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ethics and philosophy

my thoughts are sometimes better expressed by others.....

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To be alive in this beautiful, self-organizing universe,
to participate in the dance of life with senses to perceive it,
lungs that breathe it, organs that draw nourishment from it
is a wonder beyond words.

Joanna Macy
American environmental activist, author and scholar of Buddhism, general systems theory and deep ecology

"We're all just walking each other home." -Ram Dass
"Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder."-Rumi
"It's all one song!" -Neil Young

Judith Browning

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We create transformative,
resilient new realities
by becoming transformed,
resilient people.

Krista Tippett
(1960 to pres., journalist, author, and entrepreneur)

"We're all just walking each other home." -Ram Dass
"Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder."-Rumi
"It's all one song!" -Neil Young

Judith Browning

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posted 3 weeks ago

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You’re traveling on a journey
through another dimension.
A dimension not only of sight and sound
but of mind.
It is a dimension as vast as space
and as timeless as infinity.
It is the middle ground
between light and shadow,
between science and superstition,
and it lies between
the pit of man’s fears
and the summit of his knowledge.
A journey into a wondrous land
whose boundaries are that of imagination.
There’s the signpost up ahead-
your next stop:
The Twilight Zone!

Rod Serling
(1924-1975, writer and philosopher)

"We're all just walking each other home." -Ram Dass
"Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder."-Rumi
"It's all one song!" -Neil Young

Judith Browning

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posted 3 weeks ago

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The art of soulmaking
is taking our lives in our hands and—
with all the love and discernment we can muster—
gently whittling away the parts
that don’t resemble the True Self.

Sue Monk Kidd
(1948 to pres., writer, feminist)

"We're all just walking each other home." -Ram Dass
"Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder."-Rumi
"It's all one song!" -Neil Young

Judith Browning

Posts: 10823

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4052

posted 3 weeks ago

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The most valuable learning is
not about memorizing facts and figures.
It is not about higher grade point averages
and accumulating degrees.
It is about life itself,
and its impact is on the heart.

Rodney Smith
(1947 to pres, Buddhist teacher, from Lessons from the Dying)

"We're all just walking each other home." -Ram Dass
"Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder."-Rumi
"It's all one song!" -Neil Young

Judith Browning

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4052

posted 3 weeks ago

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It is good, every once in a while,
to let ourselves be stupefied by gratitude,
to cast upon ourselves a spell against indifference
by moving through the world with an inner bow
at every littlest thing that prevailed over the odds
of otherwise in order to exist.

Maria Popova

"We're all just walking each other home." -Ram Dass
"Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder."-Rumi
"It's all one song!" -Neil Young

Judith Browning

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posted 3 weeks ago

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We are responsible
For the condition of the Earth.
We are the ones who are responsible
and we can change those conditions.
If we wake up,
it is possible to change the energy.
It is possible to change everything.

Hunbatz Men (Mayan Elder)

"We're all just walking each other home." -Ram Dass
"Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder."-Rumi
"It's all one song!" -Neil Young

Judith Browning

Posts: 10823

Location: a temperate, clay/loam spot on planet earth, the universe

4052

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When we find our voice,
right speech leads to right action.
We all have something useful to say,
if only we have the wisdom
to know how and when to say it.

David Ryushin Bodney
(Senior Counsel at Ballard Spahr LLP, Professor of Law,
member of the Upaya Sangha of Tucson)

"We're all just walking each other home." -Ram Dass
"Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder."-Rumi
"It's all one song!" -Neil Young

Judith Browning

Posts: 10823

Location: a temperate, clay/loam spot on planet earth, the universe

4052

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The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for.
And the most you can do is live inside that hope.
Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof.

Barbara Kingsolver
Animal Dreams

"We're all just walking each other home." -Ram Dass
"Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder."-Rumi
"It's all one song!" -Neil Young

Judith Browning

Posts: 10823

Location: a temperate, clay/loam spot on planet earth, the universe

4052

posted 2 weeks ago

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In some religions, prayer is undertaken,
not with the intention of influencing a deity,
nor with any hope of prayers being directly answered,
but in order to produce a harmonious state of mind.
Prayer and meditation facilitate integration
by allowing time
for previously unrelated thoughts and feelings to interact.
Human beings easily become alienated
from their own deepest needs and feelings.
Learning, thinking, innovation, and maintaining contact
with one's own inner world
are all facilitated by solitude.

Anthony Storr
(1920 to 2001, British psychiatrist and psychoanalyst)

"We're all just walking each other home." -Ram Dass
"Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder."-Rumi
"It's all one song!" -Neil Young

David Nightingale

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Location: Pierce County WA, Northwest and Sound

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posted 2 weeks ago

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A post by Pearl Sutton 7 years ago has taken me to a broad smile. Pearl’s post on “Brushcutting”, blended seamlessly with Sir Terry Pratchett’s Lady Sybil Rampkin-Vimes. “Do no harm, but take no shit”. This Pearl had painted across the front of her tractor. A context of rural illumination I greatly miss. While life can be hard we try all, in our way to advance our common equity. This is real strength. This lightens my heart. Thanks Pearl.

