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Answered Prayers Are Scary. They Imply Responsibility. You Asked For It. Now That You've Got It, What Are You Going To Do? Why Else The Cautionary Phrase Watch Out For What You Pray For; You Might Just Get It?

-Julia Cameron

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Answered Prayers Are Scary.

Julia Cameron

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Answered Prayers Are Scary. They Imply Responsibility. You Asked For It. Now That You've Got It, What Are You Going To Do? Why Else The Cautionary Phrase Watch Out For What You Pray For; You Might Just Get It?

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It Is Not The Act Of Making Art That Is Painful. It Is The Desire To Make Something And Not Acting On It That Causes Pain....a Day When I Don't Write Is Less Happy. This Is Not Discipline. It Is Affection, Enthusiasm, Adventure-any Number Of Other Words Besides Discipline.

We Must Attend To What Our Inner Guidance Is Nudging Us Toward.

Growth Is An Erratic Forward Movement: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back. Remember That And Be Very Gentle With Yourself.

Creativity Is The Natural Order Of Life. Life Is Energy: Pure Creative Energy.

Life Is A Spiritual Dance And That Our Unseen Partner Has Steps To Teach Us If We Will Allow Ourselves To Be Led. The Next Time You Are Restless, Remind Yourself It Is The Universe Asking 'shall We Dance?

I Honor My Importance And The Importance Of Others. None Of Us Is Dispensable, None Of Us Is Replacable. In The Chorus Of Life Each Of Us Brings A True Note, A Perfect Pitch That Adds To The Harmony Of The Whole. I Act Creatively And Consciously To Actively Endorse And Encourage The Expansion Of Those Whose Lives I Touch. Believing In The Goodness Of Each, I Add To The Goodness Of All. We Bless Each Other Even In Passing.

It Hurts Like Hell When The World Won't Invest In You. But It's Excruciating, Almost More Than You Can Bear, When You Don't Believe And Invest In Yourself.

I Bless The Wisdom Of My Loving Heart. Love Is A Form Of Listening. I Listen With A Loving Heart. I Listen To The Love Within My Heart And I Hear The Love In The Hearts Of Others.

I Surrender My Anxiety And My Sense Of Urgency. I Allow God To Guide Me In The Pacing Of My Life. I Open My Heart To God's Timing. I Release My Deadlines, Agendas, And Stridency To The Gentle Yet Often Swift Pacing Of God. As I Open My Heart To God's Unfoldings, My Heart Attains Peace. As I Relax Into God's Timing, My Heart Contains Comfort. As I Allow God To Set The Tone And Schedule Of My Days, I Find Myself In The Right Time And Place, Open And Available To God's Opportunities.

Most Artists, Ashamed Of Their Need For Encouragement, Try To Carry Their Work To Term Like A Secret Pregnancy.

Serious Art Is Born From Serious Play.

The Reward For Attention Is Always Healing.

When We Let God Be God And Work Through Us, We Experience Both A Sense Of Serenity And Excitement.

A Career Must Be Husbanded. Care Must Be Taken. Everyday Must Bring Some Small Bit Of Progress. How Would An Artist With Any Self-worth Act? Act That Way.

Just As A Good Rain Clears The Air, A Good Writing Day Clears The Psyche.

When We Open Ourselves To Exploring Our Creativity, We Open Ourselves To God: Good, Orderly Direction.

You Are Asked To Keep A Ledger - A Small Notebook Will Do - Of Money In And Money Out. Counting Brings Clarity, And Clarity Is One Of The First And Finest Fruits Of Prosperity.

There Is A Connection Between Self-nurturing And Self-respect.

No Matter What Your Age Or Your Life Path, Whether Making Art Is Your Career Or Your Hobby Or Your Dream, It Is Not Too Late Or Too Egotistical Or Too Selfish Or Too Silly To Work On Your Creativity.

Artists Are Visionaries. We Routinely Practice A Form Of Faith, Seeing Clearly And Moving Toward A Creative Goal That Shimmers In The Distance - Often Visible To Us, But Invisible To Those Around Us.

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Writing Is Like Breathing, It's Possible To Learn To Do It Well, But The Point Is To Do It No Matter What.

