For a day, for just one day, talk about that which disturbs no one and bring some peace into your beautiful eyes. – Hafiz

It is only the water that is spilt, the calabash is not broken. -Mauritanian proverb
We are not broken, we are whole in the eyes of Spirit!

Marketing one’s book can be challenging. Knowing the target audience , I have discovered, is the biggest challenge. “If the wrong reader comes across the words, they will remain just words. But for the right readers, your vision blooms off the page and is absorbed into their minds like smoke, where it will re-form, whole and alive, fully adapted to its new environment. It is a deeply satisfying feeling,” writes Mary Gaitkill on the Oprah Winfrey website’s Advice to Aspiring Authors.
Who are the wrong readers? Are they people with different points of view or belief systems? Are they people with closed minds looking for confirmation of their already held beliefs? And, who are the right readers? Those who can look past semantics to meaning? Those who are open to testing the waters of new language or willing to go to scary places to explore truth? Do you read a book to confirm who you have constructed yourself to be, or do you seek new vistas that strain your view, leaving you with questions? For me, books are dabbles in new realities, so that the one I am creating keeps me interested.

Come up, O lions, and shake off the delusion that you are sheep; you are souls immortal, spirits free, blest and eternal; ye are not matter, ye are not bodies; matter is your servant, not you the servant of matter. -Vivekananda

Unremembered Peace

Howard Thurman spoke powerful words when he said, ” Whatever may be the tensions and the stresses of a particular day, there is always lurking close at hand the trailing beauty of forgotten joy or unremembered peace.” There is much going on in the world today and yesterday that can remind us of the tensions and stresses that we have created. But we have alternative ways of looking at our experience. What we are observing is the ego’s desire to keep us in a fearful and thus controlled space. We know better. At the core of our being, we know that all is well. We have access to immeasurable joy that can keep us from becoming overwhelmed with fear. Tap into that place. Close your eyes and ears for a moment. Notice the stillness and let it wash over you. In that moment Spirit surrounds you and nothing material will be important to you. All things come and go, but Spirit is a constant presence in our lives – a presence that helps us to remember peace. How do you find peace in this tense world?

He who runs after good fortune, runs away from peace. -Proverb from Chad