Kineta’s couples – Readings

A Vow by Wendy Cope

I cannot promise never to be angry;

I cannot promise always to be kind.

You know what you are taking on, my darling –

It’s only at the start that love is blind.

And yet I’m still the one you want to be with

And you’re the one for me – of that I’m sure.

You are my closest friend, my favourite person,

The lover and the home I’ve waited for.

I cannot promise that I will deserve you

From this day on. I hope to pass that test.

I love you and I want to make you happy.

I promise I will do my very best.

Love is  by Adrian Henri

Love is…

Love is feeling cold in the back of vans

Love is a fanclub with only two fans

Love is walking holding paint stained hands

Love is.

Love is fish and chips on winter nights

Love is blankets full of strange delights

Love is when you don’t put out the light

Love is

Love is the presents in Christmas shops

Love is when you’re feeling Top of the Pops

Love is what happens when the music stops

Love is

Love is white panties lying all forlorn

Love is pink nightdresses still slightly warm

Love is when you have to leave at dawn

Love is

Love is you and love is me

Love is prison and love is free

Love’s what’s there when you are away from me

Love is…

From When Harry Met Sally

‘I love that after I spend a day with you,
I can still smell your perfume on my clothes.
And I love that you are the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night.
And it’s not because it’s New Year’s Eve.
I came here tonight because when you realise you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody,
You want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.’

From The Wedding Singer

‘I wanna make you smile whenever you’re sad
Carry you around when your arthritis is bad,
All I wanna do is grow old with you,
I’ll get your medicine when your tummy aches,
Build you a fire if the furnace breaks,
Oh it could be so nice, growing old with you,
I’ll miss you,
Kiss you,
Give you my coat when you are cold,
Need you,
Feed you,
Even let you hold the remote control,
So let me do the dishes in our kitchen sink,
Put you to bed if you’ve had too much to drink,
I could be the man who grows old with you,
I wanna grow old with you’.

From The Big Bang Theory

‘We are made of particles that have existed since the moment the universe began. I like to think those atoms traveled fourteen billion years through time and space to create us, so that we could be together and make each other whole.’ – Leonard

From Muriel’s Wedding

“When I lived in Porpoise Spit, I used to sit in my room for hours and listen to ABBA songs. But since I’ve met you and moved to Sydney, I haven’t listened to one ABBA song. That’s because my life is as good as an ABBA song. It’s as good as Dancing Queen.”

From Spiderman

“The great thing about MJ is… when you look in her eyes and she’s looking back in yours… everything… feels… not quite normal. Because you feel stronger and weaker at the same time. You feel excited and at the same time, terrified. The truth is… you don’t know what you feel except you know what kind of man you want to be. It’s as if you’ve reached the unreachable and you weren’t ready for it.”
– Peter Parker

From Up In The Air

“You know, honestly by the time you’re 34, all the physical requirements just go out the window. You secretly pray that he’ll be taller than you, not an asshole would be nice just someone who enjoys my company, comes from a good family. You don’t think about that when you’re younger. Someone who wants kids, likes kids. Healthy enough to play with his kids. Please let him earn more money than I do, you might not understand that now but believe me, you will one day otherwise that’s a recipe for disaster. And hopefully, some hair on his head. I mean, that’s not even a deal breaker these days. A nice smile. Yea, a nice smile just might do it.”
–Alex Goran

From The Notebook

‘I love you. I am who I am because of you. You are every reason, every hope, and every dream I’ve ever had, and no matter what happens to us in the future, everyday we are together is the greatest day of my life. I will always be yours.’

From Game of Thrones

‘As you are the moon of his life, he shall be your sun and stars.
Your love shall be as ever present as those two celestial bodies, even though they are sometimes hidden from one another’s sight.
Your love will be the guiding force that charts the course of your tomorrows, holds your world together in difficult times, and will make life itself shine bolder and brighter than we human beings have a right to dream of.’

From Shakespeare in Love

“I will have poetry in my life. And adventure. And love. Love above all. No… not the artful postures of love, not playful and poetical games of love for the amusement of an evening. but love that…overthrows life. Unbiddable, ungovernable, like a riot in the heart, and nothing to be done, come ruin or rapture.”

Have You Got a Biro I Can Borrow? by Clive James

Have you got a biro I can borrow?
I’d like to write your name
On the palm of my hand, on the walls of the hall
The roof of the house, right across the land
So when the sun comes up tomorrow
It’ll look to this side of the hard-bitten planet
Like a big yellow button with your name written on it

Have you got a biro I can borrow?
I’d like to write some lines
In praise of your knee, and the back of your neck
And the double-decker bus that brings you to me
So when the sun comes up tomorrow
It’ll shine on a world made richer by a sonnet
And a half-dozen epics as long as the Aeneid

Oh give me a pen and some paper
Give me a chisel or a camera
A piano and a box of rubber bands
I need room for choreography
And a darkroom for photography
Tie the brush into my hands

Have you got a biro I can borrow?
I’d like to write your name
From the belt of Orion to the share of the Plough
The snout of the Bear to the belly of the Lion
So when the sun goes down tomorrow
There’ll never be a minute
Not a moment of the night that hasn’t got you in it

The Apache wedding prayer

Now you will feel no rain, For each of you will be shelter to the other.

Now you will feel no cold, For each of you will be warmth to the other.

Now there is no more loneliness, For each of you will be companion to the other.

Now you are two bodies, But there is one life before you.

Go now to your dwelling place, To enter into the days of your togetherness.

And may your days be good and long upon the earth.

True Love, by Sylvester McNutt

I don’t think most people understand what true love is. It’s not the cheesy “couple goals” posts for Instagram. It’s not the fancy dates, the happy hours, or the majestic nights laughing at silly movies. True love is waking up in the middle of the night to help you when you’re sick, because I don’t want you to be sick alone. It’s being your shoulder to cry on, to vent to. True love is being your biggest cheerleader and toughest critic. True love is looking at each other on a level so deep, that you can feel them when they’re gone. True love is six little words, “no matter what, I got you.”

Marriage, by Anon

Marriage is about giving and taking
And forging and forsaking
Kissing and loving and pushing and shoving
Caring and Sharing and screaming and swearing

About being together whatever the weather
About being driven to the end of your tether
About Sweetness and kindness
And wisdom and blindness

It’s about being strong when you’re feeling quite weak
It’s about saying nothing when you’re dying to speak
It’s about being wrong when you know you are right
It’s about giving in, before there’s a fight
It’s about you two living as cheaply as one
(you can give us a call if you know how that’s done!)

Never heeding advice that was always well meant
Never counting the cost until it’s all spent
And for you two today it’s about to begin
And for all that the two of you had to put in
Some days filled with joy, and some days with sadness
Too late you’ll discover that marriage is madness

From the Comic Strip Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson

A Quote From Ogden Nash

“Yes, I’ll Marry You” By Pam Ayres

A Reading From the Movie, The Princess Bride

“Look, in my opinion, the best thing you can do is find a person who loves you for exactly what you are. Good mood, bad mood, ugly, pretty, handsome, what have you. The right person is still going to think the sun shines out of your ass. That’s the kind of person that’s worth sticking with.”

‘Diary of Bridget Jones’

“I don’t think you’re an idiot at all. I mean, there are elements of the ridiculous about you. Your mother’s pretty interesting. And you really are an appallingly bad public speaker. And, um… you tend to let whatever’s in your head come out of your mouth without much consideration of the consequences. I realize when I met you at the turkey curry buffet, that I was unforgivably rude, and wearing reindeer jumper that my mother had given me the day before. But the thing is, um… what I’m trying to say, very inarticulately, is that, um… in fact, perhaps despite appearances, I like you, very much.”

