balance & vulnerability

"when we think of balance, we think everything has to be equal. we don't even think everything has to be equal; we really say everything has to be identical to the standard of measurement we are applying, in this case, ten pounds of lead weights, and nothing must ever move. if nothing ever moves, everything dies. and that is the interesting thing about extreme orderliness in the law and order sense of the word. what happens in fact in a system that demands absolute order is that you get an enormous amount of unnecessary death, a tremendous amount."

"and what is vulnerability? just this: the ability to be wrong, to be foolish, to be weak and silly, to be an idiot. it is the ability to accept one's unworthiness, to accept one's vanity for what it is. it's the ability to be whatever and whoever you are - recognizing that you, like the world, like the earth, are fragile, and that in your fragility lies all the possibility of growth and of death, and that the two are one in the same."

-paula gunn allen, off the reservation