“What you still need to know is this: before a dream is realized, the Soul of the World tests everything that was learned along the way. It does this not because it is evil, but so that we can, in addition to realizing our dreams, master the lessons we’ve learned as we’ve moved toward that dream. That’s the point at which most people give up. It’s the point at which, as we say in the language of the desert, one ‘dies of thirst just when the palm trees have appeared on the horizon.’”

“Every search begins with beginner’s luck. And every search ends with the victor’s being severely tested.”

Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist, page 132.

“The people we are in relationship with are always a mirror, reflecting our own beliefs, and simultaneously we are mirrors reflecting their beliefs.

So relationship is one of the most powerful tools for growth…if we look honestly at our relationships we can see so much about how we have created them.”   Shakti Gawain, Creative Visualization

“Our time out of relationship is just as important as our time in it. Indeed, it may be said that, when we are alone, we are preparing to be in relationship and, when we are in relationship, we are preparing to be alone. Hopefully, we begin to learn the lesson of our last relationship before we go into a new one. Then we can experience new challenges and grow in new ways.”  Paul Ferrini, Creating A Spiritual Relationship, page 119.

“Coming to completion in relationship is an internal task, not an interactive one. We do the best we can to separate in a dignified and loving way and to support each other in pursuing our new lives. That makes it easier for us to come to completion. But completion itself depends on our willingness to use relationship to move into greater appreciation of and fidelity to who we are and what we need. Then, we don’t betray ourselves in the next relationship.” Paul Ferrini, Creating A Spiritual Relationship, page 120.

“The more clear we get about who we are and what we want in a relationship, the easier it will be for us to be honest with others. That honesty will prevent us from getting involved in relationships with people who are unwilling to respect our experience or to work consciously with the unconscious material that inevitably comes up in a relationship.”  Paul Ferrini, Creating A Spiritual Relationship, page 120.

“We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success; we often discover what will do, by finding out what will not do, and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery.”  Samuel Smiles

“You shall be free indeed when your days are not without a care nor your nights without a want or a grief. But rather when these things girdle your life and yet you rise above them naked and unbound.”  Kahlil Gibran

“As a progressive and evolving being. Man is where he is that he may learn that he may grow; and as he learns the spiritual lesson which any circumstance contains for him it passes away to other circumstances.” James Allen, As A Man Thinketh.

“You can now begin to contemplate how you can deliberately will creative construction; you can do it by consciously formulating, thinking, and willing, a state of happiness, aliveness, fulfillment, truth, love, growth, both in general and in particular detail. The climate of this may first seem strange and unfamiliar. You need to acclimatize yourself to it. Picture yourself in such states and call upon the universal power within to fortify your conscious mind with the necessary creative energy. The will to happiness must be so strong  that the causes for unhappiness must be seen and eliminated, and this, too, must truly be wanted. Then the creative power will grow; the divine self will inspire you and show the way. You will learn to recognize it and receive it in your conscious brain.”

Eva Pierrakos, The Pathwork Of Self-Transformation, page 222.

“To have inner peace as our single goal we need to correct the erroneous belief that justified anger or grievances bring us peace. Anger and attack simply do not bring peace of mind.”  page 102

“Today, allow yourself to have the single goal of inner peace by putting all your attention on the following thoughts: Today I will view without judgment everything that occurs. All events provide me with another opportunity to experience Love in the place of fear.”  page 102

“Evaluating and being evaluated by others, a habit from the past, results at worst in fear and at best in conditional love. To experience unconditional Love, we must get rid of the evaluator, we need to hear our strong inner voice saying to ourselves and others, ‘I totally Love and accept you as you are.’”  page 98

Gerald G. Jampolsky, M.D., Love Is Letting Go Of Fear.

“To hold joy, we may sometimes have to fight for it, we may have to strengthen ourselves and go full-bore, doing battle in whichever ways deem most shrewd. To prepare for siege, we may have to go without many comforts for the duration. We can go without most things for long periods of time, anything almost, but not our joy, not those handmade red shoes.” page 254

“…It is from a poem by Charles Simic and it is the ultimate instruction to us all: ‘He who cannot howl, will not find the pack.’ If you want to re-summon Wild Women, refuse to be captured. With instincts sharpened for balance-jump anywhere you like, howl at will, take what there is, find out all about it, let your eyes show your feelings, look into everything, see what you can see. Dance in red shoes, but make sure they’re the ones you made by hand. I can promise that you will become one vital women.” page 254

Read the story of The Red Shoes in “Self-preservation” on page 215 of Women Who Run With The Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D.

