Love is friendship that has caught fire. It is quiet understanding. 

Mutual confidence, sharing, and forgiving.

Ann Landers

Your successes and happiness are forgiven you only if 

you generously consent to share them. 

But to be happy it is essential not to be too concerned with others. Consequently, there is no escape. 

Happy and judged, or absolved and wretched.

Albert Camus, The Fall

So often, I am moved by what others express in writing, 

and I feel the urge to share what I read.

With their words, I am either filled with a silent but immense Yes, 

that settles into me with a deep internal sacral click, 

like a puzzle piece falling heavily into place, or I feel a yearning down low in my soul 

— that softly drifting fog that I sense inside.

This soul, an intertwining light and dark mist I embrace; 

turning in slow circles, gently caressing the inside of me with lazy fingers, feels calm. 

Patient and content, compassionate and wise, faithful and exquisite, 

she watches with a knowing smile, saying, Follow me. 

It is time.

Kris Lord

magic

Things that bring in magic: paradigm shifts happening before your eyes, service, community, stillness within movement, gaining strength from the ground, groups of sweet people, sunshine on soft grass, and soaring from gorgeous, acoustic sound. 

These should be prescribed to anyone anywhere, and often. 

Simple medicine.

Victoria Erickson

Leave everything undefined,including yourself.Befriend uncertainty. Fall in love with mystery.Kneel at the altar of Not Knowing.Give your questions time to breathe.And the answers will find you.

Jeff Foster

us

We see the world, not as it is, but as we are — or, as we are conditioned to see it. 

When we open our mouths to describe what we see, 

we in effect describe ourselves, our perceptions, our paradigms.

Stephen R. Covey 

Loneliness is black coffee and late-night television; 

solitude is herb tea and soft music. 

Solitude, quality solitude, is an assertion of self-worth, 

because only in the stillness can we hear the truth of our own unique voices. 

Pearl Cleage, “Deals with the Devil, and Other Reasons to Riot”

Love is a driver, bitter and fierce if you fight and resist him,

Easy-going enough once you acknowledge his power.

Ovid 

If I let you look into my eyes, silently, there are many things I may allow you to see, 

but you must have the vision. 

Like other mythical creatures that have left their marks upon us all, 

there is a danger in the seeking you have asked for. 

You don’t believe that Medusa literally turned her lovers to stone, do you?

 What of those who were already stone-hearted? 

Did they crumble?

Alison Nappi

starting school

You have always been there

right by my side.

Your hot hand pressed into mine

it's imprint touching my heart

just like it was meant to be.

us.

together.

And today we part.

You placed a bird where I sit

made of paper and your fair hands.

How apt my love

as you spread your wings

and take your first steps away from me

and into your first day at school.

Fly my love,

go as far as the moon,

you will make it my darling

I am sure,

you were always meant to be amongst the stars.

Kate Kelleher

trust

Trust that soft waiting place

where you feel everything and 

nothing all at once

where your quiver is empty of arrows

and there’s nothing left to hunt

Trust in the path unfolding

even when you cant see 

that darkness contains lifetimes

its a bitter sweet aching mystery

Stretch open your heart 

take a deep breath

its time to trust in the birthing

its time to trust in the death

Elyse Morgan

to inner child

AN OPEN LOVE LETTER TO YOUR INNER CHILD | 
 by ALISON NAPPI

To the child who couldn’t understand
why nobody could understand.

To the one whose hand was never taken,
whose eyes were never gazed into by
an adult who said,
“I love you.
You are a miracle.
You are holy,
right now and forever.”

To the one who grew up in the realm of “can’t.”
To you who lived “never enough.”
To the one who came home to no one there, and
there but not home.

To the one who could never understand why
she was being hit
by hands, words, ignorance.
To the one whose innocence was
unceremoniously stolen.

To the one who fought back.
To the one who shattered.
To the never not broken one.
To the child who survived.

To the one who was told she was
sinful, bad, ugly.
To the one who didn’t fit.
To she who bucked authority
and challenged the status quo.

To the one who called out
the big people for
lying, hiding and cruelty.

To the one who never stopped loving anyway.

To the child that was forbidden to need.

To the ones whose dreams were crushed
by adults whose dreams were crushed.

To the one whose only friend
was the bursting, budding forest.
To the ones who prayed to the moon,
who sang to the stars
in the secrecy of the night
to keep the darkness at bay.

To the child who saw God
in the bursting sunshine of
dandelion heads
and the whispering
clover leaf.

To the child of light who cannot die,
even when she’s choking
in seven seas of darkness.

To the one love
I am and you are.

You are holy.
I love you.
You are a miracle.

Your life,
your feelings,
your hopes and dreams–
they matter.

Somebody failed you but you will not fail.
Somebody looked in your eyes and saw the sun — blazing — and got scared.
Somebody broke your heart but your love remains perfect.
Somebody lost their dreams and thought you should too,
but you mustn’t.

Somebody told you
that you weren’t
enough
or too much,
but you are
without question
 the most perfect
and holy creation of
God’s
own
hands.

By Alison Nappi

I wake before the rest of the world stirs in order to snatch away those few quiet moments 

of the day where anything and everything feels possible, 

where dreams and desires merge on a horizon that is yet to catch 

wishes spoken from other lips.

Kelly Fielding