Selecting A Challenge And Meeting It Creates A Sense Of Self-empowerment That Becomes The Ground For Further Successful Challenges.

You Need To Create Pathways In Your Consciousness Through Which The Creative Forces Operate.

We Go Into Parenting, And We Discover That We Don't Have The Answers. We Are At A Loss.

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The Beginner's Humility And Openness Lead To Exploration. Exploration Leads To Accomplishment. All Of It Begins At The Beginning, With The First Small And Scary Step.

In Dance, In Composition, In Sculpture, The Experience Is The Same: We Are More The Conduit Than The Creator Of What We Express.

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What We Really Want To Do Is What We Are Really Meant To Do.

All Too Often Too Often We Try To Push, Pull, Outline And Control Our Ideas Instead Of Letting Them Grow Organically. The Creative Process Is A Process Of Surrender, Not Control.mystery Is At The Heart Of Creativity. That, And Surprise.

When I Talk About A Writing Life, I'm Talking About A Life In Which Writing Is The Dominant Response To Living.

The Growth Of One Blesses All. I Am Commited To Grow In Love. All That I Touch, I Leave In Love. I Move Through This World Consciously And Creatively.

Nothing Dies Harder Than A Bad Idea. And Few Ideas Are Worse Than The Ones We Have About Art.

Pray To Catch The Bus, Then Run As Fast As You Can.

Stop Telling Yourself That Dreams Don't Matter, That They Are Only Dreams And That You Should Be More Sensible.

Pivotal To A Happy Writing Life Is A Practice Of Daily Personal Writing.

It Is My Experience Both As An Artist And As A Teacher That When We Move Out On Faith Into The Act Of Creation, The Universe Is Able To Advance. It Is A Little Like Opening The Gate At The Top Of A Field Irrigation System. Once We Remove The Blocks, The Flow Moves In.

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Nothing Dies Harder Than A Bad Idea.

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We Should Write, Above All, Because We Are Writers, Whether We Call Ourselves That Or Not.

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When I Listen To Love, I Am Listening To My True Nature. When I Express Love, I Am Expressing My True Nature

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The Voice Of Our Original Self Is Often Muffled, Overwhelmed, Even Strangled, By The Voices Of Other People’s Expectations.

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Faith Is Almost The Bottom Line Of Creativity; It Requires A Leap Of Faith Any Time We Undertake A Creative Endeavor, Whether This Is Going To The Easel, Or The Page, Or Onto The Stage.

Accept The Fact That You're An Artist And Stop Second-guessing Yourself. Just Do It.

The Creator Made Us Creative. Our Creativity Is Our Gift From God. Our Use Of It Is Our Gift To God. Accepting This Bargain Is The Beginning Of True Self-acceptance.

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You Are Your Own Promised Land, Your Own New Frontier.

As An Experienced Artist, I Carry My Work Like A Secret Pregnancy. I Am Always Aware Of Inner Life And The Need To Protect It.

We Don't Always Know What Makes Us Happy. We Know, Instead, What We Think Should. We Are Baffled And Confused When Our Attempts At Happiness Fail.

The Artist Brain Is The Sensory Brain: Sight And Sound, Smell And Taste, Touch. These Are The Elements Of Magic, And Magic Is The Elemental Stuff Of Art. In Filling The Well, Think Magic. Think Delight. Think Fun. Do Not Think Duty. Do Not Do What You Should Do-spiritual Sit-ups Like Reading A Dull But Recommended Critical Text. Do What Intrigues You, Explore What Interests You; Think Mystery, Not Mastery.

Love Is The Substance Of All Life. Everything Is Connected In Love, Absolutely Everything.

Perfectionism Doesn't Believe In Practice Shots. It Doesn't Believe In Improvement. Perfectionism Has Never Heard That Anything Worth Doing Is Worth Doing Badly--and That If We Allow Ourselves To Do Something Badly We Might In Time Become Quite Good At It. Perfectionism Measures Our Beginner's Work Against The Finished Work Of Masters. Perfectionism Thrives On Comparison And Competition. It Doesn't Know How To Say, "good Try," Or "job Well Done." The Critic Does Not Believe In Creative Glee--or Any Glee At All, For That Matter. No, Perfectionism Is A Serious Matter.

