Challenge #34 May You Always Feel Loved

May You Always Feel Loved


by Sandra Sturtz Hauss



May you find serenity and tranquility in a world

You may not always understand.

May the pain you have known and conflict you have experienced

Give you the strength to walk through life

Facing each new situation with courage and optimism.

Always know that there are those whose love and understanding

Will always be there, even when you feel most alone.

May you discover enough goodness in others

To believe in a world of peace.

May a kind word, a reassuring touch, a warm smile be yours

Every day of your life,

And may you give these gifts as well as receive them.

Remember the sunshine when the storm seems unending.

Teach love to those who know hate,

And let that love embrace you as you go into the world.

May the teaching of those you admire become part of you,

So that you may call upon them.

Remember, those whose lives you have touched

And who have touched yours are always a part of you,

Even if the encounters were less than you would have wished.

It is the content of the encounter that is more important than it's form.

May you not become too concerned with material matters,

But instead place immeasurable value on the goodness in your heart.

Find time in each day to see the beauty and love in the world around you.

Realize that each person has limitless abilities,

But each of us is different in our own way.

What you may feel you lack in one regard

May be more than compensated for in another.

What you feel you lack in the present

May become one of your strengths in the future.

May you see your future as one filled with promise and possibility.

Learn to view everything as a worthwhile experience.

May you find enough inner strength to determine your own worth by yourself,

And not be dependent on another's judgement of your accomplishments.

May you always feel loved.


--- Copyright © 1987 Sandra Sturtz Hauss ---

Challenge #33 New Year

New Year
Katharine Lee Bates


WHITE year, white year,
Muffled soft in snow,
A diamond spray whose gems are gone
Before their grace we know,
A crystal-coated spray whose hours
Melt when looked upon,
Hoarfrost stars and hoarfrost flowers,
White year!

Green year, green year,
Sweet with sun and showers,
A windblown spray whose blossoms bright
Are the seven-colored hours,
A dancing spray whose leaves are days,
A spray whose leaves delight
In azure gleam and silver haze,
Green year!

New Year, new year
From rosy leaf to gold,
A shining spray on the Tree of Time
Where myriad sprays unfold,
A spray so fair that God may see
And gather it, bloom and rime,
To deck the doors of Eternity,
New Year!

Challenge #32

written by: Marinela Reka

A

Shiny

Little star

Burned bright

Full of glowing light

Spreading joy to the night

Christmas time!

A time that fills us with desire

And slowly sets our hearts on fire

We pray, we love and listen to the choir

A jolly Christmas time

The Christmas tree stands so tall and so proud

Takes a seat on the presents as they become a crowd

Looks over the treasured presents like a hovering cloud

Everybody loves Christmas time

It’s decorated merrily with colours and materials of all kinds

It created a place of pleasure and joy for our eyes, and our minds

And many years of pleasure and memories it always unwinds

Christmas

Is slowly

On its

Way

To

Us

Challenge #31 Mistletoe

Mistletoe a Christmas poem
by Walter de la Mare


Make it Snow !
Sitting under the mistletoe
(Pale-green, fairy mistletoe),
One last candle burning low,
All the sleepy dancers gone,
Just one candle burning on,
Shadows lurking everywhere:
Some one came, and kissed me there.
Tired I was; my head would go
Nodding under the mistletoe
(Pale-green, fairy mistletoe),
No footsteps came, no voice, but only,
Just as I sat there, sleepy, lonely,
Stooped in the still and shadowy air
Lips unseen - and kissed me there.

The Tables Turned

The Tables Turned

by Williams Wordsworth

Up! Up! my Friend, and quit your books;

Or surely you'll grow double:

Up! up! my Friend, and clear your looks;

Why all this toil and trouble?

The sun, above the mountain's head,

A freshening lustre mellow

Through all the long green fields has spread,

His first sweet evening yellow.

Books! 'tis a dull and endless strife:

Come, hear the woodland linnet,

How sweet his music! on my life,

There's more of wisdom in it.

And hark! how blithe the throstle sings!

He, too, is no mean preacher:

Come forth into the light of things,

Let Nature be your Teacher.

She has a world of ready wealth,

Our minds and hearts to bless

Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health,

Truth breathed by cheerfulness.

One impulse from a vernal wood

May teach you more of man,

Of moral evil and of good,

Than all the sages can.

Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;

Our meddling intellect

Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:

We murder to dissect.

Enough of Science and of Art;

Close up those barren leaves;

Come forth, and bring with you a heart

That watches and receives.



Prayer for the Great Family

Prayer for the Great Family

Gratitude to Mother Earth, sailing through night and day—
and to her soil: rich, rare and sweet
in our minds so be it.
Gratitude to Plants, the sun-facing, light-changing leaf
and fine root-hairs; standing still through wind
and rain; their dance is in the flowering spiral grain
in our minds so be it.
Gratitude to Air, bearing the soaring Swift and silent
Owl at dawn. Breath of our song
clear spirit breeze
in our minds so be it.
Gratitude to Wild Beings, our brothers, teaching secrets,
freedoms, and ways; who share with us their milk;
self-complete, brave and aware
in our minds so be it.
Gratitude to Water: clouds, lakes, rivers, glaciers;
holding or releasing; streaming through all
our bodies salty seas
in our minds so be it.
Gratitude to the Sun: blinding pulsing light through
trunks of trees, through mists, warming caves where
bears and snakes sleep— he who wakes us—
in our minds so be it.
Gratitude to the Great Sky
who holds billions of stars— and goes yet beyond that—
beyond all powers, and thoughts
and yet is within us—
Grandfather Space.
The Mind is his Wife.
so be it.


after a Mohawk prayer
by: Gary Snyder, Turtle Island
New Directions, New York, 1974, pp. 24-25

A Red, Red Rose

A Red, Red Rose



by: Robert Burns


Oh my luve is like a red, red rose,

That's newly sprung in June:

Oh my luve is like the melodie,

That's sweetly play'd in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonie lass,

So deep in luve am I;

And I will luve thee still, my dear,

Till a' the seas gang dry.

Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,

And the rocks melt wi' the sun;

And I will luve thee still, my dear,

While the sands o' life shall run.

And fare thee weel, my only luve!

And fare thee weel a while!

And I will come again, my luve,

Tho' it were ten thousand mile!