To Anais Nin On Her Birthday

(February 21, 1903–January 14, 1977)

Anais Nin was a prolific diarist, novelist and poet.  She is one of my favorite authors and I wrote this little poem in her honor a few years back. (Her name is pronounced "ana-eese Neen").   Her diaries are works of art and voyeuristic trips into the mind of an amazing, unique woman. 

"We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection." ~Anais Nin

 To Anais Nin on Her Birthday
By Marion

I was hungry for a muse,
starving for inspiration,
when you came to me
and fed me,
filling me with your words
expanding my little world
changing me
forever.

Woman-child,
Queen of artifice,
keeper of the gates
of feminine mystery,
I thank you
for having the courage
to have lived your life
as no other woman has
before you
or since.



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A few of my favorite quotes by Anais Nin:

Each friend represents a world in us, a world not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born. ~Anais Nin

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I postpone death by living, by suffering, by error, by risking, by giving, by losing. ~Anais Nin

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A leaf fluttered in through the window this morning, as if supported by the rays of the sun, a bird settled on the fire escape, joy in the task of coffee, joy accompanied me as I walked. ~Anais Nin

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And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. ~Anais Nin

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Dreams pass into the reality of action. From the actions stems the dream again; and this interdependence produces the highest form of living. ~Anais Nin

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It is the function of art to renew our perception. What we are familiar with we cease to see. The writer shakes up the familiar scene, and, as if by magic, we see a new meaning in it. ~Anais Nin

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Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death. ~Anais Nin

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There is not one big cosmic meaning for all, there is only the meaning we each give to our life, an individual meaning, an individual plot, like an individual novel, a book for each person.  ~Anais Nin

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