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Shellen Lubin Quotes

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Famous Shellen Lubin Quotes

“Hope alone cannot create outcomes but having hope affects outcomes. Proceeding with hope makes more things possible, may just be what gets you up and out the door, making anything possible at all. But hope is an illusion, no? Yes, my love, but no more than fear and worry. They are all illusions because they are all about the future, and we cannot know the future. But ... hope is an illusion that opens us up, inspires joy, reminds us of possibility, gets us through trial and tribulation more easily (like singing in the rhythm of a labor-intensive task makes it easier to keep on going). Hope leads us to more, better, greater things-- maybe not the ideal, the fantasy, even the very thing you hope for-- but more, better, greater than would otherwise be.”

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“I have said for many years that the only real difference between a philosophy and a religion is one or more gods... I am learning more and more-- as I did when studying eastern religions in my twenties-- how powerful prayer can be, and I don't mean because one god answers anyone's prayers. It is the place it puts us in. Focus. Reflection. Vertical communication. Surrender (to the powers that be and those that may or may not be). And so: Hope.”

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“This is the week, the primetime hearings on insurrection and sedition, our last chance to make known and believed the ugly truth of our last president, the nefarious doings of his cohorts, the insanity we all witnessed and went through, the coup we just barely avoided. It's now or never. The jury is out, the jury of public opinion. The jury is us.”

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“My father would take me into the voting booth with him when I was little. He also took me house to house raising Dollars for Democrats. He was gone by the time I turned 30, but I feel him with me every time I vote, even if there's no booth anymore and no lever to pull to ensure privacy. I took my mother to vote every single election after she stopped driving, even when she was in an assisted living residence. Never would we pass up the opportunity to vote.”

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“When demanded of those without power-- 'if you said it more nicely maybe we would listen'-- 'I can't hear you when you're so angry'-- 'the ones who are nice are the ones who will get what they want' (or, worse, the ones who are nice and pretty, which, of course, also includes white, Christian, and 'classy')-- it is yet another subjugation, yet another tool of oppression.”

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“We don't always think about how oversimplification leads to greater conflict, but it does... keeping it simple also leads to ignoring what doesn't fit the picture until it becomes a throbbing wound. Keeping it simple leads to things being missed and so not getting things completely right, which, in the world of over-simplification, means getting them wrong.”

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“We can learn from the grass, tiny fragile blades that somehow manage to push through the cracks in the cement of the sidewalk. We can learn from water, wearing down mountains into sand, from little droplets becoming floods, oceans, tidal waves. We can learn from all upheavals from struggles for justice because they only seem inevitable in hindsight-- while they are happening they feel grueling if not impossible. We can learn from Elie Wiesel, who shared his bread in the concentration camp so more people could eat some instead of hording it so he could eat fully.”

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“Every time a court pushes back against the looming autocracy, we celebrate. But the looming autocracy often ignores the ruling of the courts. The question, day by day, becomes how well are all the institutions we need, we trust, we rely on still functioning? The answer, day by day, becomes only as well as the looming autocracy feels and hears and responds to the pushback against their destruction.”

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“Change happens. Loss happens. With or without your input. Afraid you’ll fall, you’ll fail, You’ll flail, you’ll falter. The more you fall, the sooner you learn How to recover, repair, rebuild. The more you flail Or falter, the more you get How to regain equilibrium. The more you fail, the more you see Success demands—requires— Failure. Make a move. Now. Or now. Take a breath. Catch a breeze. Like riding a bicycle Your legs going round and round Will build strength Gain balance Find a way. Forward. Beyond thought. Beyond instruction. The internal systems Never forget. You just have to Make a move.”

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“Systemic racism continues hard and strong, particularly against Indigenous people, Why else would we be one of only four countries in 2007 to vote against a United Nations Global Declaration of Indigenous Rights? We need to learn more. We need to do better. We are all woven together in the fabric of the Earth and over time we will all thrive or fail together.”

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“We artists can't be stopped because we live and breathe to speak our truth to write our truth to paint, and sing, and dance what we see, what we feel, what we know inside. And we will always keep trying to find a way to reach some kind of audience, even if it's in a dingy basement. And for those whose art is the jest? Our beloved jesters (can they eliminate the comedians' platforms)? They dance on the line between reportage and art. But they may be the most dangerous of all to the looming autocracy, because they make people laugh at the king (the one thing he most cannot stand). And as the people laugh, they're also learning the truth: the king has no clothes.”

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“We are never anywhere but where we are even when much of that "where" is moving in some direction or other towards somewhere else. We cannot --right now-- know more than we know, have prepared or studied or rehearsed more than we actually did, be more beautiful or wiser or wittier or wealthier or healthier or stronger or better rested than we actually are. So go out and sing. Express your love laid bare and open. Be the fully imperfect glorious creature that you are. Dance in the rain.”

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“What brings you relief? Speaking your truth, crying your grief, or not needing to speak? Reading, writing, playing games, dancing, or doing nothing at all? Listening to songs, or piano etudes, or complete silence? Darkness or candlelight or bright beating sun? Blues, reds, yellows, many colors, or no color at all? Hot or cold water? Immersed or pouring over you? Tasting something crunchy, or sweet and smooth? The scent of jasmine, or cucumber, or musk? Someone touching you gently, or going deep, or being utterly and completely alone? We are all different... When the quality of the overload changes, so does the quality of relief.”

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“It’s not an easy time, love, but it’s the time we have. I’m here for it, here with you, ‘tho cannot hold your hand. There is no railing, no concrete ground. So wander Into the uncharted, allowing all the feelings But not letting them hold you back. Step out With them, dance with them, In the liminal space between our Before-world and our Future-world … the ellipses … the dot dot dot … The myriad notes between any two pitches … The distance between all that is finite … The infinite”

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“It's like a chronic illness, living under a government that does not see or hear you, that does not care. There are many of us who have lived that way in more ways--for far longer--than others: people of color, women, immigrants, and, of course, the disabled and those suffering actual chronic illness and injury, each suffering their own misery, acknowledged more or less by the society at large depending on the current fashion. For those currently in charge of the systems that be, we who suffer are out of fashion.”

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“When all else fails, try a different tool. When all else fails, try a different methodology. When all else fails, try a different objective. When all else falls, ask for help. When all else fails, find someone else to ask. When all else fails, get a third opinion. When all else fails, get another perspective. When all else fails, get a research librarian to guide you to other tools, methodologies, perspectives, philosophies, objectives. When all else fails, find a professional to do it. When all else fails, find a child to figure it out. When all else fails, weep, moan, and pound the walls. When all else fails, unplug and plug back in. When all else fails, shake up the system. When all else fails, shake up your system--stretch, run, go to the gym and punch a bag. When all else fails, laugh at the quandary. When all else fails, laugh at yourself. When all else fails, light a scented candle and watch the flame as you drink in the smell. When all else fails, drink water. When all else fails, immerse yourself in water--hot, cold, or hot then cold. When all else fails, sing an anthem to the trees, the ground, the distant view. When all else fails, dance a rhumba, dance a tango, dance a forest witchie ritual. When all else fails, take a nap. When all else fails, go away completely, however long feels necessary. When all else fails, try and figure out what's to be gained or learned if this was the way it absolutely needed to happen. When all else fails, accept that this is the way it is. When all else fails, love as is. When all else fails, walk away.”

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