| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A House of Pomegranates by Oscar Wilde: house, and through the garden of poppies, and up the five steps of
brass. And having opened the little door with his ring he set him
in the street.
And the Star-Child went out of the gate of the city, and came to
the wood of which the Magician had spoken to him.
Now this wood was very fair to look at from without, and seemed
full of singing birds and of sweet-scented flowers, and the Star-
Child entered it gladly. Yet did its beauty profit him little, for
wherever he went harsh briars and thorns shot up from the ground
and encompassed him, and evil nettles stung him, and the thistle
pierced him with her daggers, so that he was in sore distress. Nor
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Christ in Flanders by Honore de Balzac: The light died out. Again I faced the young girl. Gradually she
slipped into the dreary sheath, into the ragged cere-cloths, and
became an aged woman again. Her familiar brought her a little dust,
and she stirred it into the ashes of her chafing-dish, for the weather
was cold and stormy; and then he lighted for her, whose palaces had
been lit with thousands of wax-tapers, a little cresset, that she
might see to read her prayers through the hours of night.
"There is no faith left in the earth! . . ." she said.
In such a perilous plight did I behold the fairest and the greatest,
the truest and most life-giving of all Powers.
"Wake up, sir, the doors are just about to be shut," said a hoarse
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Vailima Prayers & Sabbath Morn by Robert Louis Stevenson: FOR THE FAMILY
AID us, if it be thy will, in our concerns. Have mercy on this
land and innocent people. Help them who this day contend in
disappointment with their frailties. Bless our family, bless our
forest house, bless our island helpers. Thou who hast made for us
this place of ease and hope, accept and inflame our gratitude; help
us to repay, in service one to another, the debt of thine unmerited
benefits and mercies, so that, when the period of our stewardship
draws to a conclusion, when the windows begin to be darkened, when
the bond of the family is to be loosed, there shall be no
bitterness of remorse in our farewells.
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