Photo taken at Yuko-En by Robin Hamon

“You can be sure that God did not create relationship so that we would betray ourselves. Indeed, it is quite the opposite. The purpose of relationship is to insure that we learn to be faithful to ourselves.  One of the paradoxes of relationship as a spiritual path is that we give our power away to others in order to learn to honor ourselves more completely. We become co-dependent with others in order to learn how to have better boundaries. We blame others so that we can learn to be gentle with oursleves and forgive our own mistakes.”

“It is all a set-up. We look for love and happiness through other people only to learn that we can find love and happiness only in our own hearts and minds. That is the recognition in which the ‘We’ is born.”

Paul Ferrini, Creating A Spiritual Relationship, A Guide To Growth And Happiness For Couples On The Path, page 101

Taken at Yuko-En, The Kentucky - Japan Friendship Garden.

“If you’ve been practicing thought monitoring, erasing your core beliefs and traumas, and making perceptual shifts in order to remove barriers to love that interfere with your relationships, then you have begun to unblock your flow of love. As I’m sure you see by now, this work you’ve been doing not only lifts the stress and conflicts out of your relationship, it also-and necessarily-begins to heal the self.” page 237

“When we begin to see how the promises of the ego are untrustworthy and unworkable, and that they actually cause many of our problems, we begin to break out of its illusion and enter into the realm of the True Self.” page 237

“And once you live in this place, you are living in a spiritual way, and your relationships are increasingly transformed from ego–based to spiritual.” page 238

Henry Grayson, PH.D., Mindful Loving, Ten Practices for creating Deeper Connections.

“Your belief in your own value must be so strong that it translates into these conclusions: “I’m capable of loving and being loved. I deserve to be loved just as I am.”   Sandra Anne Taylor

“Learn to stand alone, secure in your own virtues and self-worth.”  Paramahansa Yogananda

“To create a thriving and happy single life, you must first be comfortable with your own company. You need to see your time spent alone as time spent in good society. Look forward to your time together with yourself. If you don’t enjoy your own company, nobody else will. Your time alone is one of your greatest resources. Use it creatively. Enjoy it. Make plans with yourself for yourself. Implement a new lifestyle of rejuvenation and self-care.”  Sandra Anne Taylor

The above quotes are from the book, Secrets Of Attraction, The Universal Laws Of Love, Sex, And Romance, by Sandra Anne Taylor.

Photo taken by Nicole Wolcott

“The spiritual relationship is a common state of mind, where both give errors gladly to correction, that both may happily be healed as one.’ “   A Course In Miracles

“Most of our energy goes into upholding our universe. If we were capable of losing some of our importance, two extraordinary things would happen to us. One, we would free our energy from trying to maintain the illusion of grandeur, and two, we would provide ourselves with enough energy to catch a glimpse of the actual grandeur of the universe.  Carlos Castaneda

“One hallmark of wholeness is the ability to love yourself. In the realm of love, a paradox exists: you can effectively love others only when you can love yourself. If you cannot love yourself, you will try to fill the void of your own lack of self-love with the love of others. You will tend to demand from others, what you cannot give yourself. This demand places an unfair burden on those around you. It makes you a bottomless pit; no matter how much love they give, it is never enough.” The same problem exists if you try to give love to other people who do not love themselves. You will turn yourself inside out loving them, but it will not help. We all must learn to give ourselves the love we want. Then other people can love us and it will feel satisfying because it is not filling a void. It becomes love dancing with itself.”  Gay Hendricks, Ph.D., & Kathlyn Hendricks, Ph.D., Conscious Loving, page 90 & 91.

“Yet we all know how much our minds are filled with judging thoughts, fear thoughts, and other thoughts that not only disturb our inner peace, but also seriously undermine loving relationships. Therefore we need a tool to help us be more effective in our thought monitoring and meditation is such a tool, for it is essentially a practice session on being an objective witness to our thoughts and then consciously returning our minds to focus on a place of our choosing, such as mantra or breath.”  Henry Grayson, Ph.D., Mindful Loving, page 244.