Suggested readings~ A simple list
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Gift from the Sea, by Ann Morrow Lindbergh. New York: Random House (1955) 1975.
From the dust jacket
This small book of great and simple wisdom has spoken to hundreds of thousands of readers. With an inimitable combination of unselfconscious grace and transparent clarity, Anne Morrow Lindbergh has given moving and memorable form to the problems that beset the human heart.
The setting of her book is the seashore; the time, a brief vacation that lifts her from the distractions of everyday existence into the sphere of meditation. As the sea tosses up its gifts—shells rare and perfect—so the mind, left to its ponderings, brings up its own treasures. Each shell stands as a symbol for various states and stages of life….
Selected quotes from the book~
• Simplification of outward life is not enough. It is merely the outside. But I am starting with the outside. I am looking at the outside of a shell, the outside of my life—the shell…. The final answer, I know, is always inside. But the outside can give a clue, can help one to find the inside answer. One is free, like the hermit crab, to change one’s shell.
• We are all, in the last analysis alone. And this basic state of solitude is not something we have any choice about. It is, as the poet Rilke says, “not something that one can take or leave. We are solitary. We may delude ourselves and act as though this were not so. That is all.”
• Actually these are among the most important times in one’s life—when one is alone. Certain springs are tapped only when we are alone…. The artist knows that he must be alone to create….But women need solitude in order to find again the true essence of themselves: that firm strand which will be the indispensable center of a whole web of human relationships. 50
• The problem is not entirely in finding the room of one’s own, the time alone, difficult and necessary as this is. The problem is more how to still the soul in the midst of its activities. In fact, the problem is how to feed the soul.
• Perhaps this is the most important thing for me to take back from beach-living: simply the memory that each cycle of the tide is valid; each cycle of the wave is valid; each cycle of a relationship is valid. And my shells? I can sweep them all into my pocket. They are only there to remind me that the sea recedes and returns eternally.
• The waves echo behind me. Patience—Faith—Openness, is what the sea has to teach. Simplicity—Solitude—Intermittency…But there are other beaches to explore. There are more shells to find. This is only a beginning.
• Channelled whelk, I put you down again, but you have set my mind on a journey, up an inwardly winding spiral staircase of thought.
From the dust jacket
This small book of great and simple wisdom has spoken to hundreds of thousands of readers. With an inimitable combination of unselfconscious grace and transparent clarity, Anne Morrow Lindbergh has given moving and memorable form to the problems that beset the human heart.
The setting of her book is the seashore; the time, a brief vacation that lifts her from the distractions of everyday existence into the sphere of meditation. As the sea tosses up its gifts—shells rare and perfect—so the mind, left to its ponderings, brings up its own treasures. Each shell stands as a symbol for various states and stages of life….
Selected quotes from the book~
• Simplification of outward life is not enough. It is merely the outside. But I am starting with the outside. I am looking at the outside of a shell, the outside of my life—the shell…. The final answer, I know, is always inside. But the outside can give a clue, can help one to find the inside answer. One is free, like the hermit crab, to change one’s shell.
• We are all, in the last analysis alone. And this basic state of solitude is not something we have any choice about. It is, as the poet Rilke says, “not something that one can take or leave. We are solitary. We may delude ourselves and act as though this were not so. That is all.”
• Actually these are among the most important times in one’s life—when one is alone. Certain springs are tapped only when we are alone…. The artist knows that he must be alone to create….But women need solitude in order to find again the true essence of themselves: that firm strand which will be the indispensable center of a whole web of human relationships. 50
• The problem is not entirely in finding the room of one’s own, the time alone, difficult and necessary as this is. The problem is more how to still the soul in the midst of its activities. In fact, the problem is how to feed the soul.
• Perhaps this is the most important thing for me to take back from beach-living: simply the memory that each cycle of the tide is valid; each cycle of the wave is valid; each cycle of a relationship is valid. And my shells? I can sweep them all into my pocket. They are only there to remind me that the sea recedes and returns eternally.
• The waves echo behind me. Patience—Faith—Openness, is what the sea has to teach. Simplicity—Solitude—Intermittency…But there are other beaches to explore. There are more shells to find. This is only a beginning.
• Channelled whelk, I put you down again, but you have set my mind on a journey, up an inwardly winding spiral staircase of thought.