Warrior

To be able to speak from pure spiritual experience is a wonderful thing, because you know there is beauty coming from inside.

Embrace depression and loneliness, it's part of life

Frail match, I feel not overhanded

To this imaginary morning, misty as my faith. 

If there was anything to attach a-kindle without scratch-ing

Pale fish tails swimming back to the landing

Page, so lowered... dispatched with

Mismatched colourless mirrors of fortunes untold.

Love after love

The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

And say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was yourself.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

("Love after love" by Derek Walcott)

Japan's great wave

神奈川沖浪裏 Kanagawa Oki Nami Ura "Under a Wave off Kanagawa", was a woodblock print created by the Japanese artist Hokusai in around 1830.

Natural soul therapy for winter colds

Bananas, hot chocolate, peppermint tea, garden picture books and silly magazines are always uplifting for the spirit and health. If you're feeling feverish, you'll need to keep yourself very warm however, you must allow at least two inches of your window to stay open to avoid dehydration in your room. While you can get lots of water in the form of your favourite flavored tea, you can also try a little deep breathing. When the body is aching from feverishness, its often difficult to go out for fresh air, but if your window is slightly open, not widely open (since you don't want to make your room chilly), deep breathing allows you to energize the heart's bloodflow. If you're finding breathing hard to do through a blocked nose, sore throat or a congested chest, you can still relax your body by lying yourself down on to your left side, keeping your body weight off your heart.

And remember, you may have a long list of important things to do, just don't worry about them right now. Illness is the best time for relaxation, and its a great time for meditation. Take your little hot cup and diary and look around your room, what can you find in there that its time for you to let go of? By the time you are on your way to recovery, you'll have managed to sort out all those letters and emails and things that needed sorting out. So cosy up in your pajamas and woollies, and bring in the minimals.