As Roran watched, the man's arms, neck, and chest shriveled, and his bones appeared in sharp relief-from the bowlike curve of his collarbones to the hollow saddle of his hips, where his stomach hung like an empty waterskin. His lips puckered and drew back farther than they were intended to over his yellow teeth, baring them in a grisly snarl, while his eyeballs deflated as if they were engorged ticks being squished empty of blood, and the surrounding flesh sank inward.

Well, yeah, you listen to a talking snake and there's gonna be trouble.

Love is stronger than both fear and hope - if you can love the natural beauty around you, the amazing gifts and skills we have, the fact that you are alive to experience life, each moment that you have, and love yourself and those around you just as they are, then there is no need to be owned by fear, or even hope, you just live the best you can, being the truth of that love that you are being, representing the stream of consciousness experiencing itself, always knowing that you will someday return to it again, and flow as part of it infinitely on.

Everything that God sends us is beautiful, even though we may not understand it - and we only need to give it some proper thought to see that what God gives is just sheer happiness; the suffering is what we add to it.

We are souls, eternal and perfect, captains of our mystic ships: gods and goddesses of our universe. We are beautiful, we pearls of grit. We, the ember of everything. Our uniqueness IS what makes us special, and the expression of it is our gift to the rest of us. In order to feel happy and fulfilled, we must honour our own personal brand of creativity... let it out into the world... BE who we came here to BE.

If you could see your whole life laid out before you, there__ be no reason to live it, right?