Readings, Poems, & Excerpts

On Your Wedding Day – Author Unknown

Today is a day you will always remember

The greatest in anyone’s life

You’ll start off the day just two people in love

And end it as Husband and Wife.

It’s a brand-new beginning, the start of a journey

With moments to cherish and treasure

And although there’ll be time when you both disagree

These will surely be outweighed by pleasure.

You’ll have heard many words of advice in the past

When the secrets of marriage were spoken

But you know that the answers lie hidden inside

Where the bond of true love lies unbroken.

So live happy forever as lovers and friends

It’s the dawn of a new life for you

As you stand there together with love in your eyes

From the moment you whisper “I do”

And with luck, all your hopes, and your dreams can be real

May success find its way to your hearts

Tomorrow can bring you the greatest of joys

But today is the day it all starts.

Union by Robert Fulghum

You have known each other from the first glance of acquaintance to this point of commitment. At some point, you decided to marry. From that moment of yes, to this moment of yes, indeed, you have been making commitments in an informal way. 

All of those conversations that were held in a car, or over a meal, or during long walks – all those conversations that began with, “When we’re married”, and continued with “I will” and “you will” and “we will” – all those late night talks that included “someday” and “somehow” and “maybe” – and all those promises that are unspoken matters of the heart. All these common things, and more, are the real process of a wedding.

The symbolic vows that you are about to make are a way of saying to one another, “You know all those things that we’ve promised, and hoped, and dreamed – well, I meant it all, every word.”

Look at one another and remember this moment in time. Before this moment you have been many things to one another – acquaintance, friend, companion, lover, dancing partner, even teacher, for you have learned much from one another these past few years. Shortly you shall say a few words that will take you across a threshold of life, and things between you will never quite be the same.

For after today you shall say to the world –
This is my husband. This is my wife.

He's Not Perfect ~ Bob Marley

He’s not perfect. You aren’t either, and the two of you will never be perfect. But if he can make you laugh at least once, causes you to think twice, and if he admits to being human and making mistakes, hold onto him and give him the most you can.

He isn’t going to quote poetry, he’s not thinking about you every moment, but he will give you a part of him that he knows you could break. Don’t hurt him, don’t change him, and don’t expect for more than he can give. Don’t analyse.

Smile when he makes you happy, yell when he makes you mad, and miss him when he’s not there. Love hard when there is love to be had. Because perfect guys don’t exist, but there’s always one guy that is perfect for you.

Once in your life ~ Bob Marley

Only once in your life, I truly believe, you find someone who can completely turn your world around. You tell them things that you’ve never shared with another soul and they absorb everything you say and actually want to hear more. 

You share hopes for the future, dreams that will never come true, goals that were never achieved and the many disappointments life has thrown at you. 

When something wonderful happens, you can’t wait to tell them about it, knowing they will share in your excitement. 

They are not embarrassed to cry with you when you are hurting or laugh with you when you make a fool of yourself. 

Never do they hurt your feelings or make you feel like you are not good enough, but rather they build you up and show you the things about yourself that make you special and even beautiful. 

There is never any pressure, jealousy or competition but only a quiet calmness when they are around. 

You can be yourself and not worry about what they will think of you because they love you for who you are. 

The things that seem insignificant to most people such as a note, song or walk become invaluable treasures kept safe in your heart to cherish forever. 

Memories of your childhood come back and are so clear and vivid it’s like being young again. 

Colors seem brighter and more brilliant. Laughter seems part of daily life where before it was infrequent or didn’t exist at all. A phone call or two during the day helps to get you through a long day’s work and always brings a smile to your face. 

In their presence, there’s no need for continuous conversation, but you find you’re quite content in just having them nearby. Things that never interested you before become fascinating because you know they are important to this person who is so special to you. 

You think of this person on every occasion and in everything you do. 

Simple things bring them to mind like a pale blue sky, gentle wind or even a storm cloud on the horizon. You open your heart knowing that there’s a chance it may be broken one day and in opening your heart, you experience a love and joy that you never dreamed possible. 

You find that being vulnerable is the only way to allow your heart to feel true pleasure that’s so real it scares you. 

You find strength in knowing you have a true friend and possibly a soul mate who will remain loyal to the end. Life seems completely different, exciting and worthwhile. 

Your only hope and security is in knowing that they are a part of your life.

Falling In Love is Like Owning a Dog by Taylor Mali

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.

Anne’s House of Dreams by L.M. Montgomery

But it was a happy and beautiful bride who came down the old, homespun-carpeted stairs that September noon — the first bride of Green Gables, slender and shining-eyed, in the mist of her maiden veil, with her arms full of roses. 