When Writing Becomes Too Dominant, It Gets Leached Of Its Own Power. We Spend More And More Time Writing And We Have Less And Less To Write About.

Mystery Is At The Heart Of Creativity. That, And Surprise.

Walk With Me To The Edge Of The City, / Take Off Your Shoes And Feel The Earth. / Remember Who You Are. You Are A Star. / A Mountain, That Fountain In The Sun. / Your Heart Is The Velvet Cave / Where Birds Sing.

The Grace To Be A Beginner Is Always The Best Prayer For An Artist.

Creativity - Like Human Life Itself - Begins In Darkness.

Gestation Period

We Tend To Think Being Hard On Ourselves Will Make Us Strong. But It Is Cherishing Ourselves That Gives Us Strength

If We Lean Into What We Love Instead Of Soldiering Toward What We 'should,' Our Pace Quickens, Our Energy Rises, Optimism Sets In. What We Love Is Nutritious For Us.

Artists Love Other Artists. Shadow Artists Are Gravitating To Their Rightful Tribe But Cannot Yet Claim Their Birthright. Very Often Audacity, Not Talent, Makes One Person An Artist And Another A Shadow Artist-hiding In The Shadows, Afraid To Step Out And Expose The Dream To The Light, Fearful That It Will Disintegrate To The Touch.

The Artist's Way Is A Spiritual Journey, A Pilrimage Home To The Self.

An Artist Paints, Dances, Draws, Writes, Designs, Or Acts At The Expanding Edge Of Consciousness. We Press Into The Unknown Rather Than The Known. This Makes Life Lovely And Lively.

I Believe That What We Want To Write Wants To Be Written. I Believe That As I Have An Impulse To Create, The Something I Want To Create Has An Impulse To Want To Be Born. My Job, Then, Is To Show Up On The Page And Let That Something Move Through Me, In A Sense, What Wants To Be Written Is None Of My Business.

We Always Do The Best We Can By The Light We Have To See By.

Perfectionism Is Not A Quest For The Best. It Is A Pursuit Of The Worst In Ourselves, The Part That Tells Us That Nothing We Do Will Ever Be Good Enough - That We Should Try Again.

Writing Just For The Hell Of It Is Heaven.

We Talk About Self-expression But Need To Pause And Remember That Self-expression Requires A Self To Express.

Making Art Is A Rite Of Initiation. People Change Their Souls.

We All Have Time To Write. We Have Time To Write The Minute We Are Willing To Write Badly, To Chase A Dead End, To Scribble A Few Words, To Write For The Hell Of It Instead Of For The Perfect And Polished Result.

When I Went In, My Editor Said, ‘i Hope You Don’t Think You’re A Writer.’ And I Said, ‘i Hope You Don’t Think I’m A Journalist.’ And, Uh, Turned Out We Were Both Right.

Art Is A Spiritual Practice. We May Not, And Need Not, Do It Perfectly.

Art Is One Of The Few Careers Without A Mandatory Retirement Age.

Because If You're Trying To Write And You Have Unlimited Time, You Can Procrastinate An Unlimited Account, But If You Have Limited Time, You Rush To The Page Trying To Get Something Down In The Little Bit Of Fragment Of Time That You Have, And You May Write A Great Deal That Way.

I Believe That When We Ask To Be Led, We Are Led, And There's Nothing Too Small Or Esoteric For Spiritual Help.

Setting Skepticism Aside, Even Briefly, Can Make For Very Interesting Explorations. It Is Not Necessary That We Change Any Of Our Beliefs. It Is Necessary That We Examine Them.

Art Is Not About Thinking Something Up. It Is The Opposite - Getting Something Down.

As A Writer, I Find Holidays Often Disturbing, Not Liberating, In Their Disruption Of Tempo, Their Open-ended Time.

In A Sense, As We Are Creative Beings, Our Lives Become Our Work Of Art.

As You Move Toward A Dream, The Dream Moves Toward You.

