Waking Up

"The rewards of "birthing" are "birthing" itself -knowing that through divine grace you are becoming more and more of an instrument of divine love and justice, feeling the divine working more and more intimately within you, seeing and knowing the Divine inspiring more and more of your wants, growing wilder and calmer, more and more heartbroken and blissful, watching the Divine manifest more and more richly and playfully in your mind and heart and body and soul and relationships and surroundings.  No external glory or fame or success could ever approximate the ecstacy that such awareness will bring you or awaken in you such depths of gratitude; no external failure can ever take its joy from you."  Andrew Harvey

Your Pain

"Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.  Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that it's heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.  And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not be less wondrous than your joy; And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields.  And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief."  Kahlil Gibran

Effort

"As swimmers dare to lie face to the sky and water bears them, as hawks rest upon air and air sustains them, so would I learn to attain freefall, and float into Creator Spirit’s deep embrace, knowing no effort... earns that all-surrounding grace." --Denise Levertov

Serenity

Fill your bowl to the brim and it will spill. Keep sharpening your knife and it will blunt. Chase after money and security and your heart will never unclench. Care about people’s approval and you will be their prisoner. Do your work, then step back. The only path to serenity. –Lao-Tze