Gilbert, waiting for her in the hall below, looked up at her with adoring eyes. 

She was his at last, this evasive, long-sought Anne, won after years of patient waiting. 

It was to him she was coming in the sweet surrender of the bride. 

Was he worthy of her? Could he make her as happy as he hoped? If he failed her — if he could not measure up to her standard of manhood — then, as she held out her hand, their eyes met, and all doubt was swept away in a glad certainty. 

They belonged to each other; and, no matter what life might hold for them, it could never alter that. 

Their happiness was in each other’s keeping and both were unafraid.

I Am Love

Some say I can fly on the wind, yet I haven’t any wings. 

Some have found me floating on the open sea, yet I cannot swim. 

Some have felt my warmth on cold nights, yet I have no flame. 

And though you cannot see me, I lay between two lovers at the hearth of fireplaces. 

I am the twinkle in your child’s eyes. 

I am hidden in the lines of your mother's face. 

I am your father's shield as he guards your home. 

And yet… Some say I am stronger than steel, yet I am as fragile as a tear. 

Some have never searched for me, yet I am around them always. 

Some say I die with loss, yet I am endless. 

And though you cannot hear me, I dance on the laughter of children. 

I am woven into the whispers of passion. 

I am in the blessings of Grandmothers. 

I embrace the cries of newborn babies. 

And yet… Some say I am a flower, yet I am also the seed. 

Some have little faith in me, yet I will always believe in them. 

Some say I cannot cure the ill, yet I nourish the soul. 

And though you cannot touch me, I am the gentle hand of the kind. 

I am the fingertips that caress your cheek at night. I am the hug of a child. 

I am love.

The Princess Bride by William Goldman

Do I love you? My God, if your love were a grain of sand, mine would be a universe of beaches…I have stayed these years in my hovel because of you. I have taught myself languages because of you. I have made my body strong because I thought you might be pleased by a strong body. 

I have lived my life with only the prayer that some sudden dawn you might glance in my direction. 

I have not known a moment in years when the sight of you did not send my heart careening against my rib cage. 

I have not known a night when your visage did not accompany me to sleep. 

There has not been a morning when you did not flutter behind my waking eyelids…

I love you. Okay? Want it louder? I love you. 

Spell it out, should I? I ell-oh-vee-ee why-oh-you. Want it backward? You love I.

Unknown

The future belongs to hearts even more than it does minds. 

Love, that is the only thing that can occupy and fill eternity. 

In the infinite, the inexhaustible is requisite. 

Love participates of the soul itself. 

It is of the same nature. 

Like it, it is the divine spark; like it, it is incorruptible, indivisible, imperishable. 

It is a point of fire that exists within’ us, which is immortal and infinite, which nothing can confine, and which nothing can extinguish. 

We feel burning evening t the very marrow of our bones, and we see it beaming in the very depths of heaven…What a grand thing it is to be loved!

What a far grander thing it is to love!

The heart becomes heroic, by dint of passion. 

It is no longer composed of anything but what is pure; it no longer rests on anything that is not elevated and great. 

An unworthy thought can no more germinate in it, than a nettle on a glacier.

Love Is by Susan Polis-Schutz

Love is . . . Being happy for the other person when they are happy, being sad for the person when they are sad, Being together in good times, And being together in bad times.

LOVE IS THE SOURCE OF STRENGTH.

Love is . . . Being honest with yourself at all times, being honest with the other person at all times, Telling, listening, respecting the truth, And never pretending.

LOVE IS THE SOURCE OF REALITY.

Love is . . . An understanding so complete that you feel as if you are a part of the other person, Accepting the other person just the way they are, and not trying to change them to be something else.

LOVE IS THE SOURCE OF UNITY.

Love is . . . The freedom to pursue your own desires while sharing your experiences with the other person, The growth of one individual alongside of and together with the growth of another individual.

LOVE IS THE SOURCE OF SUCCESS.

Love is . . . The excitement of planning things together, the excitement of doing things together.

LOVE IS THE SOURCE OF THE FUTURE.

Love is . . . The fury of the storm, The calm in the rainbow.

LOVE IS THE SOURCE OF PASSION.

Love is . . . Giving and taking in a daily situation, Being patient with each other’s needs and desires.

LOVE IS THE SOURCE OF SHARING.

Love is . . . Knowing that the other person will always be with you regardless of what happens, Missing the other person when they are away but remaining near in heart at all times.

LOVE IS THE SOURCE OF SECURITY.
LOVE IS . . . THE SOURCE OF LIFE!”

