When your heart opens a new window, 
       there is nothing to gain by hiding 
       your eyes from the light.

As cynical as I am it’s lovely to be suprised. A close friend of mine thought that I might be faltering or struggling with some decisions I needed to make. I don’t see her very often she lives on another continent these days, yet she still finds time to keep in touch and to remind me when I’m “being an ass“.

I was pleasantly suprised when I got home and found she had sent me some poems and quotes that she thought might help me regain my perspective on a few things …I’m familiar with most of them yet I have to admit I laughed out loud reading some of them, and also felt slightly wounded reading others … I want to share a few here for no reason other than that they are inspiring … several are by Ville Valo, who before today I was completely unfamiliar with …

"Every day is a goal in itself."
              - Ville Valo

"Love is madness, you can't put it in doses, 
     it either surges over or under."
              - Ville Valo

"Silence is more like a spiritual thing: A moment
     when your heart can be at peace. Love is silence.
     The same silence is in reading. When you're doing
     something that demands concentration, all the
     noise in the background vanishes."
              - Ville Valo

"Friendship needs no words - it is solitude delivered
     from the anguish of loneliness."
              - Dag Hammarskjold


"One can be instructed in society, one is inspired 
     only in solitude.
              - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"This quest. This need to solve life's mysteries.
     In the end, what does it matter when the human
     heart can only find meaning in the smallest of
     moments? They're here. Among us. In the shadows.
     In the light. Everywhere. Do they even know yet?"
              - Mohinder Suresh (Sendhil Ramamurthy), Heroes

"Choose a job that you love and you will never
     have to work a day in your life"
              - Confucious


"Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is
     what dies within us while we live."
              - Norman Cousins

"The more sand has escaped from the hourglass of our life, 
     the clearer we should see through it."
              - Niccolo Machiavelli

"The supreme happiness in life is the conviction that we 
     are loved"
              - Victor Hugo

"Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take,
     but by the moments that take our breath away."
              - Anonymous

"The dissenter is every human being at those moments 
     of his life when he resigns momentarily from the
     herd and thinks for himself."
              - Archibald Macleish

"There are only two mistakes one can make along the 
     road to truth; not going all the way, and not starting."
              - Buddha

"Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, 
     concentrate the mind on the present moment."
              - Buddha

"When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives 
     mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who,
     instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen
     rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm
     and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a
     moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an
     hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing,
     not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our
     powerlessness, that is a friend who cares."
              -  Henri Nouwen 

"Riches are not from abundance of worldly goods, but from
     a contented mind."
              - Prophet Mohammed (pbuh)

"It is always important to know when something reaches
     its end. Closing circles, shutting doors, finishing chapters,
     it doesn't matter what we call it; what matters is to leave 
     in the past those moments in life that are over."
              - Paulo Coelho

I’ve only posted up a handful of the ones she sent, and certainly haven’t transcribed the comments she put next to them, which were quite impressive but also made me feel like I was back at school being chided :p .

To the friend who sent me this ( she-who-must-not-be-named but is really called Rachel ), I owe you one! Thank you … I think I know what to do now … 😉

                  Mirage

The hope I dreamed of was a dream,
Was but a dream; and now I wake,
Exceeding comfortless, and worn, and old,
For a dream's sake.

I hang my harp upon a tree,
A weeping willow in a lake;
I hang my silent harp there, wrung and snapped
For a dream's sake.

Lie still, lie still, my breaking heart;
My silent heart, lie still and break:
Life, and the world, and mine own self, are changed
For a dream's sake.

    by Christina Georgina Rossetti

…lips, ripe as the berries in June
Red the rose, red the rose
Skin, pale as the light of the moon
Gently as she goes
Eyes, blue as the sea and the sky
Water flows, water flows
Heart, burning like fire in the night
Gently as she goes…