Value your parabatai," he said. "For it is a precious bond. All love is precious. It is why we do what we do. Why do we fight demons? Why are they not fit custodians of this world? What makes us better? It is because they do not build, but destroy. They do not love, but hate only. We are human and fallible, we Shadowhunters. But if we did not have the capability to love, we could not guard humans; we must love to guard them. My parabatai, he loved like few ever could love, with all and everything. I see you are like that too; it burns more brightly in you than the fire of Heaven

and I told myself -- as I've told myself before -- that the body shuts down then the pain gets too bad, that consciousness is temporary, that this will pass. But just like always, I didn't slip away. I was left on the shore with the waves washing over me, unable to drown.

Could you imagine a windstorm without the rustling of the leaves? You are made of the same stuff as the leaves__nd the wind. You are meant to be rustled and sung.

Only by honoring the greater truths (the macrocosmic truth) may we begin to honor our subjective truths (our microcosmic truth). This is a recognition of the greater mystery of life and a deep honoring of being a child of that great mystery. In that profound recognition rests the awareness that the same macrocosmic mystery is within us, and it manifests and takes its course in many ways. When we simply recognize this fundamental aspect of the nature of existence, we can begin to understand its presence in our lives. And then finding ourselves moving away from the career or relationship we thought we__ be in for the rest of our life is less of a shock or a __omething must be wrong_ and more of a deep, humble sigh of __lright, okay, here we go, and so it is._ This is the way life moves. We do not hold the reins, and to feign so creates only pain. Evolution necessitates change.

When your chair is positioned facing the wall, you see the wall. When it is positioned facing the sea, you see the sea. The same is true for us. Perspective is everything. Align with the divine.

As we stand before this sacred doorway [the doorway to meaning], we realize its response to us is conditional, albeit only in the sense that it__ reflective. If we stand before it arrogant and haughty, indeed the door will remained locked. If we stand before it in doubt, it will disappear. If we knock upon it distracted, our minds somewhere else, we fail to see it open. Anyone in the world can go through it, and there could never be a key. Yet it opens only when we approach it in a certain, truthful way. Otherwise, we may not notice its openness and its infinite offering again and again.