Henri Nouwen

Many human relationships are like the interlocking fingers of two hands... Human relationships are meant to be like two hands folded together. They can move away from each other while still touching with the fingertips. They can create space between themselves, a little tent, a home, a safe place to be."
 

True relationships among people point to God. They are like prayers in the world. Sometimes the hands that pray are fully touching, sometimes there is distance between them. They always move to and from each other, but they never lose touch. They keep praying to the One who brought them together.

James Bertolino

May your love be firm, and may your dream of life together be a river between two shores—by day bathed in sunlight, and by night illuminated from within. May the heron carry news of you to the heavens, and the salmon bring the sea's blue grace. May your twin thoughts spiral upward like leafy vines, like fiddle strings in the wind, and be as noble as the Douglas fir. May you never find yourselves back to back without love pulling you around into each other's arms."

Adam Bede by George Eliot

What greater thing is there for two human souls, than to feel that they are joined for life — to strengthen each other in all labor, to rest on each other in all sorrow, to minister to each other in all pain, to be one with each other in silent unspeakable memories at the moment of the last parting?

Rumi

May these vows and this marriage be blessed.
May it be sweet milk,
this marriage, like wine and halvah.
 

May this marriage offer fruit and shade, like the date palm.
May this marriage be full of laughter,
our everyday a paradise.
May this marriage be a sign of compassion,
a seal of happiness here and hereafter.
 

May this marriage have a fair face and a good name,
an omen as welcome
as the moon in a clear blue sky.
I am out of words to describe
how spirit mingles in this marriage."

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

I have for the first time found what I can truly love — I have found you. 

You are my sympathy — my better self — my good angel — I am bound to you with a strong attachment. I think you good, gifted, lovely: a fervent, a solemn passion is conceived in my heart; it leans to you, draws you to my center and spring of life, wraps my existence about you — and, kindling in pure, powerful flame, fuses you and me in one. 

It was because I felt and knew this, that I resolved to marry you.

The Promise by Heather Berry

Within this blessed union of souls, where two hearts intertwine to become one, there lies a promise. 

Perfectly born, divinely created, and intimately shared, it is a place where the hope and majesty of beginnings reside. 

Where all things are made possible by the astounding love shared by two spirits. 

As you hold each other’s hands in this promise, and eagerly look into the future in each other’s eyes, may your unconditional love and devotion take you to places where you’ve both only dreamed. 

Where you’ll dwell for a lifetime of happiness, sheltered in the warmth of each other’s arms.

Letters to a Young Poet by 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 chooses him and calls him to vast distance…

Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest people infinite distance exists, 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 seeing each other as a whole before an immense sky.

On Friendship 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 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.

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 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...
realizing 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.

Apache Marriage Blessing

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

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

Now you are two persons, but there is only one life before. 

Go now to your dwelling place to enter into the days of your life together. 

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

Treat yourselves and each other with respect and remind yourselves often of what brought you together. 

Give the highest priority to the tenderness, gentleness and kindness that your connection deserves. When frustration, difficulty and fear assail your relationship - as they threaten all relationships at one time or another - remember to focus on what is right between you, not only the part which seems wrong. 

In this way, you can ride out the storms when clouds hide the face of the sun in your lives - remembering that even if you lose sight of it for a moment, the sun is still there. 

And if each of you takes responsibility for the quality of your life together, it will be marked by abundance and delight. 

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 colors in loving each other. 

Now, forever, forever, there will be no more loneliness because your worlds are joined together with the world. Forever, forever.

 

An Indian Prayer

My Grandfather is the Fire

My Grandmother is the Wine

The Earth is my Mother

The Great Spirit is my Father

The World stopped at my birth and laid itself at my feet

And I shall swallow the Earth whole when I die,

And the Earth and I will be one.

Hail The Great Spirit, my Father, without him no one 

Could exist because there would be no will to live.

Hail The Earth, my Mother, without which no food could be grown

And so cause the will to live will starve.

Hail The Wind, my Grandmother, for she brings living, life-giving

Rain nourishing us as she nourishes our crops.

Hail The Fire, my Grandfather, for the light, the warmth,

The comfort he brings without which we would be animals, not men.

Hail My Parent and Grandparents without which, 

Not I, nor you, nor anyone else could have existed.

Life gives life which gives unto itself a promise of new life.

Hail The Great Spirit, The Earth, The Wind, The Fire

Praise my parents loudly for they are your parents, too.

Oh Great spirit, giver of my life, 

Please accept this humble offering of prayer, this offering of praise,

This honest reverence of my love for you.

