When anyone seriously pursues ...

When anyone seriously pursues an art - painting, poetry, sculpture, composing - over twenty or thirty years, the sustained discipline carries the artist down to the countryside of grief, and that descent, resisted so long proves invigorating. . . . As I've gotten older, I find I am able to be nourished more by sorrow and to distinguish it from depression.
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 Robert Bly

Quotes from the same author

The inner boy in a messed-up family may keep on being shamed, invaded, disappointed, and paralyzed for years and years. "I am a victim," he says, over and over; and he is. But that very identification with victimhood keeps the soul house open and available for still more invasions. Most American men today do not have enough awakened or living warriors inside to defend their soul houses. And most people, men or women, do not know what genuine outward or inward warriors would look like, or feel like.
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 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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 Robert Bly
In the society that has replaced the paternalistic society, women are able to develop their independent and social energies much more. That is good.
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 Robert Bly
There are very few adults in our culture able to imagine any genuine life coming from the vertical plane - tradition, religion, or devotion.
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 Robert Bly
As I've gotten older, I find I am able to be nourished more by sorrow and to distinguish it from depression.
 See image
 Robert Bly