"Affirmation"

In the infinity of life where I am, all is perfect, whole and complete.
I live in harmony and balance with everyone I know.

Deep at the centre of my being, there is an infinite well of love. I now allow this love to flow to the surface. It fills my heart, my body, my mind, my consciousness, my very being, and radiates out from me in all directions and returns to me multiplied. The more love I use and give, the more I have to give, the supply is endless. The use of love makes me feel good, it is an expression of my inner joy. I love myself; therefore, I take loving care of my body. I lovingly feed it nourishing foods and beverages, I lovingly groom it and dress it and my body lovingly responds to me with vibrant health and energy. I love myself; therefore, I provide for myself a comfortable home, one that fills all my needs and is a pleasure to be in. I fill the rooms with the vibration of love so that all who enter, myself included, will feel this love and be nourished by it.
I love myself; therefore, I work at a job that I truly enjoy doing, one that uses my creative talents and abilities, working with and for people that I love and that love me, and earning a good income. I love myself; therefore, I behave and think in a loving way to all people, for I know that that which I give out returns to me multiplied.; I only attract loving loving people in my world, for they are a mirror of what I am. I love myself; therefore, I forgive and totally release the past and all past experiences and I am free. I love myself; therefore, I live totally in the now. experiencing each moment as good and knowing that my future is bright and joyous and secure, for I am a beloved child of the universe and the universe lovingly takes care of me now and forever more. And, so it is.

Author: "You Can Heal Your Life" by Louise Hay
Image: myspace.com

Shadow Beliefs

What Do You Believe?

Uncovering Your Shadow Beliefs
A "Shadow Belief" is an unconscious belief that influences our entire lives, tells us what we can and can not do, and drives our behaviors. Life coaches Debbie Ford and Cheryl Richardson have helped thousands of people uncover their shadow beliefs...including Oprah!

More About Shadow Beliefs
According to Cheryl Richardson, some of your shadow beliefs are preventing you from getting what you want in life. Most people know they have these beliefs, but are taught to hide them because we are ashamed and embarrassed. But you can overcome them and live your best life! There's nobody in the world smarter about you than you!
Do you believe any of the following statements? — There is something wrong with me. I cannot trust anyone. I'm not lovable. I don't deserve to have what I want. Love does not last. I am worthless. I am never going to be successful. — If you've checked off any of the previous statements, you have shadow beliefs that need your attention.

Three Steps to Uncover Your Shadow Beliefs
Life coach Debbie Ford [The Dark Side of the Light Chasers] says that we can all find what is holding us back in life. Start with these three steps and simple exercises. Debbie says, "To go deeper, you have to be radically honest with yourself. All of your emotions are there to guide you."
Step One: Get in touch with your pain and emotions. "You can't heal if you can't feel," says Debbie.
Step Two: Once you're feeling that pain or emotion, try and connect it to your past to uncover where that pattern of pain began.
Step Three: Embark on a healing ritual that will help you surrender that pain and anger once and for all.

Exercises to Uncover Your Shadow Beliefs
Shadow beliefs cause us to make the same mistakes over and over again. Try these simple exercises for uncovering these beliefs.
Exercise One: For one week, whenever you find yourself overreacting to another person's behavior, ask yourself: What traits in that person are you trying to disown in yourself?
Exercise Two: Also, make a list of the advice you give others and ask yourself if the advice is appropriate for your life. Cheryl Richardson often says, "We often teach what we need to learn."

Family Shadow Beliefs — Shadow beliefs often resurface during the holidays or other times when you are around family—home is the birthplace of shadow beliefs. Uncover why family and the holidays stir up these beliefs, and how you can turn a stressful experience into a journey of self-discovery. -continue here-
Transform Your Family Shadow Beliefs — Five steps. -continue here-
Uncover Shadow Beliefs — Four steps. -continue here-

Image w/parable: The Black Pearl - Crystalinks

The Power of Myth

I. Myth and the Modern World - People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life. I don't think that's what we're really seeking. I think that what we're seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.

II. The Journey Inward - One thing that comes out in myths is that at the bottom of the abyss comes the voice of salvation. The black moment is the moment when the real message of transformation is going to come. At the darkest moment comes the light.