Cherokee Prayer

God in heaven above please protect the ones we love.

We honor all you created as we pledge our hearts and lives together.

We honor mother earth – and ask for our marriage to be abundant and grow stronger through the seasons;

We honor fire – and ask that our union be warm and glowing with love in our hearts.

We honor wine – and ask we sail through life safe and calm as in our father’s arms.

We honor water – to clean and soothe our relationship – that it may never thirst for love.

 With all the love in the universe you created, we pray for harmony and true happiness as we forever grow young together. Amen

Cherokee Prayer Blessing  

May the Warm Winds of Heaven
Blow softly upon your house.
 

May the Great Spirit
Bless all who enter there.
 

May your Mocassins
Make happy tracks
in many snows,
and may the Rainbow
Always touch your shoulder.
 

To Walk the Red Road

Long road winding began in the stars,
spilled onto the mountain tops,
was carried in the snow to the streams,
to the rivers, to the ocean
It covers Canada, Alaska, America,
Mexico to Guatemala,
and keeps winding around
the indigenous.
 

The Red Road is a circle of people
standing hand in hand,
people in this world, people between
people in the Spirit world.
Star people, animal people, stone people,
river people, tree people
The Sacred Hoop.
 

To walk the Red Road
is to know sacrifice, suffering.
It is to understand humility.
It is the ability to stand naked before
the Creator in all things for your
wrong doings, for your lack of strength,
for your dis-compassionate way,
for your arrogance - because to walk
the Red Road, you always know
you can do better. And you know,
when you do good things,
it is through the Creator, and you
are grateful.
 

To walk the Red Road
is to know you stand on equal ground
with all living things.  It is to know that
because you were born human,
it gives you superiority over nothing.
It is to know that every creation carries
a Spirit, and the river knows more
than you do, the mountains know
more than you do, the stone people
know more than you do,
the trees know more than you do,
the wind is wiser than you are,
and animal people carry wisdom.
You can learn from every one of them,
because they have something you don't:
 

They are void of evil thoughts.
They wish vengeance on no one,
they seek Justice.
 

To Walk the Red Road,
you have God given rights,
you have the right to pray,
you have the right to dance,
you have the right to think,
you have the right to protect,
you have the right to know Mother,
you have the right to dream,
you have the right to vision,
you have the right to teach,
you have the right to learn,
you have a right to grieve,
you have a right to happiness,
you have the right to fix the wrongs,
You have the right to truth,
you have a right to the Spirit World.

To Walk the Red Road
is to know your Ancestors,
to call to them for assistance
It is to know that there is good medicine,
and there is bad medicine
It is to know that Evil exists,
but is cowardly as it is often in disguise.
It is to know there are evil spirits
who are in constant watch
for a way to gain strength for themselves
at the expense of you.
 

To Walk the Red Road,
you have less fear of being wrong,
because you know that life is a journey,
a continuous circle, a sacred hoop.
Mistakes will be made,
and mistakes can be corrected -
if you will be humble,
for if you cannot be humble,
you will never know
when you have made a mistake.
 

If you walk the Red Road,
you know that every sorrow
leads to a better understanding,
every horror cannot be explained,
but can offer growth.
 

To Walk the Red Road
is to look for beauty in all things.
 

To Walk the Red Road
is to know you will one day
cross to the Spirit World,
and you will not be afraid.

Maybe by Anonymous

Maybe, we are supposed to meet the wrong people before meeting the right one so that,

When we finally meet the right person, we will know how to be grateful for that gift.

Maybe, it’s true that we don’t know what we have until we lose it,

But it is also true that we don’t know what we have been missing until it arrives.

Maybe, the happiest of people don’t necessarily have the best of everything;

They just make the most of everything that comes along their way.

Maybe, the best kind of love is the kind you can sit on a sofa together and never say a word,

And then walk away feeling like it was the best conversation you’ve ever had.

Maybe, you shouldn’t go for looks; they can deceive.

Don’t got for wealth; even that fades away.

Go for someone who makes you smile, because it takes only a smile to make a dark day seem bright.

Maybe, you should hope for enough happiness to make you sweet, enough trials to make you strong, enough sorry to keep you human, and enough hope to make you happy.

Maybe, Love is not about finding the perfect person, 

It’s about learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.

How Very Close - Jelaluddin Rumi, (13th century Persian poet)

How very close
is your soul with mine;
I know for sure
everything you think
goes through my mind.
 