‘Ten Things I Hate About You’

“I hate the way you talk to me, and the way you cut your hair. I hate the way you drive my car. I hate it when you stare. I hate your big dumb combat boots, and the way you read my mind. I hate you so much it makes me sick; it even makes me rhyme. I hate it, I hate the way you’re always right. I hate it when you lie. I hate it when you make me laugh, even worse when you make me cry. I hate it when you’re not around, and the fact that you didn’t call. But mostly I hate the way I don’t hate you. Not even close, not even a little bit, not even at all.” 

Michael Blumenthal’s ‘A Marriage’

You are holding up a ceiling

with both arms. It is very heavy,

but you must hold it up, or else

it will fall down on you. Your arms

are tired, terribly tired,

and, as the day goes on, it feels

as if either your arms or the ceiling

will soon collapse.

But then,

unexpectedly,

something wonderful happens:

Someone,

a man or a woman,

walks into the room

and holds their arms up

to the ceiling beside you.

So you finally get

to take down your arms.

You feel the relief of respite,

the blood flowing back

to your fingers and arms.

And when your partner’s arms tire,

you hold up your own

to relieve him again.

And it can go on like this

for many years

without the house falling.

An uncommon love

By Terah Cox

May you have the love only two can know.

May you go where only two as one may go.

May the sun rise and set in your bonded hearts and the moon never find you too long apart.

May you cherish each other’s dreams as your own and turn stumbling blocks into steppingstones.

May you brave life’s mountains and miles together.

May there be no storm your love cannot weather.

May you be lovers and allies and friends.

May your soul’s conversation never end.

May you capture on earth what’s in heaven above.

May your hearts know the rapture of an uncommon love.

Marriage joins two people in the circle of its love

By Edmund O’Neill

Marriage is a commitment to life, the best that two people can find and bring out in each other.

It offers opportunities for sharing and growth that no other relationship can equal.

It is a physical and an emotional joining that is promised for a lifetime.

Within the circle of its love, marriage encompasses all of life’s most important relationships.

A wife and a wife are each other’s best friend, confidant, lover, teacher, listener, and critic. Marriage deepens and enriches every facet of life.

Happiness is fuller, memories are fresher, commitment is stronger, even anger is felt more strongly, and passes away more quickly.

Marriage understands and forgives the mistakes life is unable to avoid.

It encourages and nurtures new life, new experiences, and new ways of expressing a love that is deeper than life. 

When two people pledge their love and care for each other in marriage, they create a spirit unique unto themselves which binds them closer than any spoken or written words.

Marriage is a promise, a potential made in the hearts of two people who love each other and takes a lifetime to fulfill.

How falling in love is like owning a dog

First of all, it’s a big responsibility,

especially in a city like New York.

So think long and hard before deciding on love.

On the other hand, love gives you a sense of security:

when you’re walking down the street late at night

and you have a leash on love

ain’t no one going to mess with you.

Because crooks and muggers think love is unpredictable.

Who knows what love could do in its own defense?

On cold winter nights, love is warm.

It lies between you and lives and breathes

and makes funny noises.

Love wakes you up all hours of the night with its needs.

It needs to be fed so it will grow and stay healthy.

Love doesn’t like being left alone for long.

But come home and love is always happy to see you.

It may break a few things accidentally in its passion for life,

but you can never be mad at love for long.

Is love good all the time? No! No!

Love can be bad. Bad, love, bad! Very bad love.

Love makes messes.

Love leaves you little surprises here and there.

Love needs lots of cleaning up after.

Sometimes you just want to get love fixed.

Sometimes you want to roll up a piece of newspaper

and swat love on the nose,

not so much to cause pain,

just to let love know Don’t you ever do that again!

Sometimes love just wants to go out for a nice long walk.

Because love loves exercise. It will run you around the block

and leave you panting, breathless. Pull you in different directions

at once, or wind itself around and around you

until you’re all wound up and you cannot move.

But love makes you meet people wherever you go.

People who have nothing in common but love

stop and talk to each other on the street.

Throw things away and love will bring them back,

again, and again, and again.

But most of all, love needs love, lots of it.

And in return, love loves you and never stops.

[Taylor Mali]

A lovely love story

The fierce Dinosaur was trapped inside his cage of ice. Although it was cold he was happy in there. It was, after all, HIS cage.

Then along came the Lovely Other Dinosaur.

The Lovely Other Dinosaur melted the Dinosaur’s cage with kind words and loving thoughts.

I like this Dinosaur, thought the Lovely Other Dinosaur. Although he is fierce he is also tender and he is funny. He is also quite clever though I will not tell him this for now.

I like this Lovely Other Dinosaur, thought the Dinosaur. She is beautiful and she is different and she smells so nice. She is also a free spirit, which is a quality I much admire in a dinosaur.

But he can be so distant and so peculiar at times, thought the Lovely Other Dinosaur.

He is also overly fond of Things. Are all Dinosaurs so overly fond of Things?

But her mind skips from here to there so quickly, thought the Dinosaur. She is also uncommonly keen on Shopping. Are all Lovely Other Dinosaurs so uncommonly keen on shopping?

I will forgive his peculiarity and his concern for Things, thought the Lovely Other Dinosaur. For they are part of what makes him a richly charactered individual.

I will forgive her skipping mind and her fondness for shopping, thought the Dinosaur. For she fills our life with beautiful thought and wonderful surprises. Besides, I am not unkeen on shopping either.

Now the Dinosaur and the Lovely Other Dinosaur are old. Look at them.

Together they stand on the hill telling each other stories and feeling the warmth of the sun on their backs.

And that, my friends, is how it is with love. Let us all be Dinosaurs and Lovely Other Dinosaurs together.

For the sun is warm. And the world is a beautiful place…

Excerpt from The Bridge Across Forever by Richard Bach

A soulmate is someone who has locks that fit our keys, and keys to fit our locks.

When we feel safe enough to open the locks, our truest selves step out and we can be completely and honestly who we are; we can be loved for who we are and not for who we’re pretending to be.

Each unveils the best part of the other. No matter what else goes wrong around us, with

that one person we’re safe in our own paradise.

Our soulmate is someone who shares our deepest longings, our sense of direction.

When we’re two balloons, and together our direction is up, chances are we’ve found the right person.

Our soulmate is the one who makes life come to life.

Blessing of the Hands by Unknown

These are the hands of your partner, young and strong and full of love, holding your hands as you promise to love each other today, tomorrow, and forever. These are the hands that will work alongside yours as together you build your future. These are the hands that will hold you and comfort you in grief and uncertainty. These are the hands that will countless times wipe the tears from your eyes, tears of sorrow and joy. These are the hands that will hold your family as one. These are the hands that will give you strength. And these are the hands that even when wrinkled and aged, will still be reaching for yours, still giving you the same unspoken tenderness with just a touch.

Reading 1

Happiness in marriage is not something that just happens.

A good marriage must be created.

In marriage the “little” things are the big things.

It is never being too old to hold hands.

It is remembering to say, ”I love you” at least once a day.

It is never going to sleep angry.

It is standing together and facing the world.

It is speaking words of appreciation, and demonstrating gratitude in thoughtful ways.

It is having the capacity to forgive and forget.

It is giving each other an atmosphere in which each can grow.

It is a common search for the good and the beautiful.

It is not only marrying the right person — it is being the right partner

Reading 2

Transforming Power by Lau Tzu

Your love contains the power 
of a thousand suns.

It unfolds as naturally and effortlessly 
as does a flower 
and graces the world with its blooming.

Its beauty radiates a transforming energy that enlivens all who see it.

Because of you, compassion and joy
 are added to the world.