Judith Browning

Posts: 10823

Location: a temperate, clay/loam spot on planet earth, the universe

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posted 2 weeks ago

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Make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal,
until bit by bit the walls of the ego recede,
and your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life.
An individual human existence should be like a river —
small at first, narrowly contained within its banks,
and rushing passionately past rocks and over waterfalls.
Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede,
the waters flow more quietly, and in the end,
without any visible break, they become merged in the sea,
and painlessly lose their individual being.

Bertrand Russell
(18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970),
English philosopher, logician, and social reformer)

"We're all just walking each other home." -Ram Dass
"Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder."-Rumi
"It's all one song!" -Neil Young

Judith Browning

Posts: 10823

Location: a temperate, clay/loam spot on planet earth, the universe

4052

posted 2 weeks ago

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Neither by nature,
nor contrary to nature
do the virtues arise in us;
rather we are adapted by nature to receive them,
and are made perfect by habit.
The virtues we get by first exercising them.
So too we become just by doing just acts,
temperate by doing temperate acts,
brave by doing brave acts.

Aristotle
(384BCE to 322BCE Greek philosopher,
Book II of Nichomachean Ethics)

"We're all just walking each other home." -Ram Dass
"Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder."-Rumi
"It's all one song!" -Neil Young

Judith Browning

Posts: 10823

Location: a temperate, clay/loam spot on planet earth, the universe

4052

posted 2 weeks ago

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To restore the land
one must live and work in a place.
To work in a place
is to work with others.
People who work together in a place
become a community,
and a community, in time,
grows a culture.
To work on behalf of the wild
is to restore culture.

Gary Snyder
(1930 to pres, American Poet and Buddhist Teacher)

"We're all just walking each other home." -Ram Dass
"Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder."-Rumi
"It's all one song!" -Neil Young

Judith Browning

Posts: 10823

Location: a temperate, clay/loam spot on planet earth, the universe

4052

posted 2 weeks ago

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Listen to your life.
See it for the fathomless
mystery that it is.
In the boredom and pain of it,
no less than in the excitement and gladness:
touch, taste, smell your way to the holy
and hidden heart of it,
because in the last analysis,
all moments are key moments,
and life itself is grace.

Frederick Buechner
(1926 to pres, American author and theologian)

"We're all just walking each other home." -Ram Dass
"Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder."-Rumi
"It's all one song!" -Neil Young

Judith Browning

Posts: 10823

Location: a temperate, clay/loam spot on planet earth, the universe

4052

posted 2 weeks ago

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Any time we want life to be different than it is
we are caught in impatience.
We lose our sense of humor
and self-pity, despair, and blame seep into the heart.
Gentle forbearance includes the spirit of forgiveness.
When we feel conflict with others,
understanding their suffering is the first step
in being able to communicate, forgive, and begin again.
The practice of forgiveness happens
when we are able to realize the underlying cause of our anger and impatience,
and this allows us to distinguish
between someone’s unskillful behavior
and essential goodness.
Serenity and calm develop
as we learn to accept imperfection
in others and ourselves.

~ Michele McDonald
(Vipassana meditation teacher)

"We're all just walking each other home." -Ram Dass
"Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder."-Rumi
"It's all one song!" -Neil Young

Judith Browning

Posts: 10823

Location: a temperate, clay/loam spot on planet earth, the universe

4052

posted 2 weeks ago

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The heart stands for that center of our being
at which we are truly "together."
Together with ourselves, not split up into intellect,
will, emotions, into mind and body.
Together with all other creatures,
for the heart is that realm
where I am paradoxically not only most intimately myself,
but most intimately united with all.
In order to listen with my heart,
I must return again and again to my heart
through a process of centering,
through taking things to heart.
Listening with my heart
I will find meaning.

Brother David Steindl-Rast
(1926 to pres., author, scholar, Benedictine monk)

"We're all just walking each other home." -Ram Dass
"Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder."-Rumi
"It's all one song!" -Neil Young

Judith Browning

Posts: 10823

Location: a temperate, clay/loam spot on planet earth, the universe

4052

posted 1 week ago

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"We're all just walking each other home." -Ram Dass
"Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder."-Rumi
"It's all one song!" -Neil Young

Judith Browning

Posts: 10823

Location: a temperate, clay/loam spot on planet earth, the universe

4052

posted 1 week ago

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Sometimes
if you move carefully
through the forest,
breathing like the ones
in the old stories…

you come to a place
whose only task
is to trouble you
with tiny
but frightening requests…
…Requests to stop what
you are doing right now
and
to stop what you
are becoming
while you do it,
questions
that can make
or unmake
a life.

