“And there was a whole world beyond that shoreline, beyond the forest, beyond the knuckle mountains, beyond, beyond, beyond, not beneath the surface at all, but beyond and waiting.”
― Emily M. Danforth, The Miseducation of Cameron Post
"...They were never alone; fighting this fight.
Though sometimes it seemed it, late in the night.
While he stood silent alone on her wall
She shared in his fate, with his just as tall.
Through time and through space their song always rings.
Until, together, their butterflies sing.
The storm, it breaks, the walls fall anyway.
As the demons cower; all run away.
The dark minions have left; quick as a herd.
The screaming it stops. And the gale subsides
Until the only thing left to be heard,
Was The battle cry of the butterflies."
"Perfect worlds do not exist. There are only the funny, strange, weeping, singing, truncated, and imperfect universes created by the gods of paintbrush and musical instruments, the gods who infuse their creations with their own blood, their own soul. When he looks at these worlds, the true Lord of Hosts, the creator of the universe, probably cannot help but smile mockingly."
- Vasily Grossman
"He bottled up the stars and put them on his shelf, so he could pull them down on the days he felt particularly sad, because gazing at the eternal beauty of the cosmos reminded him of just how tiny we really are."
THE EMPEROR: Authority, structure, hard work, discipline and self-control
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SYMBOLISM: The ram head represents Aries and the planet Mars. An ankh is held in her hand, which is the Egyptian symbol of life. She wears a suit of armor, suggesting that she is protected from any threat.
“Belle hesitated. "What is this place?" she asked.
"A bit of magic, like all good books," the man replied. "An escape. A place where you can leave cares and worries behind." He smiled. "At least for a chapter or two.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, Beauty and the Beast: Lost in a Book
"Then she took twenty mattresses and piled them on top of the pea, and then twenty feather beds on top of the mattresses. This was where the princess was to sleep that night."
-Hans Christian Andersen, Princess and the Pea
"And I realize that no matter where I am, whether in a little room full of thought, or in this endless universe of stars and mountains, it’s all in my mind." -Jack Kerouac, Lonesome Traveler
“We walked always in beauty, it seemed to me. We walked and looked about, or stood and looked. Sometimes, less often, we would sit down. We did not often speak. The place spoke for us and was a kind of speech. We spoke to each other in the things we saw.”
― Wendell Berry, Jayber Crow
“Any patch of sunlight in a wood will show you something about the sun which you could never get from reading books on astronomy. These pure and spontaneous pleasures are ‘patches of Godlight’ in the woods of our experience.”
― C.S. Lewis
THE MAGICIAN: Represents talent, capabilities and resources at one’s disposal to succeed.
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SYMBOLISM: The one hand pointing upwards toward the universe and one hand pointed down represents connection between spiritual and material realms. Scattered around the painting are a cup, pentacle, sword and wand – each symbolizing one of the four elements – water, earth, air and fire. His watch holds an infinity symbol, signaling that he has access to unlimited potential.
"And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it.”
― Roald Dahl
"Every dreamer knows that it is entirely possible to be homesick for a place you've never been to, perhaps more homesick than for familiar ground." ― Judith Thurman
“A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead.”
― Graham Greene, The End of the Affair
"Canoes, too, are unobtrusive; they don't storm the natural world or ride over it, but drift in upon it as a part of its own silence. As you either care about what the land is or not, so do you like or dislike quiet things--sailboats, or rainy green mornings in foreign places, or a grazing herd, or the ruins of old monasteries in the mountains... Chances for being quiet nowadays are limited."
- John Graves
THE HIGH PRIESTESS: Represents intuition, mystery, and the subconscious mind .
SYMBOLISM: The thin veil decorated with pomegranates represents the separate conscious and subconscious realms. The pomegranates on the veil are a symbol of abundance. The two pillars, marking the entrance to this sacred place, are black and white colours to symbolize masculine and feminine, darkness and light – stating acceptance of duality are required to enter. Her horned crown is symbol of her divine knowledge and her status as a divine ruler.
“We bury things so deep we no longer remember there was anything to bury. Our bodies remember. Our neurotic states remember.”
― Jeanette Winterson, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?
“Tired, tired with nothing, tired with everything, tired with the world’s weight he had never chosen to bear.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and Damned
“The best moments in reading are when you come across something – a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things – which you had thought special and particular to you. Now here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out and taken yours.”
― Alan Bennett, The History Boys
"The deepest depths of emotions we feel are too complex for the simple words spoken in our every day conversations. It is because of this that we often seek comfort in the solitude of our own minds."
- Lynette Simeone
"Wish on everything. Pink cars are good, especially old ones. And stars of course, first stars and shooting stars. Planes will do if they are the first light in the sky and look like stars. Wish in tunnels, holding your breath and lifting your feet off the ground. Birthday candles. Baby teeth."
-Francesca Lia Block