III. The First Storytellers - The animal envoys of the Unseen Power no longer serve, as in primeval times, to teach and to guide mankind. Bears, lions, elephants, ibexes, and gazelles are in cages in our zoos. Man is no longer the newcomer in a world of unexplored plains and forests, and our immediate neighbors are not wild beasts but other human beings, contending for goods and space on a planet that is whirling without end around the fireball of a star. Neither in body now in mind do we inhabit the world of those hunting races of the Paleolithic millennia, to whose lives and life ways we nevertheless owe the very forms of our bodies and structures of our minds. Memories of their animal envoys still must sleep, somehow, within us; for they wake a little and stir when we venture into wilderness. They wake in terror to thunder. And again they wake, with a sense of recognition, when we enter any one of those great painted caves. Whatever the inward darkness may have been to which the shamans of those caves descended in their trances, the same must lie within ourselves, nightly visited in sleep.

IV. Sacrifice and Bliss - If you follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Wherever you are—if you are following your bliss, you are enjoying that refreshment, that life within you, all the time.

V. The Hero's Adventure - Furthermore, we have not even to risk the adventure alone, for the heroes of all time have gone before us. The labyrinth is thoroughly known. We have only to follow the thread of the hero path, and where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall slay ourselves. Where we had thought to travel outward, we will come to the center of our own existence. And where we had thought to be alone, we will be with all the world.

VI. The Gift of the Goddess - Myths of the Great Goddess teach compassion for all living beings. There you come to appreciate the real sanctity of the earth itself, because it is the body of the Goddess.

VII. Tales of Love and Marriage - So through the eyes love attains the heart: For the eyes are the scouts of the heart, And the eyes go reconnoitering For what it would please the heart to possess. And when they are in full accord And firm, all three, in the one resolve, At that time, perfect love is born From what the eyes have made welcome to the heart. Not otherwise can love either be born or have commencement Than by this birth and commencement moved by inclination. By the grace and by command Of these three, and from their pleasure, Love is born, who its fair hope Goes comforting her friends. For as all true lovers Know, love is perfect kindness, Which is born—there is no doubt—from the heart and eyes. The eyes make it blossom; the heart matures it: Love, which is the fruit of their very seed. -Guiraut de Borneilh (ca 1138-1200?)

VIII. Masks of Eternity - The images of myth are reflections of the spiritual potentialities of every one of us. Through contemplating these, we evoke their powers in our own lives.

Author: "The Power of Myth", 1988 by Joseph Campbell, (1904-1987)

The Call

Discovering Why You Are Here

I have heard it all my life, A voice calling a name I recognized as my own.
Sometimes it comes as a soft-bellied whisper. Sometimes it holds an edge of urgency.
But always it says: Wake up my love. You are walking asleep. There's no safety in that!
Remember what you are and let this knowing take you home to the Beloved with every breath.
Hold tenderly who you are and let a deeper knowing colour the shape of your humanness.
There is no where to go. What you are looking for is right here.
Open the fist clenched in wanting and see what you already hold in your hand.
There is no waiting for something to happen, no point in the future to get to.
All you have ever longed for is here in this moment, right now.
You are wearing yourself out with all this searching. Come home and rest.
How much longer can you live like this?
Your hungry spirit is gaunt, your heart stumbles. All this trying. Give it up!
Let yourself be one of the God-mad, faithful only to the Beauty you are.
Let the Lover pull you to your feet and hold you close, dancing even when fear urges you to sit this one out.
Remember—there is one word you are here to say with your whole being.
When it finds you, give your life to it. Don't be tight-lipped and stingy.
Spend yourself completely on the saying. Be one word in this great love poem we are writing together.