That is why the stars sing together because of your love.

Reading 3

So, as important as this ceremony is, the foundation of your marriage was formed long before we ever came here today, and that is the love that you share.

Love is gentleness

Love is kindness

Love understands and love forgives.

It is loyal through good and bad

Love hopes for the future

Love is everlasting.

Love makes up for things that you may not have.

Without love, no matter what you do have it is never enough.

So, search for love.

Share your love.

But most of all, Enjoy your love.

Reading 9

by Eric Fromm

Love is not simply a relationship to a specific person; It is an attitude; an orientation of character, which determines the relatedness of a person to the world as a whole, not toward one “object” of love.

If a person loves only one other person and is indifferent to the rest of his fellow person, this love is not love but a selfish attachment, or an enlarged egotism.

If you truly love one person, you love all persons, you love the world, you love life.

If you can say to somebody else, “I love you” you must be able to say, “I love through you the world, I love in you also myself.

Reading 10

by Carl Sandburg

I love you for what you are, but I love you yet more for what you are going to be.

I love you not so much for your realities as for your ideals.

I pray for your desires that they may be great, rather than for your satisfactions, which may be so hazardously little.

A satisfied flower is one whose petals are about to fall.

The most beautiful rose is one hardly more than a bud wherein the pangs and ecstasies of desires are working for larger and finer growth.

Not always shall you be what you are now.

You are going forward toward something great.

I am on the way with you and therefore I love you.

Reading 12

A Touch of Heart

There was a time … a moment I felt all alone but then the sun shined upon me bearing gifts of love, friendship and harmony Everlasting love shared and expressed through you to me. The prayers, the cares, the gestures brought forth to me heal my soul For at times I’d only known to give but failed to accept and receive with grace. I’m not alone now for your warmth overwhelms me your spirit fills my sour, and I am ALIVE with your love.

Reading 13

From The Gift Of The Sea By Anne Morrow Lindbergh

When you love someone, you do not love them all the time, in exactly the same way, from moment to moment. It is an impossibility. It is even a lie to pretend to. And yet this is exactly what most of us demand. We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of the tide and resist in terror its ebb. We are afraid it will never return. We insist on permanency, on duration, on continuity; when the only continuity possible, in life as in love, is in growth, in fluidity — in freedom in the sense that dancers are free barely touching as they pass, but partners in the same pattern. The only real security is not in owning or possessing, not in demanding or expecting, not in hoping, even. Security in a relationship lies neither in looking back to what it was in nostalgia, nor forward to what it might be in dread or anticipation but in living in the present relationship and accepting it as it is now. Relationships must be like islands; one must accept them for what they are here and now, within their limits … islands, surrounded and interrupted by the sea, and continually visited and abandoned by the tides.

Reading 14

Marriage Joins Two People in the Circle of Its Love, By Edmund O’Neill

Marriage is a commitment to life, to the best that two people can find and bring out in each other.

It offers opportunities for sharing and growth that no other human relationship can equal, a joining that is promised for a lifetime.

Within the circle of its love, marriage encompasses all of life’s most important relationships.

A wife and a husband are each other’s best friend, confidant, lover, teacher, listener, and critic.

There may come times when one partner is heartbroken or ailing, and the love of the other may resemble the tender caring of a parent for a child.

Marriage deepens and enriches every facet of life.

Happiness is fuller; memories are fresher; commitment is stronger; even anger is felt more strongly, and passes away more quickly.

Marriage understands and forgives the mistakes life is unable to avoid. It encourages and nurtures new life, new experiences, and new ways of expressing love through the seasons of life.

When two people pledge to love and care for each other in marriage they create a spirit unique to themselves, which binds them closer than any spoken or written words.

Marriage is a promise, a potential, made in the hearts of two people who love, which takes a lifetime to fulfill.

Reading 15

Blessing For A Marriage, By James Dillet Freeman

May your marriage bring you all the exquisite excitements a marriage should bring, and may life grant you also patience, tolerance, and understanding. May you always need one another – not so much to fill your emptiness as to help you to know your fullness. A mountain needs a valley to be complete; the valley does not make the mountain less, but more; and the valley is more a valley because it has a mountain towering over it. So let it be with you and you. May you need one another, but not out of weakness. May you want one another, but not out of lack. May you entice one another, but not compel one another. May you embrace one another, but not out encircle one another. May you succeed in all important ways with one another, and not fail in the little graces. May you look for things to praise, often say, “I love you!” and take no notice of small faults. If you have quarrels that push you apart, may both of you hope to have good sense enough to take the first step back. May you enter into the mystery which is the awareness of one another’s presence – no more physical than spiritual, warm and near when you are side by side, and warm and near when you are in separate rooms or even distant cities. May you have happiness, and may you find it making one another happy. May you have love, and may you find it loving one another!

Reading 16

The Art Of Marriage, By Wilferd Arlan Peterson

The little things are the big things.

It is never being too old to hold hands.

It is remembering to say “I love you” at least once a day.

It is never going to sleep angry.

It is at no time taking the other for granted; the courtship should not end with the honeymoon, it should continue through all the years.

It is having a mutual sense of values and common objectives.

It is standing together facing the world.

It is forming a circle of love that gathers in the whole family.

It is doing things for each other, not in the attitude of duty or sacrifice, but in the spirit of joy.

It is speaking words of appreciation and demonstrating gratitude in thoughtful ways.

It is not expecting the husband to wear a halo or the wife to have the wings of an angel.

It is not looking for perfection in each other. ‘

It is cultivating flexibility, patience, understanding and a sense of humor.

It is having the capacity to forgive and forget.

It is giving each other an atmosphere in which each can grow.

It is a common search for the good and the beautiful.

It is establishing a relationship in which the independence is equal, dependence is mutual and the obligation is reciprocal.

And finally, it is not only marrying the right partner, it is being the right partner.

Reading 17

The One, By Bernie Taupin

I saw you dancing out on the ocean Running fast along the sand A spirit born of earth and water Fire flying from your hands In the instant that you love someone In the second that the hammer hits Reality runs up your spine And the pieces finally fit All I ever needed was the one Like freedom feels where wild horses run When stars collide like you and I No shadows block the sun You are all I have ever needed Baby, you’re the one

Reading 18

Thoughts In a Garden, By R. Gerhardt

This is a special place, a place where people have brought beautiful living plants, here to establish them, to nurture and care for them, that they may forever surround us with the beauty we now see. And into this place where we stand, you have brought something beautiful — the relationship that is becoming your marriage. Here you are declaring it and pledging it, promising to establish and nurture it. We are aware of the special beauty between the two of you, just as we are aware of the special beauty of this place. We are with you now in this appropriate place to celebrate your relationship as it is and as it is yet to be, and in doing so, we ask only that you remember how your life together will have the same seasons and needs as this garden. There will be growth like spring and loss like fall; there will be giving as the blossoming flower, and rest as the seed beneath the snow. All the seasons will be yours, but remember, too, that gardens are not must happenings. The more wonderful the garden, the more skilled the gardener. So you will have to care deeply for the life that is yours together, and nurture it. You will have to appreciate your differences and cultivate them. You will have to take care of yourself, if for no other reason than out of love for the other. And you will need the support of family and friends to reach full growth. As you caringly chose this place to declare your marriage, so remember its lessons for your life together through the seasons that are yours to share. And may those seasons bring you and yours joy and happiness.

