Jonathan Livingston Seagull, a story by Richard Bach

 

"Irresponsibility? My brothers!" he cried. "Who is more responsible than a gull who finds and follows a meaning, a higher purpose for life? For a thousand years we have srabbled after fish heads, but now we have a reason to live  - to learn, to discover, to be free!"

"Jonathan Seagull spent the rest of his days alone, but he flew way out beyond the Far Cliffs. His one sorrow was not solitude, it was that other gulls refused to believe the glory of flight that awaited them; they refused to open their eyes and see."

"Do you have any idea how many lives we must have gone through before we even got the first idea that there is more to life than eating, or fighting, or power in the Flock?

...we choose our next world through what we learn in this one. Learn nothing and the next world is the same as this one, all the same limitations and lead weights to overcome."

"No, Jonathan, there is no such place. Heaven is not a place, and it is not a time. Heaven is being perfect."

"Perfect speed, my son, is being there."

"'You can go to any place and to any time you wish to go,' the Elder said. 'I've gone everywhere and everwhen I can think of.' He looked across the sea. 'It's strange, the gulls who scorn perfection for the sake of travel, go nowhere, slowly. Those who put aside travel for the sake of perfection go anywhere, instantly. Remember, Jonathan, heaven isn't a place or a time, because place and time are so very meaningless. Heaven is..."

"...The trick was to know his true nature lived, as perfect as an unwritten number, everywhere at once across space and time."

"But then the day came that Chiang vanished. He had been talking quietly with them all, exhorting them never to stop their learning and their practicing and their striving to understand more of the perfect invisible principle of all life. Then, as he spoke, his feathers went brighter and brighter and at last turned so brilliant that no gull could look upon him.

'Jonathan,' he said, and these were the last words that he spoke, 'keep working on love.'"

"'Your whole body, from wingtip to wingtip,' Jonathan would say, other times, 'is nothing more than your thought itself, in a form you can see. Break the chains of your thought, and you break the chains of your body, too...'"

The Halloween Tree - Ray Bradbury

"There must have been a thousand pumpkins on this tree, hung high and on every branch. A thousand smiles. A thousand grimaces. And twice-times-a-thousand glares and winks and blinks and leerings of fresh-cut eyes. And as the boys watched, a new thing happened. The pumpkins began to come alive..."

"...It's big, it's broad... 

it's broad, it's bright... 

it fills the sky of All Hallows' Night..."

"The strangest sight you've ever seen.

The Monster Tree on Halloween."

"The leaves have burnt to gold and red

The grass is brown, the old year dead,

But hang the harvest high, Oh see!

The candle constellations on the Halloween Tree."

"The stars they turn, the candles burn

And the mouse-leaves scurry on the cold wind bourne,

And a mob of smiles shine down on thee

From the gourds hung high on the Halloween Tree."

"The smile of the Witch, and the smile of the Cat,

the smile of the Beast, the smile of the Bat,

The smile of the Reaper taking his fee,

All cut and glimmer on the Halloween Tree..."

"...O dear sweet dead, come home, and welcome here. 

Lost in the dark but always dear. 

Do not wander, do not roam. 

Dear ones, come home."

Earthlight 2000