Author: "The Call, Discovering Why You Are Here" by Oriah Mountain Dreamer, 2003
Image: "Key to Eternity" by Josephine Wall - This image is all about the mystery of time. The lovers shown in negative form are Time Lords responsible for the smooth passage of time, and the key to eternity. He wears a blindfold to avoid distraction and to concentrate his thoughts on his important task. According to the language of flowers the White Poplar is said to represent time and the maiden wears a crown of its timeless leaves with their brilliant silver undersides. The water carrier represents the new age - 'Age of Aquarius' - and the past by the ancient stone circle within the everlasting clock. The girl sitting beside the clock carries a needle perhaps to put a 'stitch in time'. The wise old owl looks on as the dandelion clocks shed their seeds continuing the everlasting circle of life. This is only one interpretation…

The Way of the Eagle

The Chicken and the Eagle / The Parable of the Eagle

One day a naturalist who was passing by a farm saw in the barnyard a flock of chickens, and among them was an eagle. The naturalist inquired of the owner why it was that an eagle, the king of all birds, should be reduced to living in the barnyard with the chickens.
"Since I have given it chicken feed and trained it to be a chicken, it has never learned to fly," replied the owner. "It behaves as chickens behave, so it no longer thinks of itself as an eagle."
"Still," insisted the naturalist, "it has the heart of an eagle and can surely be taught to fly."
After talking it over, the two men agreed to find out whether this was possible. Gently, the naturalist took the eagle in his arms and said, "You belong to the sky and not to the earth. Stretch forth your wings and fly."
The eagle, however, was confused; he did not know who he was. Seeing the chickens eating their food, he jumped down to be with them again.
Undismayed, the naturalist took the eagle on the following day up on the roof of the house and urged him again, saying, "You are an eagle. Stretch forth your wings and fly." But the eagle was afraid of his unknown self and the world and jumped down once more for the chicken food.
On the third day the naturalist rose early and took the eagle out of the barnyard to a high mountain. There he held the king of the birds high above him and encouraged him again, saying, "You are an eagle. You belong to the sky as well as the earth. Stretch forth your wings now and fly."
The eagle looked back towards the barnyard and up to the sky. Still he did not fly. Then the naturalist lifted him straight towards the sun, and it happened: the eagle began to tremble; slowly he stretched his wings. At last, with a triumphant cry he soared into the heavens.
It may be that the eagle still remembers the chickens with nostalgia; it may even be that he occasionally revisits the barnyard. But as far as anyone knows, he has never returned to lead the life of a chicken. He was an eagle, though he had been kept and tamed as a chicken.
And just like the eagle, people who have learned to think of themselves as something they aren't can re-decide in favor of what they really are.

The story of the eagle in the chicken yard is our story, a story about accepting something about ourselves that is not true -- that we are chickens, unable to fly -- and living as if it were true. We think we are chickens because we have accepted a perception about ourselves that is the chicken philosophy of life. In truth, we really are eagles with the potential to soar, to be free to experience our real essence: love, joy, peace, freedom. But alas, we find ourselves in the chicken yard feeling confused and fearful, and with no sense of life, purpose or direction...

Excerpts: "The Way of the Eagle" by Jerry Fankhauser, 1986
Image: "Clarity Of Vision, Strength Of Spirit, Courage Of Heart" by Jody Bergsma
[This really makes me think of one of my favorite little books: "Jonathan Livingston Seagull" by Richard Bach, 1976]

The New Civilization

We are here.
We are waking up now, out of the past, to dream a bigger dream.
We are friends and equals, we are diverse and unique, and we're united for something bigger than our differences.
We believe in freedom and cooperation, abundance and harmony.
We are a culture emerging, a renaissance of the essence of humanity.
We find our own guidance, and we discern our own truth.
We go in many directions, and yet we refuse to disperse.
We have many names, we speak many languages.
We are local, we are global.
We are in all regions of the world, we're everywhere in the air.
We are universe being aware of itself, we are the wave of evolution.
We are in every child's eyes, we face the unknown with wonder and excitement.
We are messengers from the future, living in the present.
We come from silence, and we speak our truth.
We cannot be quieted, because our voice is within everyone.
We have no enemies, no boundaries can hold us.
We respect the cycles and expressions of nature, because we are nature.
We don't play to win, we play to live and learn.
We act out of inspiration, love and integrity.
We explore, we discover, we feel, and we laugh.
We are building a world that works for everyone.
We endeavor to live our lives to their fullest potential.
We are independent, self-sufficient and responsible.
We relate to each other in peace, with compassion and respect, we unite in community.
We celebrate the wholeness within and around us all.
We dance to the rhythm of creation.
We weave the threads of the new times.
We are the new civilization.