David Whyte
(1955 to pres., Anglo-Irish poet and philosopher)

"We're all just walking each other home." -Ram Dass
"Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder."-Rumi
"It's all one song!" -Neil Young

Judith Browning

Posts: 10823

Location: a temperate, clay/loam spot on planet earth, the universe

4052

posted 1 week ago

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We can remind each other
of our freedom and our possibility.
We are so deeply interwoven
in the energy field of consciousness itself,
and when you know it,
whatever you do
becomes benevolent in some really deep way.

Jack Kornfield
(1945 to pres., psychologist, writer, Theravada Buddhist teacher)

"We're all just walking each other home." -Ram Dass
"Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder."-Rumi
"It's all one song!" -Neil Young

M Ljin

gardener

Posts: 3084

Location: Zone 4b/5a

1836

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posted 1 week ago

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I'm not saying I'm a Pollyanna, because I don't have a lot of faith in humanity, but I have a faith in humans.

-Rhiannon Giddens, folk singer & musician

https://www.npr.org/2026/09/21/nx-s1-5976700/rhiannon-giddens-hope-is-the-thing-with-wings

One can never be too kind to oneself or others.
Never our fault, always our responsibility

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Judith Browning

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Location: a temperate, clay/loam spot on planet earth, the universe

4052

posted 1 week ago

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I wish for a world
where we have a passion for compassion.

Carlos Santana
(1947 to pres., guitarist)
Samba Pa Ti Live in Mexico:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACdwCIld3kE

"We're all just walking each other home." -Ram Dass
"Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder."-Rumi
"It's all one song!" -Neil Young

Judith Browning

Posts: 10823

Location: a temperate, clay/loam spot on planet earth, the universe

4052

posted 1 week ago

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Being authentic is the only pathway
to the deepest form of freedom.
It means opening to Spirit,
mustering courage
to move through the challenging process
of our life's conditioning.
We may encounter surprises
and ultimately experience astounding revelations
when we uphold our vision to live authentically.

Regina J. Dekker

"We're all just walking each other home." -Ram Dass
"Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder."-Rumi
"It's all one song!" -Neil Young

Judith Browning

Posts: 10823

Location: a temperate, clay/loam spot on planet earth, the universe

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posted 1 week ago

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If you listen close at night,
you will hear the creatures of the dark,
all of them sacred – the owls, the crickets,the frogs, the night birds –
and you will hear beautiful songs,
songs you have never heard before.
Listen with your heart.
Never stop listening.

Henry Quick Bear
(Lakota Elder)

"We're all just walking each other home." -Ram Dass
"Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder."-Rumi
"It's all one song!" -Neil Young

Judith Browning

Posts: 10823

Location: a temperate, clay/loam spot on planet earth, the universe

4052

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A kind heart is the essential cause of happiness.
Being kind to others is the nicest thing
we can do for ourselves.
When we respect others
and are considerate of their needs, opinions and wishes,
hostility evaporates.
It takes two people to fight,
and if we refuse to be one of them,
there is no quarrel.

Thubten Chodron
(1950 to pres., Tibetan Buddhist nun, author, teacher,
founder and abbess of Sravasti Abbey)

"We're all just walking each other home." -Ram Dass
"Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder."-Rumi
"It's all one song!" -Neil Young

David Nightingale

pollinator

Posts: 82

Location: Pierce County WA, Northwest and Sound

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posted 1 week ago

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I love the radical reminder,
That the internet is not all there is.
I mean the internet is this kinda of surface level of
the ocean of the common record of human thought and
wisdom and knowledge.
And we think if you can’t find it on the internet
it doesn’t exist…

Maria Popova, Interview David Perell

Judith Browning

Posts: 10823

Location: a temperate, clay/loam spot on planet earth, the universe

4052

posted 6 days ago

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Love is something
that you can leave
behind you
when you die.
It’s that powerful.

John Fire Lame Deer
(1903-1976, Lakota Elder)

"We're all just walking each other home." -Ram Dass
"Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder."-Rumi
"It's all one song!" -Neil Young

David Nightingale

pollinator

Posts: 82

Location: Pierce County WA, Northwest and Sound

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posted 6 days ago

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A written word is the choicest of relics
It is the work of art nearest to life

And not only be read but actually
carved out of the breathe of life itself.

The symbol of an ancient person’s thought
becomes a modern person’s speech.

H. D. Thoreau, 1854 Walden, “Reading”.
(‘Slightly Amondated’ as A. Lincoln would say)

Judith Browning

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Location: a temperate, clay/loam spot on planet earth, the universe

4052

posted 5 days ago

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There comes a time
when humanity is called
to shift to a new level of consciousness,
to reach a higher moral ground.
A time when we have to shed our fear
and give hope to each other.