Reading 19

The Covenant of Marriage

Marriage has certain qualities of contract, in which two people take on the housekeeping tasks of living, together, to enhance life’s joy. However, marriage is more than a contract. Marriage is a commitment to take that joy deep, deeper than happiness, deep into the discovery of who you most truly are. It is a commitment to a spiritual journey, to a life of becoming — in which joy can comprehend despair, running through rivers of pain into joy again. And thus marriage is even deeper than commitment. It is a covenant — a covenant that says: I love you. I trust you. I will be here for you when you are hurting, And when I am hurting I will not leave. It is a covenant intended not to provide haven from pain or anger and sorrow. Life offers no such haven. Instead, marriage is intended to provide a sanctuary safe enough to risk loving, to risk living and sharing from the centre of oneself. This is worth everything.

Reading 20

The Key To Love

The key to love is understanding…

The ability to comprehend not only the spoken word,

but those unspoken gestures,

the little things that say so much by themselves.

The key to love is forgiveness…

to accept each others faults and pardon mistakes,

without forgetting, but with remembering

what you learn from them.

The key to love is sharing…

Facing your good fortunes as well as the bad, together;

both conquering problems, forever searching for ways

to intensify your happiness.

The key to love is giving…

without thought of return,

but with the hope of just a simple smile,

and by giving in but never giving up.

The key to love is respect…

realising that you are two separate people,

with different ideas;

that you don’t belong to each other,

that you belong with each other,

and share a mutual bond.

The key to love is inside us all…

It takes time and patience to unlock all the ingredients that will take you to its threshold;

it is the continual learning process that demands a lot of work…

but the rewards are more than worth the effort…

and that is the key to love.

Reading 23

Love by Roy Croft

I love you, not for what you are, but what I am, when I am with you.

I love you not only for what you have made of yourself, but what you are making of me.

I love you for the part of me that you bring out.

I love you for putting your hand into my heaped up heart and passing over all the frivolous and weak things that you cannot help seeing there, and for drawing out into the light all the beautiful and radiant things that no one else has looked quite far enough to find.

I love you because you are helping me to make of the lumber of my life not a tavern, but a temple, out of the works of my everyday not a reproach, but a song.

You have done it without a touch, without a word.

You have done it by being yourself, my companion and comforter, guide and friend, the one I love.

Reading 24

What is Love? by Susan Polis Schutz

Love is the strongest feeling known an all-encompassing passion an extreme strength an overwhelming excitementLove is trying not to hurt the other person trying not to change the other person trying not to dominate the other person trying not to deceive the other person

Love is understanding each other listening to each other supporting each other having fun with each other.

Love is not an excuse to stop growing not an excuse to stop making yourself better not an excuse to lessen one’s goals not an excuse to take the other person for granted

Love is being completely honest with each other finding dreams to share working towards common goals sharing responsibilities equally

Everyone in the world wants to love Love is not a feeling to be taken lightly Love is a feeling to be cherished, nurtured and cared for Love is the reason for life

Reading 25

From This Day Forward

From this day forward, let us laugh together, and plan together, let us find our favourite places, and go together…

Let us enjoy the sunshine, and the rain, being alone together, and in crowds together…

From this day forward, together, Let us love! Let Us Walk Together

Let us walk together yet not as one, but such that our shadows are separate and distinct, such that our souls are unbound and free.

Let us share our time, yet do not give all your time, nor take all of mine for in order to develop to the fullest, to be free, we must have solitude and individuality.

Let me wander in solitude, when I need to be alone, yet be near, when I need you. Let us share our love. Give freely of your love, but do not smother me, my soul must breathe a free air. Take my love, but do not demand it, for love given of obligation, is stale and without life. Let us share our lives.

Share my life, but do not try to shape it. Let me share your life, but do not let it revolve around me. Let us share ourselves. Accept me as I am, do not attempt to change me to fit your dreams.

Respect me for what I am, not for what I was or one day may be. Share yourself with me, but do not allow me to limit your freedom or bind your soul. Let us share our minds, thoughts, goals, values and dreams. Let us develop these within ourselves without restriction or loss of freedom

Thus our two free souls, may wander together as they develop in freedom. As we share our lives, as we walk through life together, know my love is yours, but not my soul for it must be free.

Reading 26

From ‘Letters to a Young Poet’ Rainer Maria Rilke

For one human being to love another human being: that is perhaps the most difficult task that has been entrusted to us, the ultimate task, the final test and proof, the work for which all other work is merely preparation. Loving does not at first mean merging, surrendering, and uniting with another person – it is a high inducement for the individual to ripen, to become something in himself, to become world, to become world in himself for the sake of another person; it is a great, demanding claim on him, something that chose him and calls him to vast distances.

Reading 27

From To Know Yourself by Swami Satchidananda

A wedding is between two reflections of God. Two pairs of eyes see one vision. They are dedicated to serve one another and the humanity at large. Two minds come together to help each other realize their true nature. Going side by side with the right partner is a good way to reach God quickly. When the husband’s and the wife’s love for each other blends together and becomes love of God, marriage is a divine institution.

Reading 28

The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran.

And what of Marriage, master?

And he answered saying: You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore. You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days. Ay, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God. But let there be spaces in your togetherness, And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.

Love one another, but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.

Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf. Sing and Dance together and be joyous, but each one of you be alone.

Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.

Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping. For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. And stand together yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow

not in each other’s shadow.

Reading 29

Navajo Prayer

When you were children, you talked like children, But now that you’ve grown, you should be done with childish things and put them away. When you were children, you looked into a mirror that gave only a blurred reflection of reality. But with love and maturity, you shouldn’t be afraid to look into that mirror and see each other face to face. Be swift like the wind in loving each other. Be brave like the sea in loving each other. Be gentle like the breeze in loving each other. Be patient like the sun who waits and watches the four changes of the earth in loving each other. Be wise like the roaring of the thunder clouds and lightning in loving each other. Be shining like the morning dawn in loving each other. Be proud like the tree who stands without bending in loving each other. Be brilliant like the rainbow colours in loving each other. Now, forever, forever, there will be no more loneliness because your worlds are joined together with the world. Forever, forever.

Reading 30

Anne Morrow Lindburgh

When you love someone you do not love them all the time, in exactly the same way, from moment to moment. It is an impossibility. The only continuity possible, in life as in love, is in growth, in fluidity, in freedom, in the sense that dancers are free, barely touching as they pass, but partners in the same pattern.

The only real security is not in owning or possessing, not in demanding or expecting, not in hoping even. Security in a relationship lies neither in looking back to what was in nostalgia, nor forward to what might be in dread or anticipation, but living in the present relationship and accepting it as it is now. One must accept the security of the winged life, of ebb and flow, of intermittency.

Reading 31

Blessing For A Marriage by James Dillet Freeman

May your marriage bring you all the exquisite excitements a marriage should bring, and may life grant you also patience, tolerance, and understanding. May you always need one another – not so much to fill your emptiness as to help you to know your fullness. A mountain needs a valley to be complete; the valley does not make the mountain less, but more; and the valley is more a valley because it has a mountain towering over it. So let it be with you and you.

May you need one another, but not out of weakness. May you want one another, but not out of lack. May you entice one another, but not compel one another. May you embrace one another, but not out encircle one another. May you succeed in all important ways with one another, and not fail in the little graces. May you look for things to praise, often say, “I love you!” and take no notice of small faults.

If you have quarrels that push you apart, may both of you hope to have good sense enough to take the first step back. May you enter into the mystery, which is the awareness of one another’s presence – no more physical than spiritual, warm and near when you are side-by-side, and warm and near when you are in separate rooms or even distant cities.

May you have happiness, and may you find it making one another happy. May you have love, and may you find it loving one another.

