And the heart that is soonest awake to the flowers is always the first to be touch'd by the thorns.
Interpretation
Being emotionally open can lead to both joy and pain.
This quote reflects the idea that those who are most receptive to beauty and love, much like appreciating flowers, are also the ones who are vulnerable to suffering and heartache, represented by the thorns. It highlights the dual nature of emotional experiences, suggesting that a tender heart can encounter both great joy and inevitable sorrow.
In practice
This quote can be shared during a heartfelt discussion about love and loss.
When we relate to our bodies as having soul, we attend to their beauty, their poetry and their expressiveness. Our very habit of treating the body as a machine, whose muscles are like pulleys and its organs engines, forces its poetry underground, so that we experience the body as an instrument and see its poetics only in illness.
Humility, that low, sweet root, from which all heavenly virtues shoot.
How many times do we lose an occasion for soul work by leaping ahead to final solutions without pausing to savor the undertones? We are a radically bottom-line society, eager to act and to end tension, and thus we lose opportunities to know ourselves for our motives and our secrets.
Romantic love is an illusion. Most of us discover this truth at the end of a love affair or else when the sweet emotions of love lead us into marriage and then turn down their flames.
Bastard Freedom waves Her fustian flag in mockery over slaves.
Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal.
It's alright, just wait and see, your string of lights is still bright to me. Who you are is not where you've been. You're still an innocent. It's okay life is a tough crowd, 32 is still growing up now.
Determine to live life with flair and laughter.
Because the only people for me are the mad ones.
A crust of bread and a corner to sleep in. A minute to smile and an hour to weep in. A pint of joy to a peck of trouble, And never a laugh but the moans come double. And that is life. A crust and a corner that makes love precious, With a smile to warm and tears to refresh us, And joy seems sweeter when cares come after, And a moan is the finest of foils for laughter. And that is life.
Our lives will only ever always continue to be a balancing act that has less to do with pain and more to do with beauty.
Leisure only means a chance to do other jobs that demand attention.
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