20 Quotes by Deena Metzger

To be willing to live within the imagination is to commit oneself to the gathering together of the pieces that might begin to form a self. To avoid this territory is to avoid the encounters that might validate, inform, or enhance one’s experience.

When Stories nestle in the body, soul comes forth.

There are mythic patterns under all of our lives. Each one of us, often unbeknownst to ourselves, is engaged in a drama of soul that is not reserved only for gods, heroes, and saints. Story is one bridge between the human realm and the divine.

The world of public discourse – political, social, diplomatic, commercial – has so corrupted language that we are rightly more suspicious of the meaning of words than we are convinced of their veracity. Language has been turned on its head.

To follow Story is to understand the path of healing. Each of our stories is a universe. Each one of us is living a story. To discover its shape and essence is essential to soul making.

For those who do not wish to step away from consensus, the creative is useless at best; at worst, it is dangerous.

It’s what we do for each other that heals.

Eighty percent of language lies to us.

If the journal is the jumble of raw material – blood, bones, sinews – and a poem is the cell, the impulse, the story is the entire animal.