Author: "Ming the Mechanic" Flemming Funch, founder of New Civilization Network
[Printed in LightShift 2000 by Ken Kalb and Always in Season by Donna Henes]
Image: crystalinks.com

Pearls of Wisdom

All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be,
I learned in kindergarten.

Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sandpile at Sunday School. These are the things that I learned: Share everything, Play fair, Don't hit people, Put things back where you found them, Clean up your mess, Don't take things that aren't yours, Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody, Wash your hands before you eat, Flush. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you, Live a balanced life; learn some and think some, and draw and paint and sing and dance, and play and work every day some. Take a nap every afternoon, When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together, Be aware of wonder, -continue here-

Author: Robert Fulghum
Image:

"Meditation"

Meditation for the Fully Realized Woman

I am a BEAUTIFUL WOMAN, with a beauty that doesn't wash off. I earned it, unearthed it, rescued it like a jewel in the dust, picked it up and made it shine.
For years, I did not see it, though I sensed it was there. Now it dazzles and thrives.
I am healthy, capable, independent, strong yet still so fragile, floored by a sigh. My body is that of a creator—angles meeting curves, hardness drifting into soft.
I am mother, daughter, sister, lover to myself. Embraceable and brave, I extend my heart.
My body is home, my home a shrine to life, comfortable, warm and rich with treasures. Mine is the scent of hot spices caught in a breeze, mine the laughter that wings through the door. I share myself only with those who honor me as I am and protect myself, my house, and my time from invaders.
I search for my center in the midst of chaos, practice peace as wild dogs clamor in my mind. I use power for the greater good, release rage in neutral settings, with no one innocent in the line of fire.
I am learning how to persist and when to let go, am willing to feel all emotion stop their depths and exaltations, to wake up in every nerve and no longer am afraid of my life.
Both my beauty and strength transcend age, time and perhaps even this lifetime.
Each day I am new, yet more at home in myself. Moment by moment, I create my world.

Excerpt: "A Women's Book of Strength; An Empowering Guide to Total Mind/Body Fitness" by Karen Andes
Image: "The Three Graces" by Josephine Wall - Three inseparable sisters—daughters of Zeus, representing all that is noble, beautiful and pure, keep watch from above. Aglaia (brightness) symbolised by brightly coloured butterflies, Euphrosyne (joyfulness) symbolised by the joyful sound of birdsong, and Thalia (bloom) symbolised by a headdress of flowers. Above all they were goddesses, noble of grace, and a beauty which enchants. Their hair and faces shine with radiant beauty, looking down from Mount Olympus.

The Dance

Moving to the Deep Rhythms of Your Life

I have sent you my invitation, the note inscribed on the palm of my hand by the fire of living. Don’t jump up and shout, “Yes, this is what I want! Let’s do it!” Just stand up quietly and dance with me.
Show me how you follow your deepest desires, spiraling down into the ache within the ache, and I will show you how I reach inward and open outward to feel the kiss of the Mystery, sweet lips on my own, every day.
Don’t tell me you want to hold the whole world in your heart. Show me how you turn away from making another wrong without abandoning yourself when you are hurt and afraid of being unloved.
Tell me a story of who you are, and see who I am in the stories I live. And together we will remember that each of us always has a choice.
Don’t tell me how wonderful things will be... some day. Show me you can risk being completely at peace, truly okay with the way things are right now in this moment, and again in the next and the next and the next...
I have heard enough warrior stories of heroic daring. Tell me how you crumble when you hit the wall, the place you cannot go beyond by the strength of your own will. What carries you to the other side of that wall, to the fragile beauty of your own humanness?
And after we have shown each other how we have set and kept the clear, healthy boundaries that help us live side by side with each other, let us risk remembering that we never stop silently loving those we once loved out loud.
Take me to the places on the earth that teach you how to dance, the places where you can risk letting the world break your heart. And I will take you to the places where the earth beneath my feet and the stars overhead make my heart whole again and again.
Show me how you take care of business without letting business determine who you are. When the children are fed but still the voices within and around us shout that soul’s desires have too high a price, let us remind each other that it is never about the money.
Show me how you offer to your people and the world the stories and the songs you want our children’s children to remember. And I will show you how I struggle not to change the world, but to love it.
Sit beside me in long moments of shared solitude, knowing both our absolute aloneness and our undeniable belonging. Dance with me in the silence and in the sound of small daily words, holding neither against me at the end of the day.
And when the sound of all the declarations of our sincerest intentions has died away on the wind, dance with me in the infinite pause before the next great inhale of the breath that is breathing us all into being, not filling the emptiness from the outside or from within.
Don’t say, “Yes!” Just take my hand and dance with me.

