I can’t get enough of 30 day blog challenges. Blogtoberfest one year ago was my first, done during what was only my second month of blogging, and it solidified my practice like nothing else could have.
NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month) is another of my favorites, and with a tagline like “Type Your Heart Out,” and a theme of “blogging for blogging’s sake,” I can’t resist.
Today’s prompt is hard for me to answer: “Tell us your favourite quotation and why.” I love quotes, I collect them the same way I do seashells and rocks, some of them I practically memorize having read them so many times. Favorite lines will pop into my head like magic, like medicine, just when I need them most. I love how the right quote takes the truth of your heart, the thing you know deep in your gut but can’t seem to express in words, and manifests it exactly, fully formed and clearly communicated, as if somehow the author were inside your head, had heard your thoughts and felt your feelings, and you read it and say “yes, that’s it, me too, amen.” But there are so many, each one beloved and adored, how can I pick just one?
And yet, there is a favorite. When I really thought about it, let myself get quiet and still, it was clear, there is just one, my favorite.
We already have everything we need. There is no need for self-improvement. All these trips that we lay on ourselves—the heavy-duty fearing that we’re bad and hoping that we’re good, the identities that we so dearly cling to, the rage, the jealousy and the addictions of all kinds—never touch our basic wealth. They are like clouds that temporarily block the sun. But all the time our warmth and brilliance are right here. This is who we really are. We are one blink of an eye away from being fully awake. ~Pema Chödrön
I feel like my whole life philosophy, the heart of every practice, my deepest wishes are held, communicated by these words. And sometimes when I read this quote, the last lines make me cry: “But all the time our warmth and brilliance are right here. This is who we really are. We are one blink of an eye away from being fully awake.” I don’t want to simply memorize these words, I want to become them, embody them.
I’m curious, kind and gentle reader, what’s your favorite quote? Leave it for me in the comments. I’d love some new ones for my collection.
Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray) 
Great post! My favorite quote is “Be not the slave of your own past. Plunge into the sublime seas, dive deep and swim far, so you shall come back with self-respect, with new power, with an advanced experience that shall explain and overlook the old.”-Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Happy NaBloPoMo!
That’s good! Thanks, Ericka.
Amen. xo
I have lots of favorites too. Right this second (probably out of necessity), it’s this from Steven Pressfield…
“When we conceive an enterprise and commit to it in the face of our fears, something wonderful happens… we give birth to ourselves, to that person we were born to be, to the one whose destiny was encoded on our soul, our daimon, our genius.”
Oh, J! You are working your little (big!) heart out right now! That one is perfect for you, and I hope it helps you keep going, when you need reminded of the importance, the magic of what you are doing. I can’t wait to see it.
I have lots of favorites, right now:
“Life is an occasion, rise to it” from Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium.
And, “To thine own self be true” Shakespeare, I think.
I was raised with “You have to be able to look yourself in the mirror”, not sure who to credit other than my father, maybe he heard it somewhere else first.
I’ll finish with “Make hay while the sun shines”, my rural version of “Do it now” or “Carpe diem”
Ha! Make hay, I know that one, (grew up a farm girl)! I like your collection, because they are “pocket sized.” You could totally, easily memorize these, repeat them to yourself whenever you wanted, needed. Most of my favorites are too long for that, so I remember a stray line or phrase, but have to look it up to remember the whole thing. Could be I just have too many words rolling around in my head too 🙂