Terry Pratchett

"Tiffany thought, Is this the right song for a funeral? And then she thought, Of course it is. It's a wonderful tune and it tells us that one day all of us will die but--and this is the important thing--we are not dead yet."

"That's the thing about witchcraft... We don't do much magic at the best of times, and when we do, we general do it on ourselves."

"Remember the job that is in front of you! Balance! Balance is the thing. Hold balance in the center."

"There isn't a way things /should/ be. There's just what happens, and what we do."

"Change the story, change the world."

from 'The Leaping Hare' by George Ewart Evans

(D)arkness is driven out by daylight and the destruction of life is succeeded by new growth. Fear is succeeded by the joy of re-creation, which in a minor way can be experienced every morning. But while the darkness or the flood is going on there seems to the frightened person no certainty that it will ever end. The same is true of a depressive state of mind. Spiritual enlightenment or mere happiness strike the depressive man from time to time like the sun through a window from which a black blind has suddenly been torn. The hare is a symbol of enlightenment, not only of the spirit but of the  dawn of the day and the dawn of the year which we call spring. 

What could look more barren than a dried-up seed in winter, its husk as hard as the frozen earth? ... (but) it is clear that the seeds of life were saved. The Flood is the story of death and resurrection, winter and spring, the darkness of the soul and its creative light. 

(and, longer version - )

The original creation is repeated every morning and every spring but there is always the fear that the little death of sleep and the longer one of winter will one day last for ever. What could look more barren than a dried-up seed in winter, its husk as hard as the frozen earth? This fear is expressed in the story of the Flood. The conception of flood as the end of life on Earth is universal. Stories almost identical with the Old Testament one occur all over the world. But as those who know them are alive to tell the tale, and have animals and plants, about them, it is clear that the seeds of life were saved. The Flood is the story of death and resurrection, winter and spring, the darkness of the soul and its creative light.




(The Ark as a metaphor of the husk of a seed, with all the life inside to create new life.) 



There is no death without resurrection and the house of the creator, the bringer of light and life, is in the East.

It is difficult to trace (superstitions) back to their origins but easy to recognize the human need they served, which is one of the hungers imagination. (...) No one, child or adult, can safely dispense with the illogical. Its exclusion causes neurosis and part of the cure for such neurosis is found by some psychologists in the use of oracular methods. ... These (ancient arts of divination) often bring peace of mind to the anxious; they guide people towards a decision in matters where reasoning alone cannot help. .. Highly developed forms of augury are the reverse of rational. By providing a framework within which the imagination of the diviner must work, by setting limits to a complex problem, they encourage intuition and help people to make decision in cases where no amount of reasoning will help. 

(The importance of allowing for random chance -- NOT thinking or conscious thought. From something below the power of reason.)