We Imagine That If We Had Time We Would Quiet Our More Shallow Selves And Listen To A Deeper Flow Of Inspiration. Again, This Is A Myth That Lets Us Off The Hook - If I Wait For Enough Time To Listen, I Don't Have To Listen Now, I Don't Have To Take Responsibility For Being Available To What Is Trying To Bubble Up Today.

Doing Work Points The Way To New And Better Work To Be Done.

Love Is The Greatest Medicine. I Ask To Be Healing Medicine For Others. I Ask My Heart To Expand Its Boundaries And To Love Others As They Wish To Be Loved. I Ask My Heart To Expand Its Boundaries And Open To My Being Loved As I Wish To Be Loved.

When You Feel Yourself To Be In Critical Condition, You Must Treat Yourself As Gently As You Would A Sick Friend.

As We Open Our Creative Channel To The Creator, Many Gentle But Powerful Changes Are To Be Expected.

What Payoff Are You Getting For Remaining Stuck At This Point In Your Expansion?

The Doing Of Something Productive Regardless Of The Outcome Is An Act Of Faith. The Doing Of A Small Something When A Large Something Is Too Much For Us Is Perhaps Especially An Act Of Faith. Faith Means Going Forward By Whatever Means We Can.

Workaholism Is An Addiction, And Like All Addictions, It Blocks Creative Energy.

Exercise Often Moves Us Straight From Stagnation To Inspiration, From Problem To Solution, From Self-pity To Self-respect.

If You Think Of The Universe As A Vast Electrical Sea In Which You Are Immersed And From Which You Are Formed, Opening To Your Creativity Changes You From Something Bobbing In That Sea To A More Fully Functioning, More Conscious, More Cooperative Part Of That Ecosystem.

"god Does Not Give Us More Than We Can Handle," I Am Told But I Wonder If God Doesn't Overestimate Me Just A Little. Or Perhaps, And This Is Likely, I Underestimate God.

And [now] I Think I’ll Probably Write A Lot About Birds. My New House Has A Deck That Wraps Around My Writing Room; My Writing Room Has Many Windows, And Outside The Windows I’ve Hung Bird Feeders … For Enticing Different Species. So I Imagine I Will Be Writing About That.

When We Write About Our Lives We Respond To Them. As We Respond To Them We Are Rendered More Fluid, More Centered, More Agile On Our Own Behalf. We Are Tendered Conscious.

Art Is An Act Of The Soul, Not The Intellect. When We Are Dealing With People's Dreams - Their Visions, Really - We Are In The Realm Of The Sacred. We Are Involved With Forces And Energies Larger Than Our Own. We Are Engaged In A Sacred Transaction Of Which We Know Only A Little: The Shadow, Not The Shape.

The Need To Be A Great Artist Makes It Hard To Be An Artist. The Need To Produce A Great Work Of Art Makes It Hard To Produce Any Art At All. . . Fear Is What Blocks An Artist. The Fear Of Not Being Good Enough. The Fear Of Not Finishing. The Fear Of Failure And Of Success. The Fear Of Beginning At All.

Creativity Is God's Will For Us And Should Be Practiced Like Any Other Spiritual Practice -a Day At A Time.

Remembering That God Is My Source, We Are In The Spiritual Position Of Having An Unlimited Bank Account. Most Of Us Never Consider How Powerful The Creator Really Is. Instead, We Draw Limited Amounts Of The Power Available To Us. We Decide How Powerful God Is For Us. We Unconsciously Set A Limit On How Much God Can Give Us Or Help Us. We Are Stingy With Ourselves. And If We Receive A Gift Beyond Our Imagining, We Often Send It Back.

It's Impossible To Get Better And Look Good At The Same Time.

Here's What I Like About God: Trees Are Crooked, Mountains Are Lumpy, A Lot Of His Creatures Are Funny Looking, And He Made It All Anyway. He Didn't Let The Aardvark Convince Him He Had No Business Designing Creatures. He Didn't Make A Puffer Fish And Get Discouraged, No, The Maker Made Things - And Still Does.

As We Move Toward Our Dreams, We Move Toward Our Divinity.

Creativity Flourishes When We Have A Sense Of Safety And Self-acceptance.

Creativity Is Always A Leap Of Faith. You're Faced With A Blank Page, Blank Easel, Or An Empty Stage.

