Lightly child, lightly.

~ Live & Learn

Sometimes a kind of glory lights up the mind of a man. It happens to nearly everyone. You can feel it growing or preparing like a fuse burning toward dynamite. It is a feeling in the stomach, a delight of the nerves, of the forearms. The skin tastes the air, and every deep-drawn breath is sweet. Its beginning has the pleasure of a great stretching yawn; it flashes in the brain and the whole world glows outside your eyes. A man may have lived all of his life in the gray, and the land and trees of him dark and somber. The events, even the important ones, may have trooped by faceless and pale. And then -the glory- so that a cricket song sweetens his ears, the smell of the earth rises chanting to his nose, and dappling light under a tree blesses his eyes. Then a man pours outward, a torrent of him, and yet he is not diminished. And I guess a man’s importance in the world can be measured by the quality and number of his glories. It is a lonely thing but it relates us to the world. It is the mother of all creativeness, and it sets each man separate from all other men.

~ John Steinbeck, East of Eden

Notes:

  • Quote: Thank you Beth @ Alive on All Channels. Photo: via Your Eyes Blaze Out
  • Prior “Lightly child, lightly” Posts? Connect here.
  • Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.”

22 thoughts on “Lightly child, lightly.”

  4. Steinbeck’s words convey to me an awaking…illustrating,that the protagonist is suddenly alive and aware of the abounding gifts surrounding him… the protagonist’s unbridled passion, is fully birthed../// Steinbeck’s richness in composing thoughts and putting them to paper, is brilliant, such genius… his gift to us lingering, like the memories of twisting that peach off the branch, biting, crushing through the fuzzy skin, greeting the soft, tender, fragrant, exotic, sweet tasting flesh, juice cascading, taste buds igniting with full flavor of warm life, nourishing, mind and body…leaving an afterglow…

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  7. I’ll tell you a secret. But don’t tell anyone. Ok?
    I sometimes think you’re Steinbeck’s reincarnation. He comes through at times 😉

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