Things I love:

Books

When the Body Says No (Gabor Mate)

Between Heaven and Earth (Efrem Korngold and Harriet Beinfield)

Tao te Ching (Lao Tzu)

Man’s Search for Meaning (Victor Frankl)

The Mirror of Yoga (Richard Freeman)

The Human Condition (Hannah Arendt)

The Gift (Hafiz)

The Book of Hours (Rilke)

Devotions (Mary Oliver)

Feeding the Hungry Heart (Geneen Roth)

Deepening Perspectives in Chinese Medicine (Lonny Jarrett)

The Birth of the Clinic (Michel Foucault)

Fourth Uncle in the Mountain (Marjorie Pivar)

Nine Stories (J.D. Salinger)

Sister Outsider (Audre Lorde)

Trust Your Vibes (Sonia Choquette)

Promethea (Alan Moore)

The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)

Outrageous Openness (Tosha Silver)

Proof of Heaven (Alexander Eben)

Polishing the Mirror (Ram Dass)

On Becoming an Alchemist (Catherine MacCoun)

Words

Ten thousand flowers in spring, the moon in autumn, a cool breeze in summer, snow in winter. If your mind isn’t clouded by unnecessary things, this is the best season of your life. — Wumen Huikai

A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. — Leonard Nimoy

Sadness is a wall between two gardens. — Kahlil Gibran

If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, ‘thank you,’ that would suffice. — Meister Eckhart

Work alone is your privilege, never the fruits thereof. Never let the fruits of action be your motive; and never cease to work. — The Bhagavad Gita

The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease. — Voltaire

Sunshine all the time makes a desert. — Arab proverb

I remember once looking at the Pacific Ocean, to which I often reverted in trouble, and thinking "Everything was my mother but my mother." Books were my mother, coastlines, running water and landscapes, trees and the flight of birds, zazen and zendos, quiet and cellos, reading and writing, bookstores and familiar views and routines, the changing evening sky, cooking and baking, walking and discovering, rhythms and blues, friends and interior spaces and all forms of kindness, of which there has been more and more as time goes by…May you locate the ten thousand mothers that brought you into being and keep you going, no matter who and where you are. May you be the mother of uncounted possibilities and loves. — Rebecca Solnit

Take your broken heart, make it into art. — Carrie Fisher

Beware the barrenness of a busy life. — Socrates

If you’re afraid of butter, as many people are nowadays, just put in cream.  — Julia Child

Character—the willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life—is the source from which self-respect springs. — Joan Didion

It is through your body that you realize you are a spark of divinity. — BKS Iyengar

Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate. — Carl Jung

You can be the ripest, juiciest peach in the world, and there's still going to be somebody who hates peaches. — Dita Von Teese

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. — Annie Dillard

Ring the bells that still can ring/Forget your perfect offering/There is a crack in everything/That's how the light gets in. — Leonard Cohen

Each moment is a place/you've never been. — Mark Strand

Drink from the well of yourself and begin again. — Charles Bukowski

Good health is the most important thing. More than success, more than money, more than power. —Hyman Roth, The Godfather (Part II)

You will lose everything. Your money, your power, your fame, your success, perhaps even your memories. Your looks will go. Loved ones will die. Your body will fall apart. Everything that seems permanent is impermanent and will be smashed. Experience will gradually, or not so gradually, strip away everything that it can strip away. Waking up means facing this reality with open eyes and no longer turning away. But right now, we stand on sacred and holy ground, for that which will be lost has not yet been lost, and realizing this is the key to unspeakable joy. Whoever or whatever is in your life right now has not yet been taken away from you. This may sound trivial, obvious, like nothing, but really it is the key to everything, the why and how and wherefore of existence. Impermanence has already rendered everything and everyone around you so deeply holy and significant and worthy of your heartbreaking gratitude. Loss has already transfigured your life into an altar. —Jeff Foster