Reading 32

Excerpt from The Bridge Across Forever by Richard Bach

A soul mate is someone who has locks that fit our keys, and keys to fit our locks. When we feel safe enough to open the locks, our truest selves step out and we can be completely and honestly who we are; we can be loved for who we are and not for who we’re pretending to be. Each unveils the best part of the other. No matter what else goes wrong around us, with that one person we’re safe in our own paradise. Our soul mate is someone who shares our deepest longings, our sense of direction. When we’re two balloons, and together our direction is up, chances are we’ve found the right person. Our soul mate is the one who makes life come to life.

Reading 33

Marriage Joins Two People In The Circle Of Its Love by Edmund O’Neill

Marriage is a commitment to life, the best that two people can find and bring out in each other. It offers opportunities for sharing and growth that no other relationship can equal. It is a physical and an emotional joining that is promised for a lifetime.

Within the circle of its love, marriage encompasses all of life’s most important relationships. A wife and a husband are each other’s best friend, confidant, lover, teacher, listener, and critic. And there may come times when one partner is heartbroken or ailing, and the love of the other may resemble the tender caring of a parent for a child.

Marriage deepens and enriches every facet of life. Happiness is fuller, memories are fresher, commitment is stronger, even anger is felt more strongly, and passes away more quickly.

Marriage understands and forgives the mistakes life is unable to avoid. It encourages and nurtures new life, new experiences, and new ways of expressing a love that is deeper than life. When two people pledge their love and care for each other in marriage, they create a spirit unique unto themselves, which binds them, closer than any spoken or written words. Marriage is a promise, a potential made in the hearts of two people who love each other and takes a lifetime to fulfill.

Reading 34

On Love by Thomas Kempis

Love is a mighty power, a great and complete good.

Love alone lightens every burden, and makes rough places smooth.

It bears every hardship as though it were nothing, and renders all bitterness sweet and acceptable.

Nothing is sweeter than love, nothing stronger, nothing higher, nothing wider, nothing more pleasant, nothing fuller or better in heaven or earth; for love is born of God.

Love flies, runs and leaps for joy. It is free and unrestrained.

Love knows no limits, but ardently transcends all bounds.

Love feels no burden, takes no account of toil, attempts things beyond its strength.

Love sees nothing as impossible, for it feels able to achieve all things.

It is strange and effective, while those who lack love faint and fail.

Love is not fickle and sentimental, nor is it intent on vanities.

Like a living flame and a burning torch, 
it surges upward and surely surmounts every obstacle.

Reading 35

What Is Love? -Author Unknown

Sooner or later we begin to understand that love is more than verses on valentines and

romance in the movies. We begin to know that love is here and now, real and true, the most important thing in our lives. For love is the creator of our favourite memories and the foundation of our fondest dreams. Love is a promise that is always kept, a fortune that

can never be spent, a seed that can flourish in even the most unlikely of places. And this radiance that never fades, this mysterious and magical joy, is the greatest treasure of all – one known only by those who love.

Reading 36

True Love – Author Unknown

True love is a sacred flame

That burns eternally, And none can dim its special glow Or change its destiny. True love speaks in tender tones And hears with gentle ear, True love gives with open heart And true love conquers fear. True love makes no harsh demands It neither rules nor binds, And true love holds with gentle hands The hearts that it entwines.

Reading 41

Your Laughter by Pablo Neruda

Take bread away from me, if you wish,

take air away, but

do not take from me your laughter.

Do not take away the rose,

the lance flower that you pluck,

the water that suddenly

bursts forth in joy,

the sudden wave

of silver born in you.

My struggle is harsh and I come back

with eyes tired

at times from having seen

the unchanging earth,

but when your laughter enters

it rises to the sky seeking me

and it opens for me all

the doors of life.

Next to the sea in the autumn,

your laughter must raise

its foamy cascade,

and in the spring, love,

I want your laughter like

the flower I was waiting for,

the blue flower, the rose

of my echoing country.

Laugh at the night,

at the day, at the moon,

laugh at the twisted

streets of the island,

laugh at this clumsy

boy who loves you,

but when I open

my eyes and close them,

when my steps go,

when my steps return,

deny me bread, air,

light, spring,

but never your laughter

for I would die.

Reading 42

Sonnet 17 by Pablo Neruda

I don’t love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz

or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:

I love you as certain dark things are loved,

secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom and carries

hidden within itself the light of those flowers,

and thanks to your love, darkly in my body

lives the dense fragrance that rises from the earth.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,

I love you simply, without problems or pride:

I love you in this way because I don’t know any other way of loving

but this, in which there is no I or you,

so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,

so intimate that when I fall asleep it is your eyes that close.

Reading 43

He Wishes For The Cloths Of Heaven by William Butler Yeats

Had I the heaven’s embroidered cloths,

Enwrought with golden and silver light,

the blue and the dim and the dark cloths

of night and light and the half-light,

I would spread the cloths under your feet:

But I, being poor, have only my dreams;

I have spread my dreams under your feet;

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

Reading 44

by Roy Croft

I love you

Not only for what you are,

But for what I am

When I am with you.

I love you,

Not only for what

You have made of yourself,

But for what

You are making of me.

I love you

For the part of me

That you bring out;

I love you

For putting your hand

Into my heaped-up heart

And passing over

All the foolish, weak things

That you can’t help

Dimly seeing there,

And for drawing out

Into the light

All the beautiful belongings

That no one else had looked

Quite far enough to find

I love you because you

Are helping me to make

Of the lumber of my life

Not a tavern

But a temple.

Out of the works

Of my every day

Not a reproach

But a song.

I love you

Because you have done

More than any creed

Could have done

To make me good.

And more than any fate

Could have done

To make me happy.

You have done it

Without a touch,

Without a word,

Without a sign.

You have done it

By being yourself.

Perhaps that is what

Being a friend means,

After all.

Reading 45

I Like You by Sandol Stoddard Warburg

I like you and I know why.

I like you because you are a good person to like.

I like you because when I tell you something special, you know it’s

special

And you remember it a long, long time.

You say, Remember when you told me something special

And both of us remember

When I think something is important

you think it’s important too

We have good ideas

When I say something funny, you laugh

I think I’m funny and you think I’m funny too

Hah-hah!

I like you because you know where I’m ticklish

And you don’t tickle me there except just a little tiny bit sometimes

But if you do, then I know where to tickle you too

You know how to be silly

That’s why I like you

Boy are you ever silly

I never met anybody sillier than me till I met you

I like you because you know when it’s time to stop being silly

Maybe day after tomorrow

Maybe never

Too late, it’s a quarter past silly

Sometimes we don’t say a word

We snurkle under fences

We spy secret places

If I am a goofus on the roofus hollering my head off

You are one too

If I pretend I am drowning, you pretend you are saving me

If I am getting ready to pop a paper bag,

then you are getting ready to jump

HOORAY

That’s because you really like me

You really like me, don’t you

And I really like you back

And you like me back and I like you back

And that’s the way we keep on going every day

Reading 46

Swami Omkarananada

Love has wisdom that can solve every problem. It possesses the great patience which waits until, drop by drop, an ocean is formed. Love is royal in dignity, brave in spirit, unbreakable in substance, and divine in nature. It does not complain, does not judge. It transforms everything that it touches. It rules everything to which it presents its own Light. It understands and yields only to conquer fully. Love has numberless resources and inexhaustible energies.

Reading 47

A History of Love by Diane Ackerman

Love. What a small word we use for an idea so immense and powerful it has altered the flow of history, calmed monsters, kindled works of art, cheered the forlorn, turned tough guys to mush, consoled the enslaved, driven strong women mad, glorified the humble, fueled national scandals, bankrupted robber barons, and made mincemeat of kings. How can love’s spaciousness be conveyed in the narrow confines of one syllable? Love is an ancient delirium, a desire older than civilization, with taproots stretching deep into dark and mysterious days…

The heart is a living museum. In each of its galleries, no matter how narrow or dimly lit, preserved forever like wondrous diatoms, are our moments of loving and being loved.