Author: "The Dance" by Oriah Mountain Dreamer, 2001
Image: "Minerva's Melody" by Josephine Wall - As the goddess Minerva glides gently down the eternal river of life, leaving her heavenly citadel in her wake, she sets about her task of composing beautiful music. She is accompanied by her constant companion, and confidant - the 'owl of wisdom'. Together they travel throughout the world bringing the magic of her melodies to all. Arum lilies bearing candles light their way, and illuminate the wisteria growing from her enchanted harp. Music is a universal language understood and loved by every nation on earth - what a debt we owe to Minerva.

The Celestine Insights

1. A Critical Mass - A new spiritual awakening is occurring in human culture, an awakening brought about by a critical mass of individuals who experience their lives as a spiritual unfolding, a journey in which we are led forward by mysterious coincidences.

2. The Longer Now - This awakening represents the creation of a new, more complete worldview, which replaces a five-hundred-year-old preoccupation with secular survival and comfort. While this technological preoccupation was an important step, our awakening to life's coincidences is opening us up to the real purpose of human life on this planet, and the real nature of our universe.

3. A Matter of Energy - We now experience that we live not in a material universe, but in a universe of dynamic energy. Everything extant is a field of sacred energy that we can sense and intuit. Moreover, we humans can project our energy by focusing our attention in the desired direction...where attention goes, energy flows...influencing other energy systems and increasing the pace of coincidences in our lives.

4. The Struggle for Power - Too often humans cut themselves off from the greater source of this energy and so feel weak and insecure. To gain energy we tend to manipulate or force others to give us attention and thus energy. When we successfully dominate others in this way, we feel more powerful, but they are left weakened and often fight back. Competition for scarce, human energy is the cause of all conflict between people.

5. The Message of the Mystics - Insecurity and violence ends when we experience an inner connection with divine energy within, a connection described by mystics of all traditions. A sense of lightness--buoyancy--along with the constant sensation of love are measures of this connection. If these measures are present, the connection is real. If not, it is only pretended.

6. Clearing the Past - The more we stay connected, the more we are acutely aware of those times when we lose connection, usually when we are under stress. In these times, we can see our own particular way of stealing energy from others. Once our manipulations are brought to personal awareness, our connection becomes more constant and we can discover our own growth path in life, and our spiritual mission--the personal way we can contribute to the world.

7. Engaging the Flow - Knowing our personal mission further enhances the flow of mysterious coincidences as we are guided toward our destinies. First we have a question; then dreams, daydreams, and intuitions lead us towards the answers, which usually are synchronistically provided by the wisdom of another human being.

8. The Interpersonal Ethic - We can increase the frequency of guiding coincidences by uplifting every person that comes into our lives. Care must be taken not to lose our inner connection in romantic relationships. Uplifting others is especially effective in groups where each member can feel energy of all the others. With children it is extremely important for their early security and growth. By seeing the beauty in every face, we lift others into their wisest self, and increase the chances of hearing a synchronistic message.

9. The Emerging Culture - As we all evolve toward the best completion of our spiritual missions, the technological means of survival will be fully automated as humans focus instead on synchronistic growth. Such growth will move humans into higher energy states, ultimately transforming our bodies into spiritual form and uniting this dimension of existence with the after-life dimension, ending the cycle of birth and death.