As Artists, We Must Learn To Be Self-nourishing. We Must Become Alert Enough To Consciously Replenish Our Creative Resources As We Draw On Them.

If You Are Too Busy To Develop Your Talents, You Are Too Busy.

As We Lose Our Vagueness About Ourself, Our Values, Our Life Situation, We Become Available To The Moment. It Is There, In The Particular, That We Contact The Creative Self. Art Lies In The Moment Of Encounter: We Meet Our Truth And We Meet Ourselves; We Meet Ourselves And We Meet Our Self-expression .

It Is On These (20min) Walks That My Best Ideas Come To Me. It Is While Walking That Difficult Clarity Emerges. It Is While Walking That I Experience A Sense Of Well-being And Connection, And It Is In Walking That I Live Most Prayerfully.

For Today, All You Need Is The Grace To Begin Beginning.

My Will For You Is Not Harsh Or Unpleasant. It Is Gentle And Perfectly Tailored To Your Unique Needs. Do Not Fear My Direction. I Am Your Heart's Happiest Guide.

One Of Our Chief Needs As Creative Beings Is Support. Unfortunately, This Can Be Hard To Come By. Ideally, We Would Be Nurtured And Encourages First By Our Nuclear Family And Then By Ever-widening Circles Of Friends, Teachers, Well-wishers. As Young Artists, We Need And Want To Be Acknowledged For Our Attempts And Efforts As Well As For Our Achievements And Triumphs. Unfortunately, Many Artists Never Receive This Critical Early Encouragement. As A Result, They May Not Know They Are Artists At All.

All Of Us Contain A Divine, Expressive Spark, A Creative Candle Intended To Light Our Path And That Of Our Fellows.

I Think Of Making Love And Making Art As Being Very Parallel. Even The Most Amateur Attempt Can Be Thrilling.

What Would A Nontoxic God Think Of Your Creative Goals? Might Such A God Really Exist?

We Are Not Accustomed To Thinking That God's Will For Us And Our Own Inner Dreams Can Coincide.

Creativity Is A Spiritual Issue.

There Is Not One Pink Flower, Or Even Fifty Pink Flowers, But Hundreds. Snowflakes, Of Course, Are The Ultimate Exercise In Sheer Creative Glee. No Two Alike. This Creator Looks Suspiciously Like Someone Who Just Might Send Us Support For Our Creative Ventures.

What We Really Want To Do Is What We Are Really Meant To Do. When We Do What We Are Meant To Do, Money Comes To Us, Doors Open For Us, We Feel Useful, And The Work We Do Feels Like Play To Us.

Survival Lies In Sanity, And Sanity Lies In Paying Attention...the Capacity For Delight Is The Gift Of Paying Attention.

I Learned To Just Show Up At The Page And Write Down What I Heard. Writing Became More Like Eavesdropping And Less Like Inventing A Nuclear Bomb.

Once We Are Willing To Accept That Anything Worth Doing Might Even Be Worth Doing Badly, Our Options Widen.

Left To It's Own Devices, Writing Is Like Weather. It Has A Drama, A Form, A Force To It That Shapes The Day. Just As Good Rain Clears The Air, A Good Writing Day Clears The Psyche. There Is Something Very Right About Simply Letting Yourself Write. And The Way To Do That Is To Begin, To Begin Where You Are.

Writing Responds Well To Some Gentle Scheduling. A Day Job Not Only Promotes Solvency, It Promotes Creativity As Well.

It Is The Inner Commitment To Be True To Ourselves And Follow Our Dreams That Triggers The Support Of The Universe.

You Are On The Look Out For Experience, Strength, And Hope. You Want To Hear From The Horse's Mouth Exactly How Disappointments Have Been Survived. It Helps To Know That The Greats Have Had Hard Times Too And That Your Own Hard Times Merely Make You Part Of The Club.

I Am Compassionate. I Allow My Heart And Imagination To Embrace The Difficulties And Concerns Of Others. While Maintaining My Own Balance, I Find It Within Myself To Extend Sympathy, Attention, And Support. When They Are Grieved, I Listen With Openness And Gentle Strength. I Offer Loyalty, Friendship, And Human Understanding. Without Undermining Or Enabling, I Aid And Assist Others To Find Their Strength. I Allow The Healing Power Of The Universe To Flow Through Me, Soothing The Hearts And Feelings Of Those I Encounter.

