moment with a clearer, perhaps even with a fiercer life because of our quiet.
William Butler Yeats
The best choices are made when we are simply in a thing, doing what we are doing with our whole selves...We spend so much time in our lives wanting something and going against it at the same time.
- Charlotte Selver
Sorrow prepares you for joy.
It violently sweeps everything out of your house,
so that new joy can find space to enter.
It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart,
so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place.
It pulls up the rotten roots,
so that new roots hidden beneath have room to grow.
Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart,
far better things will take their place.
Jalaluddin Rumi
What lies behind us and before us are small matters compared to what lies within us.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
While in treatment, Cathy, could take in inspiration or anything from outside in small doses. She would read a quote or a poem, settle the words into the stillness inside and look for a reflection of peace.
Ted Talks, are informative and inspirational. Jill BolteTaylor, My Stroke of Insight, speaks about her stroke and the functioning of the left and right brain. For Cathy, chemotherapy was a right brain experience, so Jill's experience affirms hers.
Painting is helpful as is playing with clay. The manipulation of clay reminds the body/mind of its own malleability and ability to change and heal. This photo by Bob Dresser of the egret reflected in the bay, is an anchor in the natural world we share.
