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Chapter 15 - Reason and Passion |
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the priestess spoke again and said:
"Speak to us of Reason and Passion." |
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| And he answered, saying: Your soul is oftentimes
a battlefield, upon which your reason and your judgment
wage war against your passion and your appetite.
Would that I could be the peacemaker in your soul,
that I might turn the discord and the rivalry of
your elements into oneness and melody. But how shall
I, unless you yourselves be also the peacemakers,
nay, the lovers of all your elements? |
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| Your reason and your passion are the rudder and
the sails of your seafaring soul. If either your
sails or your rudder be broken, you can but toss
and drift, or else be held at a standstill in mid-seas.
For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and
passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its
own destruction. Therefore let your soul exalt your
reason to the height of passion, that it may sing; |
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| And let it direct your passion with reason, that
your passion may live through its own daily resurrection,
and like the phoenix rise above its own ashes. |
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| I would have you consider your judgment and your
appetite even as you would two loved guests m your
house. Surely you would not honour one guest above
the other; for he who is more mindful of one loses
the love and the faith of both. Among the hills,
when you sit in the cool shade of the white poplars,
sharing the peace and serenity of distant fields
and meadows-then let your heart say in silence, "God
rests in reason." And when the storm comes, and the
mighty wind shakes the forest, and thunder and lightning
proclaim the majesty of the sky,-then let your heart
say in awe, "God moves in passion." And since you
are a breath in God's sphere, and a leaf in God's
forest, you too should rest in reason and move in
passion. |
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