Quotes: Martha Graham and Pablo Picasso

Dear Reader:

Here are two quotes from two of the most creative people of our time, Martha Graham, dancer, and Pablo Picasso, artist. I am not so vain as to place myself in the company of these two giants, but I want to add my own, "A Song of You."

"There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. ... No artist is pleased. There is] no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others"

— Martha Graham

“Each second we live is a new and unique moment of the universe, a moment that will never be again. And what do we teach our children? We teach them that two and two make four, and that Paris is the capital of France. When will we also teach them what they are? We should say to each of them: Do you know what you are? You are a marvel. You are unique. In all the years that have passed, there has never been another child like you. Your legs, your arms, your clever fingers, the way you move. You may become a Shakespeare, a Michelangelo, a Beethoven. You have the capacity for anything. Yes, you are a marvel. And when you grow up, can you then harm another who is, like you, a marvel? You must work, we must all work, to make the world worthy of its children.”

Pablo Picasso

Spanish Artist and Painter, 1881-1973

A song of you

A light that is not a light but a torch that burns forever with a brightness that illuminates all.

A song that is not a song but contains all the music that there ever was or will be.

A power that is not a power, but a potential of unparalleled exquisiteness.

A promise that is not a promise but a future certain waiting to unfold in the fullness of time.

A joy that fills every corner of the universe with incomparable beauty and exhilaration of life.

A knowing that is a knowing of all, past and future, and certainty beyond certainty.

A truth that envelopes the allness of all, that reaches beyond the beyond unto infinity.

This is a song of you, all of this and more, a thing of infinite beauty.

By L D Sledge, written May 17, 2007, upon hearing L. Ron Hubbard's lecture Decision: Cause and Effect, 20 May 1952, from Route To Infinity series, transcript pages 52-53.