Quotes about Aliveness

In truth, the human experience of magic – our ancestral, animistic awareness of the world as alive and expressive – was never really lost. Our senses simply shifted their animistic participation from the depths of the surrounding landscape toward the letters written on pages and, today, on screens. Only thus could the letters begin to come alive and to speak. As a Zuni elder focuses her eyes upon a cactus and abruptly hears the cactus begin to speak, so we focus our eyes upon these printed marks and immediately hear voices. We hear spoken words, witness strange scenes or visions, even experience other lives. As nonhuman animals, plants, and even “inanimate” rivers once spoke to our oral ancestors, so the ostensibly “inert” letters on the page now speak to us! This is a form of animism that we take for granted, but it is animism nonetheless – as mysterious as a talking stone.

And indeed, it is only when a culture shifts its participation to these printed letters that the stones fall silent. Only as our senses transfer their animating magic to the written word do the trees become mute, the other animals fall dumb.

We have the greatest opportunity the world has ever seen, as long as we remain honest -- which will be as long as we can keep the attention of our people alive. If they once become inattentive to public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, judges and governors would all become wolves. Thomas Jefferson

I don't know quite how to say this.  I want to wake up.  I don't want to live half-assed anymore.

We are most alive when we’re in love.

I did not know I was on a search for passionate aliveness.  I only knew I was lonely and lost and that something was drawing me deeper beneath the surface of my life in search of meaning.  There is a hunger in people to go to those deep depths; to know that our lives are sacred; that our hearts are truly capable of love.  It is a yearning to be all the we can be.  A longing for what is real. 

Aliveness
Aliveness is energy. It's the juice,the vitality, and the passion that wakes up our cells every morning. It's what makes us want to dance. It's the energy that moves a relationship from the status quo to something grander and much more expansive, something that makes our hearts beat faster, our minds, and our eyes open wider than ever before. Everything is of interest to a person who is truly alive, whether it's a challenge, a loving moment, a bucket of grief, or a glimpse of beauty.

There is some principle of magic in everything, some living quality. Something living, something real, is taking place in everything.

All things radiate forth an intense aliveness.