food for thought

just finished Chosen by a Horse and thought to share some quotes. the book, from a non-religious perspective, shared fresh views on the importance of identity and not letting others define it for you. also, it challenged me about continuing to love after much hurt.

Unlike me, Lay Me Down seemed to feel no rancor. In spite of everything, she was open and trusting of people, qualities I decidedly lacked. It was her capacity to engage that drew me to her, that made me aware of what was possible for me if I had her capacity to...to what? Forgive? Forget? Live in the moment? What exactly was it that enabled an abused animal, for lack of a better word, to love again?

Her past had surely been as bad as mine but she showed no bitterness, no resentment, no neurotic need to isolate herself from other horses (or people) in order to feel safe. [...] Her capacity to love seemed enormous.

By her gentle affection I felt restored to the status of someone who mattered, someone who was needed. She gave me that, a sense of family. We both belonged to nobody, nobody who cared, and now so late in our lives, this miracle had occurred.

Was I the only one who didn't know that facing death meant facing life? They were exactly the same.

To love without an echo is the death knell of the soul. Foolishly, the soulless body grows anyway, marches into the future without its nucleus, without its self, bonsaied by this echoless love.