Do not cringe and make yourself small if you are called the black sheep, the maverick, the lone wolf. Those with slow seeing say that a noncomformist is a blight on society. But it has been proven over the centuries, that being different means standing at the edge, that one is practically guaranteed to make an original contribution, a useful and stunning contribution to her culture.

For myself, solitude is rather like a folded-up forest that I carry with me everywhere and unfurl around myself when I have need.

Friends who love you and have warmth for your creative life are the very best suns in the world.

Stories are medicine.

Sometimes the one who is running from the Life/Death/Life nature insists on thinking of love as a boon only. Yet love in its fullest form is a series of deaths and rebirths. We let go of one phase, one aspect of love, and enter another. Passion dies and is brought back. Pain is chased away and surfaces another time. To love means to embrace and at the same time to withstand many endings, and many many beginnings- all in the same relationship.

When a great ship is in harbor and moored, it is safe, there can be no doubt. But that is not what great ships are built for.

The deterioration of symbols is natural. They wear out, needing to be reclaimed, recreated; returned to the spirit.