Reading 48

Why Marriage? (Author Unknown)

Because to the depths of me, I long to love one person,

With all my heart, my soul, my mind, my body…

Because I need a forever friend to trust with the intimacies of me,

Who won’t hold them against me,

Who loves me when I’m unlikable,

Who sees the small child in me, and

Who looks for the divine potential of me…

Because I need to cuddle in the warmth of the night

With someone who thanks God for me,

With someone I feel blessed to hold.

Reading 49

The Key to Love

The key to love is understanding …

The ability to comprehend not only the spoken word,

but also those unspoken gestures,

the little things that say so much by themselves.

The key to love is forgiveness….

to accept each other’s faults and pardon mistakes,

without forgetting, but with remembering

what you learn from them.

The key to love is sharing …

Facing your good fortunes as well as the bad, together;

both conquering problems, forever searching for ways

to intensify your happiness.

The key to love is giving …

without thought of return,

but with the hope of just a simple smile,

and by giving in but never giving up.

The key to love is respect …

realising that you are two separate people, with different ideas;

that you don’t belong to each other,

that you belong with each other, and share a mutual bond.

The key to love is inside us all …

It takes time and patience to unlock all the ingredients

that will take you to its threshold;

it is the continual learning process that demands a lot of work … but the rewards are more than worth the effort …

and that is the key to love.

Reading 50

Oh, My Love!

Oh my love!

How very like a rose you are,

My regal, fragrant, floral star;

I truly love you, love you, love!

Oh my love!

When in the sun’s reflecting hues

You bask, no task may I refuse

Because I love you, love you, love!

Oh my love!

Should I, by chance, be severed free

Of senses made to smell and see,

I’d feel your nearness next to me

As one hand feels another darkly there

And presses to another as in prayer;

I’d know that feel of kinship’s care

As I now know this heart of mine

Shall ever love you, love!

Oh my love!

Should that axe of ages activate

To prematurely untogether all,

All aspirations must, like dreams, abate

Until horns of Michael call;

Yet, when two lives are merged, as we,

And each becomes the other’s me,

Then, servitude’s the highest free

And, in oneness, we shall be

Together everlasting!

Such a trite catastrophe

Could never mar our unity

Because my spirit loves the love of loving you!

Reading 51

Fenton Johnson

“But in love

something miraculous happens.

In loving someone,

we give them

an ideal against which

to measure themselves.

Living in the presence

of that ideal,

the beloved strives to fulfill

the lover’s expectations.

In this way,

Love makes of us

the bravest and best persons

that we are capable of being.”

Reading 52

Jean Marie Rilke

Understand, I’ll slip quietly

Away from the noisy crowd

When I see the pale

Stars rising, blooming over the oaks

I’ll pursue solitary pathways

Through the pale twilight meadows

With only this one dream,

You come too.

Reading 53

Shakespeare

Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle’s compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Reading 55

When a Man and a Woman Are in Love by Stephen T. Fader

When a man and a woman are in love,

his life lies within hers and her life lies within his.

Each lives as an individual,

yet they also live for one another.

Each strives for independent goals,

but they also work together to achieve their dreams.

When a man and a woman are in love,

they will give to one another what they need to survive and help fulfill each other’s wants.

They will turn one another’s disappointment into satisfaction.

They will turn one another’s frustration into contentment.

They will work as a mirror,

reflecting to each other their strengths and weaknesses.

They will work together

to alleviate the emotional walls that may separate them.

They will work together to build

a better understanding of one another.

They will learn to lean on each other,

but not so much as to be a burden on the other.

They will learn to reach out to one another, but not so much as to suffocate the other.

They will learn when it is time to speak and when it is time to listen.

They will be there to comfort each other in times of sorrow.

They will be there to celebrate together in times of happiness.

They will be one another’s friend,

guiding each other to the happiness that life holds.

They will be one another’s companion,

facing together the challenges that life may present.

When a man and a woman are in love,

his life lies within hers and her life lies within his.

Together they will love one another for the rest of their lives and forever.

Reading 61

Letters by Rainer Maria Rilke

Marriage is in many ways a simplification of life, and it naturally combines the strengths and wills of two people so that, together, they seem to reach farther into the future than they did before.

Above all, marriage is a new task and a new seriousness, a new demand on the strength and generosity of each partner, and a great new danger for both.

The point of marriage is not to create a quick commonality by tearing down all boundaries; on the contrary, a good marriage is one in which each partner appoints the other to be the guardian of their solitude, and thus they show each other the greatest possible trust.

A merging of two people is an impossibility, and where it seems to exist, it is a hemming-in, a mutual consent that robs one party or both parties of their fullest freedom and development.

But once the realisation is accepted that even between the closest people infinite distances exist, a marvelous living side by side can grow up for them, if they succeed in loving the expanse between them, which gives them the possibility of always seeing each other as a whole and before an immense sky.

For the more we are, the richer everything we experience is.

And those who want to have a deep love in their lives must collect and save for it, and gather honey.

Reading 62

The Life That I Have by Leo Marks

The life that I have 
Is all that I have 
And the life that I have Is yours.

The love that I have
 Of the life that I have
Is yours and yours and yours.

A sleep I shall have 
A rest I shall have
 Yet death will be but a pause
 For the peace of my years
In the long green grass
 Will be yours and yours and yours.

Reading 63

i carry your heart with me by e.e. cummings

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate, my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world, my true) and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

Reading 63

Untitled
 by Robert Ingersoll

Love is the only bow on life’s dark cloud.

It is the morning and the evening star.

It shines upon the cradle of the babe,
and sheds its radiance upon the quiet tomb.

It is the mother of art, inspirer of poet, patriot, and philosopher.

It is the air and light of every heart, builder of every home, kindler of every fire on every hearth.

It was the first to dream of immortality.

It fills the world with melody, 
for music is the voice of love.

Love is the magician, the enchanter, 
that changes worthless things to joy,
and makes right royal kings and queens of common clay.

It is the perfume of the wondrous flower — the heart.

And without that sacred passion, that divine swoon,
we are less than beasts;
but with it, Earth is heaven
and we are gods.

Reading 64

Sonnet XLVIII by Pablo Neruda

Two happy lovers Make one single bed, One single drop
Of moonlight
In the grass.
When they walk, They leave
Two shadows
That merge,
And they leave
One single sun Blazing in their bed.

Touched By an Angel by Maya Angelou

We, unaccustomed to courage exiles from delight
live coiled in shells of loneliness until love leaves its high holy temple and comes into our sight to liberate us into life.

Love arrives
and in its train come ecstasies
old memories of pleasure
ancient histories of pain.

Yet if we are bold,
love strikes away the chains of fear from our souls.

We are weaned from our timidity In the flush of love’s light
we dare be brave
And suddenly we see that love costs all we are and will ever be.

Yet it is only love
which sets us free.

Reading 65

These I Can Promise by Unknown

I cannot promise you a life of sunshine;
I cannot promise riches, wealth, or gold;
I cannot promise you an easy pathway
That leads away from change or growing old.

But I can promise all my heart’s devotion;
A smile to chase away your tears of sorrow;
A love that’s ever true and ever growing;
A hand to hold in yours through each tomorrow

Reading 66

From The Whalestoe Letters by Mark Z. Danielewski

Remember: I shall be your roots and I will be your shade though the sun burns my leaves.

I shall quench your thirst and I will feed you fruit though time takes my seed.

And when you are lost and can tell nothing of this earth I will give you hope.

