Zin Quotes

“This light represents the finest of all of us: Our art, poetry and songs, discoveries, creations, and science. Our ability to pick ourselves up from a broken, mad, fractured life and feel part of another, and be part of whatever this universe is. To have a little bit of hope in spite of the madly ruthless, even horrific, drumbeat of history. In the midst of ruin, to discover some sort of unimaginable grace. To hide from death for yet one more day. On this, the darkest day, people will light a candle for all of that.”
― Ruth Ann Oskolkoff, Zin

“New Year’s Eve at the Witches’ Ball, with all the wiccans, druids, and pagans in their incredible costumes, was the best time of the year. Easily Zin’s favorite holiday, because the night was for everyone of all traditions, religions, and countries. Celebrated by anyone, anywhere, on that hour. It represented the boundary between years, this in-between time. Plus, that evening was about the moment. It was here now. Indisputably immediate.”
― Ruth Ann Oskolkoff, Zin

“The afternoon light glistened onto the green leaves. Tinkling bells that hung on a string moved slightly. A squirrel ran through the bushes, and a snail slowly made its way across a muddy corner, which was still damp from the morning.”
― Ruth Ann Oskolkoff, Zin

“That fire lives in every heart. Not only in the brightest. Not limited to the eminent.”
― Ruth Ann Oskolkoff, Zin

“To the rain over northern England, the coal under its top soil, and our ancestors who chanted to the winds.”
― Ruth Ann Oskolkoff, Zin

“The two friends enjoyed wandering through this place. It was small. Only a city block. Unobtrusive. This was where some of the pioneer workers of Seattle were laid to rest. Laborers who worked in sawmills. Regular folk born when Seattle was a mill town. Regular working class, now buried under ground stones. These folk had to fight to simply survive. Remembered by their children and grandchildren, they worked for a better tomorrow for those they loved. These people had smiled, and danced, and hoped. They had lived.

Now buried, most had no fancy education to show for their troubles. They were not part of the elite, yet those who lay here were great. These souls were not the most renowned or powerful, but were, in truth, the best of the world. As Zin and Obia wandered through, they saw various headstones were flat, unobtrusive, and resting in the grass. Right in the ground, without any markers.”
― Ruth Ann Oskolkoff, Zin

“The concert was magnificent. It was the second time she saw Floor and she loved them. Psychedelic rock. Indie. Hardcore. They always started with this great classic love song they sang a capella backstage while passing around some whisky. They each took a swig as they sang. The beautiful melodies that came out of this were amazing and the audience sang along. It was always a breathtaking moment.”
― Ruth Ann Oskolkoff, Zin

“The revolution began in the mid-twenty-first century, after a few earlier false starts. It essentially happened when the Gulf Stream suddenly stopped. The methane released from melting tundra was too much. Only then did people walk out to the streets. They were completely non-violent, but it was positively everyone. Civilization basically shut down. Each person brought something to make noise with, and the sound was deafening. Many had gathered in the centers of power and raised the decibel level.”
― Ruth Ann Oskolkoff, Zin

“They had freedom as before, but without their vast riches. These previously privileged had what everyone else did, and were not given compensation, like some had predicted. In an instant, they had been turned into regular human beings. In one loud terrifying moment, people became equal within the law and as recipient of benefits. Before then, the entire revolution had seemed impossible. Although it was amazingly bloodless, these changes were welcomed by most and only resisted by a minute number who still could not see the benefit.”
― Ruth Ann Oskolkoff, Zin

“Zin also thinks about what WikiLeaks did historically. This organization had revealed the United States war crimes. There would not have been a revolution unless the dirty secrets of the ruling powers were out in the open for all to see. If war crimes had remained hidden, it would have been plenty more of the same—more oil pipelines on Native lands, more war and killing of innocents, more homeless while the billionaires only got richer, more working people dying without even adequate healthcare and unable to make a living wage.”
― Ruth Ann Oskolkoff, Zin

“For even in the best times, people did tend to be a little thoughtless. Not realizing how miraculous it all was. Life itself was a marvel that most only treasured now and then. Time was brief.”
― Ruth Ann Oskolkoff, Zin

“They were calm and the doings of the night didn’t necessarily matter anymore. Their vibes were ecstatic notes that would float down the street to whoever heard. Melodies people would feel. Bliss that could be experienced as simple being. Then the sun would rise and the stars would be gone. The moment would fade like it always does.”
― Ruth Ann Oskolkoff, Zin

“Dave had carried the Zen bell, and rang it every few minutes with the tap of a small hammer. The sound was clear and beautiful. The tone was harmonious and rung out as the sun rose over the water. Some thought the sacred arose when a local action mirrored a more universal rhythm—like that morning. The sun rose. The bell rang out. The druids walked a pattern which resembled the sun’s movement. All one event.”
― Ruth Ann Oskolkoff, Zin

“Pia taught fourth-grade princesses, superheroes and villains found at the Kshama Sawant International Elementary School near Greenlake. That building took up the whole block and had about five hundred students. She’d been teaching for a while. It was one of the few jobs that got a little extra salary because of the special training required. That list was short and included physicians and nurses, teachers, and pilots. Teaching also included a bonus of four hundred a month extra, which Pia spent on travel, and her cat. Others had hobbies they loved, or personal projects.”
― Ruth Ann Oskolkoff, Zin

“For me, it’s a matter of always trying to see what the opposite perspective is. Of not blithely accepting that fortune equals happiness. Of looking deeper. Questioning the standard judgement of good and bad. Desirable and undesirable. Winner and loser. Seeing that more is not better—just more.”
― Ruth Ann Oskolkoff, Zin

“If we live, eventually we become some weird sort of pieced-together work of art. I think that’s what Dali, and Bosch, and Kahlo were talking about. And if you get to that point. That second life—as it were. That’s real living.”
― Ruth Ann Oskolkoff, Zin

“For Zin, it felt like the center of space and time, in that moment. As if the whole of the universe began and ended here, and there was nothing more central. It was a hallowed moment. Undeniably sacred. There was no individual ego, but rather a united circle. The Grand Entry moved in harmony with the spheres of the heavens. An energetic, circular hoop of energy and prayer in the form of tribal dancers.”
― Ruth Ann Oskolkoff, Zin

“Now we can arise from the ruins and do something better. We have freedom to explore the human soul. I believe in magic. In some sort of divine. In spirit. That we are all connected. I think modern subatomic physics informs what we know of the universe—that reality is strange, and connected where we don’t see it right away, that there is being, where our modern education has taught us there is only empty mechanistic material, as well as nothingness. But there surely is nobility. And beauty. And love. Yes, and miracles. And hope.”
― Ruth Ann Oskolkoff, Zin