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Katherine May Quotes

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Famous Katherine May Quotes

“The starkness of winter can reveal colours we would otherwise miss. I once watched a fox cross a frosty field, her coat shining against the gloom. Walking in the bare winter woodland, I am surrounded by astonishing foxy reds: the deep burnish of bracken, it’s dry fronds twisted to lacework; the deep crimson leaves left on brambles; the last remaining berries on honeysuckle and orange clusters of rose hips. The iconic holly, it’s boughs so thoroughly raided each Christmas. There is the bright yellow of gorse on heathland, going on until spring comes, as well as stately evergreens and the tangle of green leaves that remain unnoticed on the ground. Life goes on abundantly in winter – changes made here will usher us into future glories.”

“In the eusocial [bee] hive, just a single wintering would result in being driven out for the greater good. And it may well be true that a bee can't recover. But a human can. We may rift through years in which we feel like a negative presence in the world, but we are capable of coming back again. We can return to family and friends not only restored but capable of bringing more than we brought before: greater wisdom, more compassion, an increased capacity to reach deep into our roots and know that we will find water.”

“In fact I think I prefer a strange tangle of both, an idea with porous boundaries that keeps me guessing. We are not offered any definite conclusions, only the continuing quest. Certainties harden us, and eventually we come to defend them as if the world can't contain a multiplicity of views. We are better off staying soft. It gives us room to grow and absorb, to make space for all the other glorious notions that will keep coming at us across a lifetime.”