May You...

These Are My Wishes For You

May you find serenity and tranquility in a world you may not always understand.
May the pain you have known and the conflict you have experienced give you the strength
to walk through life facing each new situation with optimism and courage.
Always know that there are those whose love and understanding
will always be there even when you feel most alone.
May you discover enough goodness in others to believe in a world of peace.
May a kind word, a reassuring touch, a warm smile, be yours every day of your life,
and may you give these gifts as well as receive them.
Remember the sunshine when the storm seems unending.
Teach love to those who know hate, and let that love embrace you as you go into the world.
May the teaching of those you admire become part of you, so that you may call upon them.
Remember, those whose lives you have touched and who have touched yours are always
a part of you, even if the encounters were less than you would have wished.
May you not become too concerned with material matters,
but instead place immeasurable value on the goodness in your heart.
Find time in each day to see the beauty and love in the world around you.
Realize that each person has limitless abilities, but each of us is different in our own way.
What you may feel you lack in one regard may be more than compensated for in another.
What you feel you lack in the present may become one of your strengths in the future.
May you see your future as one filled with promise and possibility.
Learn to view everything as a worthwhile experience.
May you find enough inner strength to determine your own worth by yourself,
and not be dependent on another's judgements of your accomplishments.

May you always feel loved.

Author: Sandra Sturtz Hauss, 1987
Image: "Healing Presence" by Bruce Harman - This painting was created in a collaboration for a book cover and was later included in the Healing with Angels card deck by Doreen Virtue. Some of my most popular images have been visioned in cooperation with another person.

The Journey

Life's Journey

Do not undermine your worth by comparing yourself with others. It is because we are different that each of us is special.
Do not set your goals by what other people deem important. Only you know what is best for you. Do not take for granted the things closest to your heart.
Cling to them as you would your life, for without them, life is meaningless. Do not let your life slip through your fingers by living in the past nor for the future. By living your life one day at a time, you live all of the days of your life. Do not give up when you still have something to give. Nothing is really over until the moment you stop trying. It is a fragile thread that binds us to each other.
Do not be afraid to encounter risks. It is by taking chances that we learn how to be brave. Do not shut love out of your life by saying it is impossible to find. The quickest way to receive love is to give love. The fastest way to lose love is too hold it too tightly. In addition, the best way to keep love is to give it wings.
Do not dismiss your dreams. To be without dreams is to be without hope. To be without hope is to be without purpose.
Do not run through life so fast that you forget not only where you have been, but also where you are going.
Life is not a race, but a journey to be savored each step of the way.

Author: Unknown
Image: "Jeweled Path" by Gilbert Williams

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 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 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.

Desiderata

Desiderata

Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons.

Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals; and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.

Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

Author: "Desiderata" by Max Ehrmann, ~1950s
Image: "Child of the Universe" by Josephine Wall - She blows us kisses across time and space, gaining everlasting goodness and energy from her crystal. Legend has it that crystals embody the power to heal and protect so it is no wonder that the child of the universe draws from the crystal before her. Beside her is a galactic jet emitting a flood of charged particles to fill her with light and life. She gently blows her magic kisses across time and space, sending peace and beauty into our world.