And my voice you will always hear and my heart you will always share, for I will shelter you and I will comfort you.

And even when I am nothing left, not even in death, I will remember you. And I will love you.

Reading 67

True Love by Unknown

True love is a sacred flame
That burns eternally,
And none can dim its special glow
Or change its destiny.

True love speaks in tender tones
And hears with gentle ear,
True love gives with open heart
And true love conquers fear.

True love makes no harsh demands
It neither rules nor binds,
And true love holds with gentle hands The hearts that it entwines.

Reading 68

My Love by Linda Lee Elrod

When I met you, I had no idea
how much my life
was about to be changed…
but then, how could I have known?

A love like ours happens once in a lifetime.
You were a miracle to me, the one who was everything I had ever dreamed of, the one I thought existed only in my imagination.

And when you came into my life, I realized that what I
had always thought
was happiness couldn’t compare to the joy loving you brought me.

You are a part of everything
I think and do and feel,
and with you by my side,
I believe that anything is possible. (this day) gives me a chance to thank you for the miracle of you… you are, and always will be,
the love of my life.

Reading 69

Falling In Love Is Like Owning a Dog by Taylor Mali

On cold winter nights, love is warm.
It lies between you and lives and breathes
and makes funny noises.

Love doesn’t like being left alone for long.
But come home and love is always happy to see you.

It may break a few things accidentally in its passion for life, but you can never be mad at love for long.

But love makes you meet people wherever you go.

People who have nothing in common but love
stop and talk to each other on the street.

Throw things away and love will bring them back,
again, and again, and again.

But most of all, love needs love, lots of it.

And in return, love loves you and never stops.

Reading 70

“The Alchemist” by Paulo Coelho

When he looked into her eyes, he learned the most important part of the language that all the world spoke – the language that everyone on earth was capable of understanding in their heart. It was love.

Something older than humanity, more ancient than the desert. What the boy felt at that moment was that he was in the presence of the only woman in his life, and that, with no need for words, she recognized the same thing.

Because when you know the language, it’s easy to understand that someone in the world awaits you, whether it’s in the middle of the desert or in some great city.

And when two such people encounter each other, the past and the future become unimportant.

There is only that moment, and the incredible certainty that everything under the sun has been written by one hand only.

It is the hand that evokes love, and creates a twin soul for every person in the world.

Without such love, one’s dreams would have no meaning.

Reading 71

The Buried Life by Matthew Arnold

Only—but this is rare—
When a beloved hand is laid in ours
When, jaded with the rush and glare
Of the interminable hours,
Our eyes can in another’s eyes read clear When our world deafened ear
Is by the tones of a loved voice caressed— A bolt is shot back somewhere in our breast And a lost pulse of feeling stirs again;
The eye sinks inward,
And the heart lies plain,
And what we mean, we say, and
What we would, we know,
A man, a woman, becomes aware of life’s flow.

Reading 72

Oh The Places You’ll Go by Dr. Seuss

Congratulations!
Today is your day.

You’re off to Great Places!

You’re off and away!

You have brains in your head.

You have feet in your shoes.

You can steer yourself
any direction you choose.

You’re on your own.

And you know what you know.

And YOU are the couple who’ll decide where to go.

You’ll look up and down streets. Look ‘em over with care.

About some you will say, “We don’t choose to go there.”

With your heads full of brains and your shoes full of feet, you’re too smart to go down, any not-so-good street.

And you may not find any
you’ll want to go down.
In that case, of course,
you’ll head straight out of town.

It’s opener there
in the wide open air,
Out there things can happen
and frequently do
to people as brainy
and footsy as you.

And when things start to happen,
don’t worry.

Don’t stew.

Just go right along.

You’ll start happening too.

OH! THE PLACES YOU’LL GO!

You’ll be on your way up!

You’ll be seeing great sights!

You’ll join the high fliers
who soar to great heights!

You won’t lag behind, because you’ll have all the speed.

You’ll pass the whole gang, and you’ll soon take the lead. Wherever you fly you’ll be best of the best.
Wherever you go, you will top all the rest.

Except when you don’t.

Because sometimes, you won’t.

You’ll get mixed up of course,
as you already know.
You’ll get mixed up
with so many strange birds as you go. So be sure when you step.

Step with great care and great tact
and remember that Life’s a Great Balancing Act.

Just never forget to be dexterous and deft.

And never mix up your right foot with your left.

And will you succeed?
Yes!

You will indeed!
(98 and 3⁄4 percent guaranteed.)

KIDS, YOU’LL MOVE MOUNTAINS!

So, be your name Buxbaum or Dowrie or Bass or Mordecai Ali Van Allen O’Shea,
you’re off to great places!

Today is your day!

Your mountain is waiting.

So … get on your way!

Reading 73

From: The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams

“What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room.

“Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”

“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse.

“It’s a thing that happens to you.

When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”

“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.

“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”

“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”

“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become.

It takes a long time.

That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept.

Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby.

But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.

Reading 74

From: The Irrational Season by Madeleine L’Engle

But ultimately there comes a moment when a decision must be made.

Ultimately two people who love each other must ask themselves how much they hope for as their love grows and deepens, and how much risk they are willing to take…It is indeed a fearful gamble…Because it is the nature of love to create, a marriage itself is something which has to be created, so that, together we become a new creature.

To marry is the biggest risk in human relations that a person can take…If we commit ourselves to one person for life this is not, as many people think, a rejection of freedom; rather it demands the courage to move into all the risks of freedom, and the risk of love which is permanent; into that love which is not possession, but participation…It takes a lifetime to learn another person…When love is not possession, but participation, then it is part of that co-creation which is our human calling, and which implies such risk that it is often rejected.

Look To This Day by Kalidasa

Look to this day
For it is life, the very life of life.

In its brief course
Lie all the verities and realities of your existence.

The bliss of growth,
The glory of action,
The splendour of achievement
Are but experiences of time.
For yesterday is but a dream
And tomorrow is only a vision;
And today well-lived, makes
Yesterday a dream of happiness
And every tomorrow a vision of hope.
Look well therefore to this day;
Such is the salutation to the ever-new dawn!

Reading 75

On Marriage by Kahil Gibran

You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.

You shall be together when white wings of death scatter your days.

Aye, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.

But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.

Love one another but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.

Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup.

Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,

Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.

Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping.

For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.

And stand together, yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.

Reading 76

Love for the Better Half by Hong-Zing Dong

Hold hands for a whole life, weaving a dream of love.

Two souls walk together, never will be frightened.

Together holding hand in hand, it will last forever.

The days you treasure me are the best in living.

The days you nag me never hinder anything.

Tying a knot is god’s blessing.

Togetherness is happiness.

No matter how rough winds and rains are,
The journey for holding hands hereafter is still far and long.

The time for our love also is long and lasting.

Together hand in hand we keep walking,
Perpetuate names of husband and wife generation after generation.

Reading 77

Hugh Walpole

The most wonderful of all things in life, I believe, is the discovery of another human being with whom one’s relationship has a growing depth, beauty, and joy as the years increase.

This inner progressiveness of love between two human beings is a most marvelous thing; it cannot be found by looking for it or by passionately wishing for it.

It is a sort of divine accident, and the most wonderful of all things in life.

Reading 78

Of Shared Love In Marriage by Victor Hugo

You can give without loving, but you can never love without giving.

The great acts of love are done by those who are habitually performing small acts of kindness.

We pardon to the extent that we love.

Love is knowing that even when you are alone, you will never be lonely again.

And great happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved.

Loved for ourselves.

And even loved in spite of ourselves.

The Privileged Lovers

by Rumi

The moon has become a dancer

at this festival of love.

