Protection is sensible and artistic.  In this country we know her as a craftswoman.  For her living she makes capes and weaves shawls.  She has also been a mid-wife.  She notices that some people insist on wearing her garments far into the hot season.  Others refuse to put a cloak on even when they are cold.

Protection has lived in many kinds of houses.  Always the walls are decorated with rugs and blankets from around the world.  She has studied ancient architecture and the habits of butterflies and spiders.  When the caterpillar is dying and the new butterfly is yet to be born, it constructs a chrysalis.  We also have this need.  However, many of us are too proud or have forgotten how to go inside.  Protection has learned from the butterflies how to make a chrysalis for the changing human heart.

by Ruth Gendler, Book of Qualities

Wisdom wears an indigo jacket.
She takes long walks in the purple hills at twilight,
pausing to meditate at an old temple near the crossroads.
She was sick as a young child so she learned to be alone with herself at an early age.

Wisdom has a quiet mind.
She likes to think about the edges where things spill
into each other and become their opposites.
She knows how to look at things inside and out.
Sometimes her eyes go out to the thing she is looking at,
and sometimes the thing she is looking at enters through her eyes.
Questions of time, depth, and balance interest her.
She is not looking for answers.

The Book of Qualities ~ J. Ruth Gendler

Creativity is not efficient. She has a different relationship to time than most of us. A minute can last a day and a day can last an hour. She loves all the seasons. She is on intimate terms with the sun and the moon. It is New Year’s all year long at her house, what with celebrations for the Celtic, Hebrew, Tibetan, Chinese, Japanese, and other New Years too numerous to mention. Creativity loves to gossip with the birds and put on her masks and beads and dance with the animals. Although bright colors amuse her, she most often wears neutral tones. She is especially partial to off-white.

Some people consider Creativity selfish because she does what she wants. I have always found her to be gracious and most generous. She is certainly complex. If you have only met her in a serene mood her flair for drama may offend you. She is not your aunt with the porcelain teapot who plays chamber music. If you are one of those people who only go to see her when she is starring in a major melodrama, you will not hear her rain songs. If you insist she is mad, you will never see how still her face is when she returns from a dream.

Sometimes Creativity disappears completely or wanders around the back alleys for weeks at a time. She has a strong need to be occasionally anonymous. If you run into her at the post office line during one of these periods, you will probably not recognize her. She is in a different place. It is almost as if her blood has slowed down. When the blank period is over, Creativity brings her free self home with her. Her skin is new. She is ready to work. More than anyone else, Creativity understands the secret meanings of the months when nothing seems to get done.

From The Book of Qualities by J. Ruth Gendler