Vertical thought likes to imagine the vast distances between the stars. — Robert Bly Copy Share Image
The Roman Catholic Church early on simply adapted the hierarchical structure of the Roman Empire and confused the whole thing. Vertical attention… — Robert Bly Copy Share Image
Vertical attention is not the same as, and doesn't evolve from nor imply, hierarchy. We could say that hierarchy is associated with… — Robert Bly Copy Share Image
Myth and poetry represent a reservoir of vertical thinking, which we could also call longing and gratitude to ancestors. We need that… — Robert Bly Copy Share Image
There are very few adults in our culture able to imagine any genuine life coming from the vertical plane - tradition, religion,… — Robert Bly Copy Share Image
If you want to know what it will be like when we are more deeply into the horizontal, simply go to one… — Robert Bly Copy Share Image
There's a quality we could call vertical attention, which is an attention upward toward ancestors, spiritual states, angels, gods. — Robert Bly Copy Share Image
Hierarchy, as in the Catholic Church, has to do with power, and vertical attention has to do with longing. — Robert Bly Copy Share Image
I use the phrase 'sibling society' to suggest a culture fundamentally without fathers, mothers, grandfathers, grandmothers, or ancestors. The thinking is horizontal. — Robert Bly Copy Share Image
All of Japan once a year will get up on their rooftops, because that's the night that the shepherd boy from one side of… — Robert Bly Copy Share Image
I got about half the time I wanted to write poetry. I got about half the time I needed to be a father. So… — Robert Bly Copy Share Image
Every noon as the clock hands arrive at twelve, I want to tie the two arms together, And walk out of the bank carrying… — Robert Bly Copy Share Image
Rumi is astounding, fertile, abundant, almost more an excitable library of poetry than a person. — Robert Bly Copy Share Image
One could say the higher the spirit goes, the more deeply the soul sinks down into the waters of melancholy and tragedy. Drowning in… — Robert Bly Copy Share Image
Don't go outside your house to see flowers. My friend, don't bother with that excursion. Inside your body there are flowers. One flower has… — Robert Bly Copy Share Image
The models of adulthood are disappearing fast. How can two people have a new marriage if neither of them is an adult? — Robert Bly Copy Share Image
I have spent many years trying to recover a common language, one that can cross the distance between people. — Robert Bly Copy Share Image
One out of three black men are in the criminal justice system in some form. Their despair is beginning to resonate through the entire… — Robert Bly Copy Share Image
Sociological prose is generally written without images in an exact form for an academic audience. — Robert Bly Copy Share Image
We spend our life until we’re twenty deciding what parts of ourself to put into the bag, and we spend the rest of our… — Robert Bly Copy Share Image
