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Ancestor Quote by Robert Bly

“Myth and poetry represent a reservoir of vertical thinking, which…” quote by Robert Bly — Download Open image

“Myth and poetry represent a reservoir of vertical thinking, which we could also call longing and gratitude to ancestors. We need that gratitude desperately.”

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Ancestor Gratitude Longing Myth Needs Nostalgia Poetry Reservoirs Storytelling Thinking Vertical

More by Robert Bly

I use the phrase 'sibling society' to suggest a culture fundamentally without fathers, mothers, grandfathers, grandmothers, or ancestors. The thinking is horizontal.

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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…

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I got about half the time I wanted to write poetry. I got about half the time I needed to be a father. So…

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Every noon as the clock hands arrive at twelve, I want to tie the two arms together, And walk out of the bank carrying…

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Rumi is astounding, fertile, abundant, almost more an excitable library of poetry than a person.

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One could say the higher the spirit goes, the more deeply the soul sinks down into the waters of melancholy and tragedy. Drowning in…

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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…

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The models of adulthood are disappearing fast. How can two people have a new marriage if neither of them is an adult?

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I have spent many years trying to recover a common language, one that can cross the distance between people.

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One out of three black men are in the criminal justice system in some form. Their despair is beginning to resonate through the entire…

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Sociological prose is generally written without images in an exact form for an academic audience.

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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…

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More Ancestor quotes

A lot of indigenous cultures are deeply involved in working with ancestor spirits, elemental spirits, and demons. Many of these cultures feel that, if…

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Food binds us to our roots as strongly as any song or poem. Many of us have learned more about our ancestors in the…

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Whereas our ancestors (not of choice) were the first successful cultivators of the wilds of America, we their descendants feel ourselves entitled to participate…

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Going where no man has gone before is more difficult than it sounds. Our cousins and ancestors were no less curious than we are,…

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I use the phrase 'sibling society' to suggest a culture fundamentally without fathers, mothers, grandfathers, grandmothers, or ancestors. The thinking is horizontal.

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High birth is an accident, not a virtue.

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Southerners, whose ancestors a hundred years ago knew the horrors of a homeland devastated by war, are particularly determined that war shall never come…

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Two hundred years ago, before the advent of capitalism, a man's social status was fixed from the beginning to the end of his life;…

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And I saw for the first time how, despite the isolation of our own lives, we are always connected to our ancestors; our bodies…

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It is how it has always been. We will accept the legacy of our ancestors,' Asha says, smiling, and in her smile I do…

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My ancestors came over from Germany about the time of the Civil War and one of them lost a leg and went back to…

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