Wisdom from Audre Lorde

Pleasure. Some wisdom I remember...its been a long time since it guided my life, but it is present in my mind, and today I have been calling it to the center...

"...we have come to distrust that power which rises from our deepest and nonrational knowledge." "...a measure between the beginnings of our sense of self and the chaos of our strongest feelings....an internal sense of satisfaction to which, once we have experienced it, we know we can aspire. For having experienced the fullness of this depth of feeling and recognizing its power, in honor and self respect we can require no less of ourselves."

"It is never easy to demand the most from ourselves, from our lives, from our work. To encourage excellence is to go beyond the encouraged mediocrity of our society is to encourage excellence. But giving in to the fear of feeling and working to capacity is a luxury only the unintentional can afford, and the unintentional are those who do not wish to guide their own destinies."

"this internal requirement toward excellence....must not be misconstruied as demanding the impossible from ourselves nor from others. [it is]....a question of how acutely and fully we can feel in the doing. Once we know the extent to which we are capable of feeling that sense of satisfaction and completion we can then observe which of our various life endeavors bring us closest to that fullness."

"Within the celebration of the erotic in all our endeavors, my work becomes a conscious decision--a longed -for bed which I enter gratefully and from which I rise up empowered."

Can we live with that? Live up to that? Can we afford a world in which we don't?