This dance of light,

This sacred blessing,

This divine love,

beckons us

to a world beyond

only lovers can see

with their eyes of fiery passion.

They are the chosen ones

who have surrendered.

Once they were particles of light

now they are the radiant sun.

They have left behind

the world of deceitful games.

They are the privileged lovers

who create a new world

with their eyes of fiery passion.

Chemistry

by Nayyirah Waheed

chemistry

is

you

touching my arm

and

it

setting fire to my mind.

—flood

Touched by an Angel

by Maya Angelou

We, unaccustomed to courage

exiles from delight

live coiled in shells of loneliness

until love leaves its high holy temple

and comes into our sight

to liberate us into life.

Love arrives

and in its train come ecstasies

old memories of pleasure

ancient histories of pain.

Yet if we are bold,

love strikes away the chains of fear

from our souls.

We are weaned from our timidity

In the flush of love’s light

we dare be brave

And suddenly we see

that love costs all we are

and will ever be.

Yet it is only love

which sets us free.

Defeated by Love

by Rumi

The sky was lit

by the splendor of the moon

So powerful

I fell to the ground

Your love

has made me sure

I am ready to forsake

this worldly life

and surrender

to the magnificence

of your Being

Desire

by Alice Walker

My desire

is always the same; wherever Life

deposits me:

I want to stick my toe

& soon my whole body

into the water.

I want to shake out a fat broom

& sweep dried leaves

bruised blossoms

dead insects

& dust.

I want to grow

something.

It seems impossible that desire

can sometimes transform into devotion;

but this has happened.

And that is how I’ve survived:

how the hole

I carefully tended

in the garden of my heart

grew a heart

to fill it.

The Day Sky

by Hafiz

Let us be like

Two falling stars in the day sky.

Let no one know of our sublime beauty

As we hold hands with God

And burn

Into a sacred existence that defies—

That surpasses

Every description of ecstasy

And love.

Children Running Through

by Rumi, Translation by Coleman Barks with John Moyne

I used to be shy.

You made me sing.

I used to refuse things at table.

Now I shout for more wine.

In somber dignity, I used to sit

on my mat and pray.

Now children run through

and make faces at me.

I Got Kin

by Hafiz

Plant

So that your own heart

Will grow.

Love

So God will think,

“Ahhhhhh,

I got kin in that body!

I should start inviting that soul over

For coffee and

Rolls.”

Sing

Because this is a food

Our starving world

Needs.

Laugh

Because that is the purest

Sound.

The Wedding Vow

by Sharon Olds

I did not stand at the altar, I stood

at the foot of the chancel steps, with my beloved,

and the minister stood on the top step

holding the open Bible. The church

was wood, painted ivory inside, no people—God’s

stable perfectly cleaned. It was night,

spring—outside, a moat of mud,

and inside, from the rafters, flies

fell onto the open Bible, and the minister

tilted it and brushed them off. We stood

beside each other, crying slightly

with fear and awe. In truth, we had married

that first night, in bed, we had been

married by our bodies, but now we stood

in history—what our bodies had said,

mouth to mouth, we now said publicly,

gathered together, death. We stood

holding each other by the hand, yet I also

stood as if alone, for a moment,

just before the vow, though taken

years before, took. It was a vow

of the present and the future, and yet I felt it

to have some touch on the distant past

or the distant past on it, I felt

the silent, dry, crying ghost of my

parents’ marriage there, somewhere

in the bright space—perhaps one of the

plummeting flies, bouncing slightly

as it hit forsaking all others, then was brushed

away. I felt as if I had come

to claim a promise—the sweetness I’d inferred

from their sourness; and at the same time that I had

come, congenitally unworthy, to beg.

And yet, I had been working toward this hour

all my life. And then it was time

to speak—he was offering me, no matter

what, his life. That is all I had to

do, that evening, to accept the gift

I had longed for—to say I had accepted it,

as if being asked if I breathe. Do I take?

I do. I take as he takes—we have been

practicing this. Do you bear this pleasure? I do

[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]

by e.e. cummings

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done

by only me is your doing,my darling)

i fear

no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want

no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

Every Day You Play…

by Pablo Neruda

Every day you play with the light of the universe.

Subtle visitor, you arrive in the flower and the water.

You are more than this white head that I hold tightly

as a cluster of fruit, every day, between my hands.

You are like nobody since I love you.

Let me spread you out among yellow garlands.

Who writes your name in letters of smoke among the stars of the south?

Oh let me remember you as you were before you existed.

Suddenly the wind howls and bangs at my shut window.

The sky is a net crammed with shadowy fish.

Here all the winds let go sooner or later, all of them.

The rain takes off her clothes.

The birds go by, fleeing.

The wind. The wind.

I can contend only against the power of men.

The storm whirls dark leaves

and turns loose all the boats that were moored last night to the sky.

You are here. Oh, you do not run away.

You will answer me to the last cry.

Cling to me as though you were frightened.

Even so, at one time a strange shadow ran through your eyes.

Now, now too, little one, you bring me honeysuckle,

and even your breasts smell of it.

While the sad wind goes slaughtering butterflies

I love you, and my happiness bites the plum of your mouth.

How you must have suffered getting accustomed to me,

my savage, solitary soul, my name that sends them all running.

So many times we have seen the morning star burn, kissing our eyes,

and over our heads the gray light unwind in turning fans.

My words rained over you, stroking you.

A long time I have loved the sunned mother-of-pearl of your body.

I go so far as to think that you own the universe.

I will bring you happy flowers from the mountains, bluebells,

dark hazels, and rustic baskets of kisses.

I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.

The Ache of Marriage

by Denise Levertov

The ache of marriage:

thigh and tongue, beloved,

are heavy with it,

it throbs in the teeth

We look for communion

and are turned away, beloved,

each and each

It is leviathan and we

in its belly

looking for joy, some joy

not to be known outside it

two by two in the ark of

the ache of it.

A Great Need

by Hafiz

Out

Of a great need

We are all holding hands

And climbing.

Not loving is a letting go.

Listen,

The terrain around here

Is

Far too

Dangerous

For

That.

We

by Nayyirah Waheed

we

return to each other in waves.

this is how water

loves.

love is a place

by e.e. cummings

love is a place

& through this place of

love move

(with brightness of peace)

all places

yes is a world

& in this world of

yes live

(skilfully curled)

all worlds

So Much Happiness

by Naomi Shihab Nye

It is difficult to know what to do with so much happiness.

With sadness there is something to rub against,

a wound to tend with lotion and cloth.

When the world falls in around you, you have pieces to pick up,

something to hold in your hands, like ticket stubs or change.

But happiness floats.

It doesn’t need you to hold it down.

It doesn’t need anything.

Happiness lands on the roof of the next house, singing,

and disappears when it wants to.

You are happy either way.

Even the fact that you once lived in a peaceful tree house

and now live over a quarry of noise and dust

cannot make you unhappy.

Everything has a life of its own,

it too could wake up filled with possibilities

of coffee cake and ripe peaches,

and love even the floor which needs to be swept,

the soiled linens and scratched records…..

Since there is no place large enough

to contain so much happiness,

you shrug, you raise your hands, and it flows out of you

into everything you touch. You are not responsible.

You take no credit, as the night sky takes no credit

for the moon, but continues to hold it, and share it,

and in that way, be known.

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond

by e.e. cummings

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond

any experience,your eyes have their silence:

in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,

or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me

though i have closed myself as fingers,

you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens

(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me,i and

my life will shut very beautifully,suddenly,

as when the heart of this flower imagines

the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals

the power of your intense fragility:whose texture

compels me with the colour of its countries,

rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes

and opens;only something in me understands

the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)

nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands