“They want us to be afraid. They want us to be afraid of leaving our homes. They want us to barricade our doors and hide our children. Their aim is to make us fear life itself! They want us to hate. They want us to hate ‘the other’. They want us to practice aggression and perfect antagonism. Their aim is to divide us all! They want us to be inhuman. They want us to throw out our kindness. They want us to bury our love and burn our hope. Their aim is to take all our light! They think their bricked walls will separate us. They think their damned bombs will defeat us. They are so ignorant they don’t understand that my soul and your soul are old friends. They are so ignorant they don’t understand that when they cut you I bleed. They are so ignorant they don’t understand that we will never be afraid, we will never hate and we will never be silent for life is ours!” ~ Kamand Kojouri

tomasz-alen-kopera

Art by Tomasz Alen Kopera

“Amazingly, some of us have retained passion. Some of us continue to be disciples of the things we love. We drag our addicted, programmed asses out of deeply-worn ruts. We walk against the grain and the odds, turn away from apathy and accumulation, and stand for something. It may not look like much while you’re doing it. You may feel crazy. You may experience terrifying loneliness. But it should help to remember that you are one of a gentle multitude living “out there” on the lunatic fringe, letting your life be galvanized by the irrational, doing your tiny giant part to restore meaning by giving your gifts to the world. And for that, I thank you.” ~Toko-pa Turner, “Belonging: Remembering Ourselves Home”

bow and arrow art

Love Your Solitude

Art by Nei Ruffino

“Therefore, dear Sir, love your solitude and try to sing out with the pain it causes you. For those who are near you are far away… and this shows that the space around you is beginning to grow vast…. be happy about your growth, in which of course you can’t take anyone with you, and be gentle with those who stay behind; be confident and calm in front of them and don’t torment them with your doubts and don’t frighten them with your faith or joy, which they wouldn’t be able to comprehend. Seek out some simple and true feeling of what you have in common with them, which doesn’t necessarily have to alter when you yourself change again and again; when you see them, love life in a form that is not your own and be indulgent toward those who are growing old, who are afraid of the aloneness that you trust…. and don’t expect any understanding; but believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance, and have faith that in this love there is a strength and a blessing so large that you can travel as far as you wish without having to step outside it.”
~ Rainer Maria Rilke
Art by Nei Ruffino

 
Source: Shamantube

 

“Difficult and painful as it is, we must walk on in the days ahead with an audacious faith in the future. When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds of despair, and when our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, let us remember that there is a creative force in this universe, working to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil, a power that is able to make a way out of no way and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows. Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” ~Dr Martin Luther King, Jr.

Art by Thien Bui

Art by Thien Bui

“my god is not waiting inside a church or sitting above the temple’s steps. my god is the refugee’s breath as she’s running, is living in the starving child’s belly, is the heartbeat of the protest. my god does not rest between pages written by holy men. my god lives between the sweaty thighs of women’s bodies sold for money, was last seen washing the homeless man’s feet. my god is not as unreachable as they’d like you to think. my god is beating inside us infinitely” ~Rupi Kaur, The Sun and Her Flowers

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