| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Jerusalem Delivered by Torquato Tasso: Oh what was this, wherein earth hath her seat?
XXIV
Now deep engulphed in the mighty flood
They saw not Gades, nor the mountains near,
Fled was the land, and towns on land that stood,
Heaven covered sea, sea seemed the heavens to bear.
"At last, fair lady," quoth Ubaldo good,
"That in this endless main dost guide us here,
If ever man before here sailed tell,
Or other lands here be wherein men dwell."
XXV
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain: I arose and drew an elegant rifle pistol on him and ordered him to dismount.
He did so, and I took his horse by the bridle and pointed down the creek,
and ordered him to walk before me. He went a few hundred yards
and stopped. I hitched his horse, and then made him undress himself,
all to his shirt and drawers, and ordered him to turn his back to me.
He said, 'If you are determined to kill me, let me have time to pray
before I die,' I told him I had no time to hear him pray. He turned around
and dropped on his knees, and I shot him through the back of the head.
I ripped open his belly and took out his entrails, and sunk him in the creek.
I then searched his pockets, and found four hundred dollars and thirty-seven
cents, and a number of papers that I did not take time to examine.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Octopus by Frank Norris: annihilation? I take it, thank God, that it is not. Does the
grain of wheat, hidden for certain seasons in the dark, die? The
grain we think is dead RESUMES AGAIN; but how? Not as one grain,
but as twenty. So all life. Death is only real for all the
detritus of the world, for all the sorrow, for all the injustice,
for all the grief. Presley, the good never dies; evil dies,
cruelty, oppression, selfishness, greed--these die; but nobility,
but love, but sacrifice, but generosity, but truth, thank God for
it, small as they are, difficult as it is to discover them--these
live forever, these are eternal. You are all broken, all cast
down by what you have seen in this valley, this hopeless
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