J. Krishnamurti…

Truth, the real God- the real God, not the God that man has made- does not want a mind that has been destroyed, petty, shallow, narrow, limited. It needs a healthy mind to appreciate it; it needs a rich mind -rich, not with knowledge but with innocence- a mind upon which there has never been a scratch of experience, a mind that is free from time. The gods that you have invented for your own comforts accept torture; they accept a mind that is being made dull. But the real thing does not want it; it wants a total, complete human being whose heart is full, rich, clear, capable of intense feeling, capable of seeing the beauty of a tree, the smile of a child, and the agony of a woman who has never had a full meal.

You have to have this extraordinary feeling, this sensitivity to everything -to the animal, to the cat that walks across the wall, to the squalor, the dirt, the filth of human beings in poverty, in despair. You have to be sensitive -which is to feel intensely, not in any particular direction, which is not an emotion which comes and goes, but which is to be sensitive with your nerves, with your eyes, with your body, with your ears, with your voice. You have to be sensitive completely all the time. Unless you are so completely sensitive, there is no intelligence. Intelligence comes with sensitivity and observation. ~~ The Book of Life

Like Aged Redwood

Rise woman in your restlessness
Take solace in the strength
You covet;
For in your glory
If it be you alone who see,
You know not any man
Shall rescue thee.
Stand tall and firm,
Like aged redwood,
Leaves gracefully blowing
Upon the winds of change,
Be caged not like wild cat in capture,
For within you is
No soft tamed feline
To those who would make prey upon you.
Do not be ruled by fears
Meant to blind you,
For within your heart
You see truth and beauty.
Yours is the pinnacle of love’s creation
Let no pinion tie you down.

c. Pamela J. Leavey 1993

I walk to the beat
Of The Goddess’s drum,
I sing her ancient song;
I call out her name
But, she already knows mine.
I am her sister,
I am her daughter,
She is crone,
I am apprentice.
I feel her heartbeat
In every beat my heart takes;
She speaks to me in my sleep,
She speaks to me when I am awake.
I follow closely in her footsteps
I learn my lessons well;
I have claimed myself as part of her
And she as part of me. 
She listens quietly
When I cry out in pain;
She wisely heals my ills.
She gives me hope 
By her very purpose
Takes me back where I come from.
I walk to the beat
Of the Goddess’s drum,
I sing her ancient song.
She fills me with her many gifts;
I bless her with my love,
Devotion pure, divine and boundless
For she there is no less.
I am her sister,
I am her daughter,
She is crone,
I am apprentice.
I claim her wisdom 
As part of mine,
I share her with my sisters;
For she exists in every woman
Who hears the call of their name;
From hidden place
Thought long lost,
She rises like the sun.
It is the Goddess
In every woman,
Who walks to the beat
Of her drum.

c. Pamela J. Leavey 1997

(Inspired by: When the Drummers Were Women, by, Layne Redmond)