absence

Separation is the absence of Love, and Love is the absence of separation.

Freedom is not the absence of commitments, but the ability to choose--and commit myself to--what is best for me.

Freedom is not the absence of commitments, but the ability to choose--and commit myself to--what is best for me.

Absence sharpens love, presence strengthens it.

I stood on the balcony dark with mourning...
hoping the earth would spread its wings
in my uninhabited love.

I ask permission to be like everybody else,
like the rest of the world and what's more, like anybody else:
I beg you, with all my heart,
if we are talking about me, since we are talking about me,
please resist blasting the trumpet during my visit
and resign yourselves to my quiet absence.

How do we remember to remember?  That's a question I've asked myself often since my time on Duma Key, often in the small hours of the morning, looking up into the absence of light, remembering absent friends.  Sometimes in those little hours I think about the horizon.  You have to establish the horizon.  You have to mark the white.  A simple enough act, you might say, but any act that re-makes the world is heroic.  Or so I've come to believe. ~~as stated by Edgar in 'Duma Key'

Peace is the absence of stupidity !

If our friendship depends on things like space and time, then when we finally overcome space and time, we've destroyed our own brotherhood! But overcome space, and all we have left is Here. Overcome time, and all we have left is Now. And in the middle of Here and Now, don't you think that we might see each other once or twice?

Your friend is your needs answered.
He is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving.
And he is your board and your fireside.
For you come to him with your hunger, and you seek him for peace.

When your friend speaks his mind you fear not the "nay" in your own mind, nor do you withhold the "ay."
And when he is silent your heart ceases not to listen to his heart;
For without words, in friendship, all thoughts, all desires, all expectations are born and shared, with joy that is unacclaimed.
When you part from your friend, you grieve not;
For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.
And let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.
For love that seeks aught but the disclosure of its own mystery is not love but a net cast forth: and only the unprofitable is caught.

And let your best be for your friend.
If he must know the ebb of your tide, let him know its flood also.
For what is your friend that you should seek him with hours to kill?
Seek him always with hours to live.
For it is his to fill your need, but not your emptiness.
And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures.
For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.