Not long ago the struggle to do good and become more humane and understanding seemed to be on the rise. Although at times näive and self-serving, there was still an honest attempt to change the unnatural order of things and share the common knowledge acquired over centuries of pain and war. Now all too often, greed and a hard heart are badges of honor. But there continues a struggle thriving just beneath the surface. It is a struggle for respect, human decency, peace, and understanding.

Certain individuals and groups are engaged in the struggle to rediscover our world. They are struggling against terror, politics, despair, loss, limitations, disease, cruelty, and loneliness. To some the struggle is to find God, to others it is to deny God. Eyes open or closed, those who are searching can still see the light.

There is always a struggle not to be defined by our past or our occupation or our various personalities.  Yet there are those who want to know someone only by a single definition. They want to feel educated and informed while they remain ignorant of the nuances, the refractions, the poetry of bearing alive.

The struggle is not linear, because life refuses to stay still. Sometimes, when suicide seems like the only answer, hope can walk in and shake us until we scream in glorious abandon and cry out “yes!” The struggle is to keep waiting, to believe in an unknown affirmation, to not surrender to the shadows.

In the midst of the struggle we must believe everything can be created and nothing can be destroyed. There are struggles to the death and struggles to live. There are struggles for possession and struggles to be free of them. There is the struggle for the first breath and a continuing struggle to stave off the last. Some struggles are more obvious than others – though there is not equating a piece of bread and a poem because each nourishes a different hunger.

The struggle does not have to be sad.  It can be hard and still joyous. The struggle is not over with accomplishment or attention. It silently grows. The seasons enrich it and it flowers in hope and belief. Lies and deceptions may feed on it and distort its intentions but the essence of the struggle will flourish and reveal a natural progression toward something real and undeniable.

The struggle is always to rise up the struggle and continue. And the priority is to remain human while struggle to become more.

~ Anonymous

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself  arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters form the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desparate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

-Derek Walcott

To laugh often and much;
To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children;
To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others;
To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition;
To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded.
- Bessie Stanley

So long ago, you arrived blazing in light
with templates of your brilliance in hand.
Your sweet soul bathed in others’ expectations and preconceptions.
Your story unfolds as you catapult through life amid dangers, obstructions,
opportunities, choices, connections, and fate, even destiny.

Falling apart, coming together
Breaking in two, healing and piecing together all the disparate fragments
of a self, that is driven to remember her innate truth, his fundamental
essence. Oh where is that template now?
Where is the path that leads to your radiance? Is it in the chest inside your
secret heart, buried in the jewel there? Under your many broken hearts?

Land in your light body, your joy body.
Bring all your selves to the earth alter.
Allow your magicians skill to direct your deepest listening, your bone knowing.
Your fierce warrior dances on the grave clothes you have thrown off.
Remember dear co-heart, the face you wore before you were born.
Did you not agree to all of this?

Ah the forgetting…the remembering,
the gathering of your holy broken chards.
Bring them with exquisite lovingness.
Bring them to the Sovereign within, the fair and compassionate witness
who rejoices in your ability to awake and reclaim your gifts.
Let yourself recall, that you have always been in conspiracy with the
author of this passion play.

Your heart overflows with brain cells, so choose now!
Your lover will always lead you home.

-Concetta Antonelli

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate,
Our deepest fear
is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness,
that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous,
talented and fabulous?
Actually who are we not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people
won’t feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine as children do.
We were born to make manifest
the glory of God that is within us.
It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone.
And when we let our light shine,
we unconsciously give other people
permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.

-Marianne Williamson