"I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweat shops."   Stephen Jay Gould

Honoring the Feminine

"Any individual or society that fails to honor or provide the opportunity for women to fully exert their power can never truly prosper.   All creativity, growth, imagination, nurturing-all possibilities are born from the womb of the Divine Feminine.   To deny her a rightful place, either within ourselves or in the world in which we live is to do irreparable harm and endure the loss of countless joys."  Rod Stryker

Discovery

"Something we were withholding made us weak until we found it was ourselves."  Robert Frost

Individuality

"To know what you prefer instead of humbly saying 'amen' to what the world tells you you ought to prefer, is to have kept your soul alive."  Robert Louis Stevenson

How Many?

How many people who believe they never dream are sleepwalking in their marriage, in their job, in their church, blindly adhering to ideas they never question, with no heart in what they are doing?"  Marion Woodman

Morality and Religion

"The foundation of morality should not be made dependent on myth nor tied to
any authority lest doubt about the myth or about the legitimacy of the
authority imperil the foundation of sound judgment and action."  Einstein

Ethics and Identity

"As subjects of our own desires, we develop our potentials and grow in our capacity to lead an ethical life.   What we once accepted as the dictates of an external authority we now think out for ourselves, and we are required to articulate and identity over time that places us constantly and squarely at the center of our own contradictory feelings and motives."  Polly Young-Eisendarth

Personal Authority

"As you come to know the difference between your desire to be desirable and your desire to make your own decisions, you will understand more clearly how to cope with the pressures that arise in yourself and others when you begin to take yourself seriously.   You will come to see that making claims for your own authority can sometimes lead to being seen as the hag-bitch, and you will learn how to conserve your authority in the face of challenges, attacks, and negative labels.   Holding on to your authority means breathing deeply and standing firmly behind your decisions without shame or blame."  Polly Young-Eisendrath

Experience

"Experience is, for me, the highest authority. The touchstone of validity is my own experience. No other person's ideas, and none of my own ideas, are as authoritative as my experience. It is to experience that I must return again and again, to discover a closer approximation to truth as it is in the process of becoming in me." -Carl Rogers, On Becoming a Person

Culture

"Our culture is fast moving and complex.  We have a sharp eye for authoritarianism and control in their direct and obvious forms.  We are, in ironic contrast, almost completely blind to the huge control and subtle authoritarianism of consumerist image culture.   On the other hand, we are warriors for the freedom view and on the other hand, simultaneously, are absolute disciples of the God of Quantity.  Our society is addicted to and incessantly nourishes and inflates the spectacular."   John O' Donahue