Aberjhani Quotes

Shine your soul with the same egoless humility as the rainbow and no matter where you go in this world or the next, love will find you, attend you, and bless you.

We are living in an era in which billions of people are grappling to promote communication, tolerance, and understanding over the more destructive forces of war, terrorism, and political chaos that have characterized the beginning of the 21st Century.

A bridge of silver wings stretches from the dead ashes of an unforgiving nightmareto the jeweled vision of a life started anew.

The issue, perhaps, boils down to one of how perceptions or misperceptions of racial difference impact various individuals’, or groups of individuals’, experience of freedom in America. Some would argue that it goes beyond hampering their 'pursuit of happiness' to outright obliterating it.

On either side of a potentially violent conflict, an opportunity exists to exercise compassion and diminish fear based on recognition of each other's humanity. Without such recognition, fear fueled by uninformed assumptions, cultural prejudice, desperation to meet basic human needs, or the panicked uncertainty of the moment explodes into violence.

We ache with the yearningthat turns half into wholeand offer no excusesfor the beauty of our souls.

If it wasn’t for all those silver wings spread out to help you on your journey, you would’a been dead or someplace screamin’ in a nut house a long time ago.

Feet sandaled with dreams tread paths of vision leading to wisdom’s sharp peaks.

Change is one of the scariest things in the world and yet it is also one of those variables of human existence that no one can avoid.

This world’s anguish is no different from the love we insist on holding back.

The instinct to tell our children that they are better than someone else’s children, based on nothing more than the color of their skin, is now a fossilized aberration that serves no useful purpose.

The act of writing itself is much like the construction of a mirror made of words. Looking at certain illuminated corners of or cracks within the mirror, the author can see fragments of an objective reality that comprise the physical universe, social communities, political dynamics, and other facets of human existence. Looking in certain other corners of the same mirror, he or she may experience glimpses of a True Self sheltered deftly behind a mask of public proprieties.

The Universe said, ‘Let me show your soul something beautiful.

You are the hybrids of golden worlds and ages splendidly conceived.

Individuals often turn to poetry, not only to glean strength and perspective from the words of others, but to give birth to their own poetic voices and to hold history accountable for the catastrophes rearranging their lives.

A world without poetry and art would be too much like one without birds or flowers: bearable but a lot less enjoyable.

How many fears came between us?Earthquakes, diseases, wars where hellrained smoldering pus from skies made of winged death.Horror tore this world asunder.While inside the bleeding smokeand beyond the shredded weeping fleshwe memorized tales of infinite good.--from The History Lesson

In my head this cruel unspeakable truth: that we battled and we cursed and we spilled each other’s blood, we relished our taste of hell and strangled heaven’s love.

Hearts rebuilt from hope resurrect dreams killed by hate.

I called it a baptism in flaming ink that forced me to shed my shyness about recognizing myself as a poet and to accept the fact that life had never given me any choice in the matter. And then I had to discover exactly what that meant.

The reality of a serious writer is a reality of many voices, some of them belonging to the writer, some of them belonging to the world of readers at large.

I place my fingers upon these keys typing 2,000 dreams per minute and naked of spirit dance forth my cosmic vortex upon this crucifix called language.

Before the thunderous clamor of political debate or war set loose in the world, love insisted on its promise for the possibility of human unity: between men and women, between blacks and whites, northerners and southerners, haves and have-have-nots, self and self.

The leaders and followers of the Harlem Renaissance were every bit as intent on using Black culture to help make the United States a more functional democracy as they were on employing Black culture to 'vindicate' Black people.

In an age when nations and individuals routinely exchange murder for murder, when the healing grace of authentic spirituality is usurped by the divisive politics of religious organizations, and when broken hearts bleed pain in darkness without the relief of compassion, the voice of an exceptional poet producing exceptional work is not something the world can afford to dismiss.

An outrageous instinct to love and be loved blinded your arms to lines of propriety––Women and Men, Christians and Jews, Muslims and Buddhists, white, black, red, brown. An outrageous instinct to love and be loved executed your brain every hour on the hour.

At the different stages of recognition, reflection, and redress, practicing compassion provides potentially world-saving opportunities which otherwise likely would not exist.

Love taught me to die with dignity that I might come forth anew in splendor. Born once of flesh, then again of fire, I was reborn a third time to the sound of my name humming haikus in heaven’s mouth.

There is nothing sane, merciful, heroic, devout, redemptive, wise, holy, loving, peaceful, joyous, righteous, gracious, remotely spiritual, or worthy of praise where mass murder is concerned. We have been in this world long enough to know that by now and to understand that nonviolent conflict resolution informed by mutual compassion is the far better option.

Poetry empowers the simplest of lives to confront the most extreme sorrows with courage, and motivates the mightiest of offices to humbly heed lessons in compassion.