10. Holding the Vision - The Tenth Insight is the realization that throughout history human beings have been unconsciously struggling to implement this lived spirituality on Earth. Each of us comes here on assignment, and as we pull this understanding into consciousness, we can remember a fuller birth vision of what we wanted to accomplish with our lives. Further we can remember a common world vision of how we will all work together to create a new spiritual culture. We know that our challenge is to hold this vision with intention and prayer everyday.

11. Extending Prayer Fields - The Eleventh Insight is the precise method through which we hold the vision. For centuries, religious scriptures, poems, and philosophies have pointed to a latent power of mind within all of us that mysteriously helps to affect what occurs in the future. It has been called faith power, positive thinking, and the power of prayer. We are now taking this power seriously enough to bring a fuller knowledge of it into public awareness. We are finding that this prayer power is a field of intention, which moves out from us and can be extended and strengthened, especially when we connect with others in a common vision. This is the power through which we hold the vision of a spiritual world and build the energy in ourselves and in others to make this vision a reality.

12. Yet to be Released

Author: James Redfield - Celestine Vision & The Celestine Prophecy Movie

If Life is a Game

If Life is a Game, These are the Rules
Ten Rules for Being Human

1. You Will Receive a Body - You may love it or hate it, but it will be yours for the duration of your life on Earth. [Acceptance, Self-Esteem, Respect, Pleasure]

2. You Will be Presented with Lessons - You are enrolled in a full-time school called "life". Each day in this school you will have the opportunity to learn lessons. You may like the lessons or hate them, but you have designed them as part of your curriculum. [Openness, Choice, Fairness, Grace]

3. There Are No Mistakes, Only Lessons - Growth is the process of experimentation, a series of trials, errors, and occasional victories. The failed experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiment that work. [Compassion, Forgiveness, Ethics, Humor]

4. A Lesson is Repeated Until Learned - Lessons will be repeated to you in various forms until you have learned them. When you have learned them, you can go on to the next lesson. [Awareness, Willingness, Causality, Patience]

5. Learning Does Not End - There is no part of life that does not contain lessons. If you are alive, there are lessons to be learned. [Surrender, Commitment, Humility, Flexibility]

6. "There" is No Better Than "Here" - When your "there" has become a "here", you will simply obtain a "there" that will look better to you than your present "here". [Gratitude, Unattachment, Abundance, Peace]

7. Others are Only Mirrors of You - You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects something you love or hate about yourself. [Tolerance, Clarity, Healing, Support]

8. What You Make of Your Life is Up To You - You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you. [Responsibility, Release, Courage, Power, Adventure]

9. All Your Answers Lie Inside You - All you need to do is look, listen, and trust. [Listening, Trust, Inspiration]

10. You Will Forget All of this at Birth - You can remember it if you want to, by unraveling the double helix of inner knowing. [Faith, Wisdom, Limitlessness]

Author: "If Life is a Game, These are the Rules" by Cherie Carter-Scott, Ph.D - If life is a game, what are the rules? We all know the feeling: In the game of life, why am I the only one who doesn't know how to play? But now, help is at hand, because this wonderful little book will teach you the rules so that you can conquer life's challenges and manage its unpredictable ups ands downs.
Image: "Aqueous Atlantis" by Andrew Annenberg - Aqueous Atlantis unravels the radiant depths of a lost continent, of the ancient civilization of Atlantis, whose ancestry can only be intuitively implied. The aqueous ruins are now a gathering place for the dolphins. They circle images of themselves portrayed lovingly by the Atlanteans in a mosaic floor and Swim toward the light energy emitted from a gold-capped pyramid.

The Invitation

The Invitation

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.
It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.
It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain! I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it, or fix it.
I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human.
It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul; if you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.
I want to know if you can see beauty even when it's not pretty, every day, and if you can source your own life from its presence.
I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, "Yes!"
It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up, after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children.
It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.
It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you, from the inside, when all else falls away.
I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

Author: "The Invitation" by Oriah Mountain Dreamer, 1999
Image: "Convergence" by Catherine Andrews - The Road being so clear in hope of Tomorrows Dreams stretches its Arm of Reaching, towards our Source of Light. To Travel the journey of Life with clear Vision, Is to arrive.