Answered Prayers Are Scary. They Imply Responsibility. You Asked For It. Now That You've Got It, What Are You Going To Do? Why Else The Cautionary Phrase Watch Out For What You Pray For; You Might Just Get It?

The Face Of Love Is Variable. I Am Able To Love Without Demanding That My Relationships Assume The Structures And Forms I Might Choose For Them. My Love Is Fluid, Flexible, Committed, Creative. My Love Allows People And Events To Unfold As They Need. My Love Is Not Controlling. It Does Not Dictate Or Demand. My Love Allows Those I Love The Freedom To Assume The Forms Most True To Them. I Release All Those I Love From My Preconceptions Of Their Path. I Allow Them The Dignity Of Self-definition While I Offer Them A Constant Love That Is Every Variable In Shape.

Choice By Choice, Moment By Moment, I Build The Necklace Of My Day, Stringing Together The Choices That Form Artful Living.

I Am A Gate For God To Accomplish Great Things. Through Me And With Me, New Life Enters The World.

Your Mood Doesn't Really Matter. Some Of The Best Creative Work Gets Done On The Days When You Feel That Everything You're Doing Is Just Plain Junk.

Adversity Is A Misperception As All Works Toward The Good.

There Is A Treadmill Quality To Workaholism.

In Times Of Pain, When The Future Is Too Terrifying To Contemplate And The Past Too Painful To Remember, I Have Learned To Pay Attention To Right Now. The Precise Moment I Was In Was Always The Only Safe Place For Me.

Sometimes, In Order To Go Forward, You Must First Go Back.

While There Is No Quick Fix For Instant, Pain-free Creativity, Creative Recovery (or Discovery) Is A Teachable, Trackable Spiritual Process. Each Of Us Is Complex And Highly Individual, Yet There Are Common Recognizable Denominators To The Creative Recovery Process.

Writing Is A Spiritual Practice In That People That Have No Spiritual Path Can Undertake It And, As They Write, They Begin To Wake Up To A Larger Connection. After A While, People Tend To Find That There Is Some Muse That They Are Connecting To.

I Ask To Be Made Beautiful Like The Trees Are Beautiful, Each Growing According To A Unique Plan. Lop Off A Limb And And The Tree Will Accommodate It's Loss, Still Growing And Still Beautiful. It Is My Hope To Be Able To Flourish In A Similar Fashion, Taking On The Shape And Dimensions That Is Intended For Me.

I Am Due At The Page.

A Sketch Book Freezes Time. It Is An Instantaneous Form Of Meditation Focusing Us On The Worth Of Every Passing Moment.

Passing Moments

Sometimes The Dying Live More Fiercely And Wisely Than The Rest Of Us. (146)

It Is The Use Of Creativity Which Heals The Creative Wound.

Creativity - Like Human Life Itself - Begins In Darkness... Bright Ideas Are Preceded By A Gestation Period That Is Interior, Murky, And Completely Necessary.

Gestation Period

Apologies Are The Art Of Spiritual Housekeeping. They Help To Put And Keep Our Lives In Order.

When I Listen To Love, I Am Listening To My True Nature. When I Express Love, I Am Expressing My True Nature. All Of Us Love. All Of Us Do It More And More Perfectly. The Past Has Brought Us Both Ashes And Diamonds. In The Present We Find The Flowers Of What We've Planted And The Seeds Of What We Are Becoming. I Plant The Seeds Of Love In My Heart. I Plant The Seeds Of Love In The Hearts Of Others.

Life Is What We Make Of It. Whether We Conceive Of An Inner God Force Or An Other, Outer God, Doesn't Matter. Relying On That Force Does.

I Believe That I Am Very Lucky To Have Close Friends Who Are Faithful. From My Friends, I Have Learned The Importance Of Perseverance.

Any Little Bit Of Experimenting In Self-nurturance Is Very Frightening For Most Of Us.

To Write Is To Right Things. A Path Will Emerge.

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