Unless you are here: this garden refuses to exist.Pink dragonflies fall from the airand become scorpions scratching blood out of rocks.The rainbows that dangle upon this mist: shatter. Like the smile of a child separatedfrom his mother’s milk for the very first time.--from poem Blood and Blossoms

Knowledge planted in truth grows in truth.Strength born of peace loses nothing to hate.

The death of a dream can in fact serve as the vehicle that endows it with new form, with reinvigorated substance, a fresh flow of ideas, and splendidly revitalized color. In short, the power of a certain kind of dream is such that death need not indicate finality at all but rather signify a metaphysical and metaphorical leap forward.

If the idea of loving those whom you have been taught to recognize as your enemies is too overwhelming, consider more deeply the observation that we are all much more alike than we are unalike.

This is what our love is––a sacred pattern of unbroken unity sewn flawlessly invisible inside all other images, thoughts, smells, and sounds.

Hope drowned in shadowsemerges fiercely splendid––boldly angelic.

Poetry and art nourish the soul of the world with the flavor-filled substances of beauty, wisdom and truth.

History, too, has a penchant for giving birth to itself over and over again, and those whom it appoints agents of change and progress do not always accept their destinies willingly.

Millions of tears have fallen for black sons, brothers, lovers, and friends whose assailants took or maimed their lives and then simply went on their way.

When a reader enters the pages of a book of poetry, he or she enters a world where dreams transform the past into knowledge made applicable to the present, and where visions shape the present into extraordinary possibilities for the future.

Individual cultures and ideologies have their appropriate uses but none of them erase or replace the universal experiences, like love and weeping and laughter, common to all human beings.

Time (again, Time) like the soul, wears many faces, many bodies and climates and attitudes. The past is one face, the present a second and the future yet another.

Millions cheer the warriorspilling blood across the ringwhile the one who stands for peaceis ridiculed and shamed.Must hearts forever sufferfrom ignorance and greed?Can bombs heal our soulsor set our spirits free?

Within the universe of the extraordinary, those qualities we designate to human concepts of gender are often shared, exchanged, or even completely obliterated. Because of this mixture of traits, these twins called Genius and Madness often appear to be the same thing. They both have a tendency to blur the lines of what we call norms, or established reality. They both, when we study that grand tapestry known as history and modern-day society, tend to stand out in much bolder relief than other figures.-- from Dancing with Madness, Dancing with Genius

It can be difficult to speak truth to power. Circumstances, however, have made doing so increasingly necessary.

In the days when hyenas of hate suckle the babes of men, and jackals of hypocrisy pimp their mothers’ broken hearts, may children not look to demons of ignorance for hope.

Love is our most unifying and empowering common spiritual denominator. The more we ignore its potential to bring greater balance and deeper meaning to human existence, the more likely we are to continue to define history as one long inglorious record of man’s inhumanity to man.

Passion presented with a greater challenge achieves a greater goal.-- from The Sexual Side of Spirituality

First steps are always the hardest but until they are taken the notion of progress remains only a notion and not an achievement.

Journey through the Power of the Rainbow represents a condensed compendium of literary efforts from a life dedicated to transforming the themes of injustice, grief, and despair that we all encounter during some unavoidable point of our existence into a sustainable life-affirming poetics of passionate creativity, empowered spiritual vision, and inspired commitment.

A poet is a verb that blossoms light in gardens of dawn, or sometimes midnight.

The acknowledgement of a single possibility can change everything.

Most people are slow to champion love because they fear the transformation it brings into their lives. And make no mistake about it: love does take over and transform the schemes and operations of our egos in a very mighty way.

Love, Mercy, and Grace, sisters all, attend your wounds of silence and hope.

Got just enough room to be a friend of yours. Oh I hope you got room to be a friend of mine.

Then came the healing time, hearts started to shine, soul felt so fine, oh what a freeing time it was.

The job facing American voters… in the days and years to come is to determine which hearts, minds and souls command those qualities best suited to unify a country rather than further divide it, to heal the wounds of a nation as opposed to aggravate its injuries, and to secure for the next generation a legacy of choices based on informed awareness rather than one of reactions based on unknowing fear.

The birth of a true poet is neither an insignificant event nor an easy delivery. Complications generally begin long before the fated soul carries its dubious light into whatever womb has been kind enough to volunteer the intricate machinery of its blood and prayers and muscles for a gestation period much longer than nine months or even nine years.

Love as a concrete foundation for an authentically functional civilization requires the around-the-clock labors of forgiveness. Without it, Love fails, Friendship fails, Intelligence fails, Humanity: fails.

Upon the lips of babes asleep I saw light embracing light and so allowed my syllables to rest there as a prayer they might sing in their dreams...