This Marriage - Jelaluddin Rumi, (13th century Persian poet)

May these vows and this marriage be blessed.
May it be sweet milk,
this marriage, like wine and halvah.
May this marriage offer fruit and shade
like the date palm.
May this marriage be full of laughter,
our everyday a day in paradise.
May this marriage be a sign of compassion,
a seal of happiness here and hereafter.
May this marriage have a fair face and a good name,
an omen as welcomes the moon in a clear blue sky.
I am out of words to describe
how spirit mingles in this marriage.

Excerpt from Les Misérables 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.

Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

The future belongs to hearts even more than it does to minds. Love, that is the only thing that can occupy and fill eternity. In the infinite, the inexhaustible is requisite.

Love participates of the soul itself. It is of the same nature. Like it, it is the divine spark; like it, it is incorruptible, indivisible, imperishable. It is a point of fire that exists within us, which is immortal and infinite, which nothing can confine, and which nothing can extinguish. We feel it burning even to the very marrow of our bones, and we see it beaming in the very depths of heaven.”

What a grand thing it is to be loved! What a far grander thing it is to love! The heart becomes heroic, by dint of passion. It is no longer composed of anything but what is pure; it no longer rests on anything that is not elevated and great. An unworthy thought can no more germinate in it, than a nettle on a glacier. The serene and lofty soul, inaccessible to vulgar passions and emotions, dominating the clouds and the shades of this world, its follies, its lies, its hatreds, its vanities, its miseries, inhabits the blue of heaven, and no longer feels anything but profound and subterranean shocks of destiny, as the crests of mountains feel the shocks of earthquake. If there did not exist someone who loved, the sun would become extinct.

Mark Twain’s Letters arranged with comment by Albert Bigelow Paine

This will be the mightiest day in the history of our lives, the holiest, & the most generous toward us both — for it makes of two fractional lives a whole; it gives to two purposeless lives a work, & doubles the strength of each whereby to perform it; it gives to two questioning natures a reason for living, & something to live for; it will give a new gladness to the sunshine, a new fragrance to the flowers, a new beauty to the earth, a new mystery to life; & it will give a new revelation to love, a new depth to sorrow, a new impulse to worship. In that day, the scales will fall from our eyes & we shall look upon a new world.

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.

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.

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. 

Soul Mates by Lang Leav

I don’t know how you are so familiar to me — or why it feels less like I am getting to know you and more as though I am remembering who you are. How every smile, every whisper brings me closer to the impossible conclusion that I have known you before, I have loved you before — in another time, a different place, some other existence.

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. 

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. 

The Amber Spyglass by Phillip Pullman

I will love you forever; whatever happens. 

Till I die and after I die, and when I find my way out of the land of the dead, I’ll drift about forever, all my atoms, till I find you again… I’ll be looking for you, every moment, every single moment. 

And when we do find each other again, we’ll cling together so tight that nothing and no one’ll ever tear us apart. 

Every atom of me and every atom of you… We’ll live in birds and flowers and dragonflies and pine trees and in clouds and in those little specks of light you see floating in sunbeams… 

And when they use our atoms to make new lives, they won’t just be able to take one, they’ll have to take two, one of you and one of me.

The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks

I am nothing special; just a common man with common thoughts, and I’ve led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten. But in one respect I have succeeded as gloriously as anyone who’s ever lived: I’ve loved another with all my heart and soul; and to me, this has always been enough.

True Love by 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. 

What is love Author Unknown

Sooner or later we begin to understand that love is more than verses on valentines and romance I 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 favorite 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 ca 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.

From This Day Forward

From this day forward, let us laugh together, and plan together,
let us find our favorite 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.

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. 

The Art of 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 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 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 finding room for the things of the spirit.
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.
It is not only marrying the right partner, it is being the right partner.

On Marriage by Kahlil Gibran

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 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.

On Love by Kahlil Gibran

When love beckons to you, follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
And when he speaks to you believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams
as the north wind lays waste the garden.
 

For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.
 

Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.
He threshes you to make you naked.
He sifts you to free you from your husks.
He grinds you to whiteness.
He kneads you until you are pliant;
And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God's sacred feast.
 

All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life's heart.
 

But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure,
Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor,
Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.
Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.
Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;
For love is sufficient unto love.
 

When you love you should not say, "God is in my heart," but rather, "I am in the heart of God."
And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
 

Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lip

Why Marriage by Mari Nichols

Because 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…

Because marriage means opportunity to grow in love and in friendship…

Because marriage is a discipline to be added to a list of achievements…

Because marriage does not fail, people fail when they enter into marriage expecting another to make them whole…

Together we create our marriage…

And with this understanding, the possibilities are limitless.