Until you make the Unconscious Conscious,
It will direct your life—and you will call it Fate.²
Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our
Private opinion—which is which determines our Fate.³
Superiority to Fate is difficult to gain: ‘tis not
Conferred of any—but possible to Earn—⁴
Accept whatever comes woven
In the pattern of your Destiny—for
What could more aptly fit your Needs?⁵
Out from the cruel, lashing sting of the world’s merciless hate—
The soul to the Desert comes to grapple its chance with Fate.⁶
As one’s real Power grows & their knowledge widens,
Ever the way they can follow grows narrower—
Until at last they choose nothing, but do
Only & wholly what they must.⁷
Destiny is a calling that
Creates a beautiful Journey.⁸
To whomsoever fate comes from without,
It Kills as the arrow kills the deer—
To whomsoever Fate comes from Within,
It empowers them and makes them a God.⁹
We are Dancers, Singers, and Laughers—Laughers?
Yes, laughers, laughers, laughers—
Loud-Mouthed Laughers,
In the hands of Fate!¹⁰
¹ Gene Derwood, Elegy
² Carl Jung tr. unknown, Aion
³ Henry David Thoreau, Walden
⁴ Emily Dickinson, Superiority to Fate
⁵ Marcus Aurelius tr. unknown
⁶ Yolande Langworthy, Drifting Sands and a Caravan
⁷ Ursula K. Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea
⁸ Adrienne Maree Brown, Emergent Strategy
⁹ Hermann Hesse tr. Ralph Freedman, quoted in introduction to Siddhartha
¹⁰ Langston Hughes, Laughers