Wangari Maathai
(1940 to 2011, Kenyan social, environmental, political activist,
founded the Green Belt Movement)

"We're all just walking each other home." -Ram Dass
"Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder."-Rumi
"It's all one song!" -Neil Young

Judith Browning

Posts: 10823

Location: a temperate, clay/loam spot on planet earth, the universe

4052

posted 4 days ago

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Journeys bring power and love
back into you.
If you can't go somewhere,
move in the passageways of the self.
They are like shafts of light,
always changing and you change
when you explore them.

Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī
(1207 to 1273, Sufi mystic and poet)

"We're all just walking each other home." -Ram Dass
"Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder."-Rumi
"It's all one song!" -Neil Young

M Ljin

gardener

Posts: 3084

Location: Zone 4b/5a

1836

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posted 4 days ago

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This one goes very well with the permies ethic:

The world is like a seesaw out of balance:
on one side is a box of big rocks, tilting it its way.
On the other side is a box,
and a bunch of us with teaspoons, adding a little sand at a time.
One day, all of our teaspoons will add up,
and the whole thing will tip,
and people will say,
'How did it happen so fast?’

Pete Seeger, folksinger, author & banjoist

One can never be too kind to oneself or others.
Never our fault, always our responsibility

Judith Browning

Posts: 10823

Location: a temperate, clay/loam spot on planet earth, the universe

4052

posted 3 days ago

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No matter how painful,
when the unhealthy ideas and habits
and identities we rely on
are taken away from us,
it just makes space
for that which is actually real
and actually holy.

Nadia Bolz-Weber
(1969 to pres., author, minister, theologian,
founding pastor of House for All Sinners and Saints)

"We're all just walking each other home." -Ram Dass
"Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder."-Rumi
"It's all one song!" -Neil Young

Judith Browning

Posts: 10823

Location: a temperate, clay/loam spot on planet earth, the universe

4052

posted 2 days ago

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The real work is
becoming native in your heart,
coming to understand
we really live here,
that this is really the continent we’re on,
and that our loyalties are here,
to these mountains and rivers,
to these plant zones,
to these creatures.
The real work involves loyalty
that goes back. . .
billions of years.
The real work is accepting citizenship
in the earth itself.

Gary Snyder
(1930 to pres, American Poet and Buddhist Teacher)

"We're all just walking each other home." -Ram Dass
"Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder."-Rumi
"It's all one song!" -Neil Young

M Ljin

gardener

Posts: 3084

Location: Zone 4b/5a

1836

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Judith Browning wrote:The real work is
becoming native in your heart,
coming to understand
we really live here,
that this is really the continent we’re on,
and that our loyalties are here,
to these mountains and rivers,
to these plant zones,
to these creatures.
The real work involves loyalty
that goes back. . .
billions of years.
The real work is accepting citizenship
in the earth itself.

Gary Snyder
(1930 to pres, American Poet and Buddhist Teacher)

I’d add that along with this, becoming native to and of our hearts, our selves, and if we can do that such that our own bodies, minds, selves, ancestral lines and communities become our homes, then something important has changed, and we can feel at home with anything going on.

One can never be too kind to oneself or others.
Never our fault, always our responsibility

Judith Browning

Posts: 10823

Location: a temperate, clay/loam spot on planet earth, the universe

4052

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What we most frequently see
when the mind is focused and clear
are the habits of mind
that create unnecessary suffering,
habits fueled by greed and hatred and delusion.
Over and over we struggle with our lives,
resenting our experiences,
blaming ourselves for not being
other than who we are.
We are unable to see past the immediate,
overwhelming drama of our personal story
to find relief, indeed, liberation
in the consoling realization
of an astonishingly lawful cosmos:
paying attention to current experience
stops the stories
that create and recreate suffering.

Sylvia Boorstein
(1936 to pres, Psychologist and Buddhist Teacher)

"We're all just walking each other home." -Ram Dass
"Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder."-Rumi
"It's all one song!" -Neil Young

Judith Browning

Posts: 10823

Location: a temperate, clay/loam spot on planet earth, the universe

4052

posted 20 hours ago

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To love. To be loved.
To never forget your own insignificance.
To never get used to the unspeakable violence and
the vulgar disparity of life around you.
To seek joy in the saddest places.
To pursue beauty to its lair.
To never simplify what is complicated or
complicate what is simple.
To respect strength, never power.
Above all to watch.
To try and understand.
To never look away.
And never, never to forget.

Arundhati Roy
(24 November 1961 to present, writer, political activist involved in human rights and environmental causes)

"We're all just walking each other home." -Ram Dass
"Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder."-Rumi
"It's all one song!" -Neil Young

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