Monday, September 29, 2025

"The predominant world view shared by the majority of American Indian nations is that of the circularity of existence. It is a universe in which, as Black Elk put it, 'the Power of the world always works in a circle and everything tries to be round.' The cycle of the seasons, the circling of the sun and moon, even the round shapes of the nests of birds, are evidence of this. Just as every point on a circle is equal to every other point, no place being closer to the center than any other, all created things are regarded as being of equal importance. All things — not only humans and animals and plants, but even the winds, the waters, fire, and the stones — are living and sentient. Further, just as the strands of a spider web are so interconnected that touching one makes all the others tremble, in that circular universe everything is connected to everything else."  --Joseph Bruchac
"Trickster was eating. Only one piece of meat remained on his plate. He reached for it with both hands. His right hand grabbed one side of that piece of meat and his left hand grabbed the other.

" 'This meat is mine,' said his right hand.

" 'No, it is mine,' said his left hand.

"Trickster tried to stop them, but his hands would not listen. They began to struggle over that piece of meat. They tugged back and forth. Finally his hands got so angry that they attacked each other with knives. The scars from that fight can be seen as the lines on every person's palms."  --Joseph Bruchac

Saturday, September 27, 2025

"There is no death. Only a change of worlds."  --Chief Si'ahl [Seattle], Suquamish Chief

Sunday, September 21, 2025

“Just be yourself. People will see it eventually. Just be yourself.”  --Pedro Pascal
“It isn’t enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn’t enough to believe in it. One must work at it.”  --Eleanor Roosevelt, US delegate to the UN 
“There are different kinds of knowledge, all equally necessary to the perfection of human life: knowledge of what is true, knowledge of what is good, and knowledge of what is beautiful.”  --Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy (1912)

Wednesday, September 17, 2025

"A great composer's music will always last and last, perhaps forever, because people keep on feeling emotion whenever they hear it. And that lasting quality is perhaps the most important meaning of the word 'classical'. A classic is something that lasts forever."  --Leonard Bernstein