| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Old Indian Legends by Zitkala-Sa: the hunting season. Indian men, with bows and arrows, were wading
waist deep amid the wild rice. Near by, within their wigwams, the
wives were roasting wild duck and making down pillows.
In the largest teepee sat a young mother wrapping red
porcupine quills about the long fringes of a buckskin cushion.
Beside her lay a black-eyed baby boy cooing and laughing. Reaching
and kicking upward with his tiny hands and feet, he played with the
dangling strings of his heavy-beaded bonnet hanging empty on a tent
pole above him.
At length the mother laid aside her red quills and white
sinew-threads. The babe fell fast asleep. Leaning on one hand and
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Lesser Hippias by Plato: in a crisis of my disorder at which those who err voluntarily appear to me
better than those who err involuntarily. My present state of mind is due
to our previous argument, which inclines me to believe that in general
those who do wrong involuntarily are worse than those who do wrong
voluntarily, and therefore I hope that you will be good to me, and not
refuse to heal me; for you will do me a much greater benefit if you cure my
soul of ignorance, than you would if you were to cure my body of disease.
I must, however, tell you beforehand, that if you make a long oration to me
you will not cure me, for I shall not be able to follow you; but if you
will answer me, as you did just now, you will do me a great deal of good,
and I do not think that you will be any the worse yourself. And I have
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Phoenix and the Turtle by William Shakespeare: Love and constancy is dead;
Phoenix and the turtle fled
In a mutual flame from hence.
So they lov'd, as love in twain
Had the essence but in one;
Two distincts, division none:
Number there in love was slain.
Hearts remote, yet not asunder;
Distance, and no space was seen
'Twixt the turtle and his queen;
But in them it were a wonder.
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