"Rectangle, Circle and Wave" acrylic on canvas 28" x 46" (artist collection)

WORDS...here you will find helpful thoughts collected over the years...

Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance.
-- Dave Barry

Every religion is true one way or another.
It is true when understood metaphorically.
But when it gets stuck in its own metaphors,
interpreting them as facts, then you are in trouble.
-- Joseph Campbell

The Kingdom of God is within.
--Jesus of Nazareth

The quieter you become, the more you can hear.
-- Baba Ram Dass

The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the
rational mind is a faithful servant.
We have created a society that honors the servant
and has forgotten the gift.
-- Albert Einstein

There is a silence into which the world cannot intrude.
There is an ancient peace
you carry in your heart and have not lost.
-- From “A Course in Miracles”

After a while you learn
the subtle difference between
holding a hand and chaining a soul
and you learn that love doesn't mean possession
and company doesn't mean security.
And you begin to learn that kisses aren't contracts
and presents aren't promises and you begin to accept
your defeats with your head up and your eyes ahead
with the grace of an adult not the grief of a child.
And you learn to build your roads today
because tomorrow's ground is too uncertain for plans
and futures have ways of falling down in mid-flight.
After awhile you learn that even sunshine
burns if you get too much so you plant your
own garden and decorate your own soul
instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.
And you learn that you really can endure
that you really are strong
and you really do have worth
and you learn
and you learn...
-- Veronica A. Shoffstall

If instead of a gem, or even a flower,
we should cast the gift of a loving thought into the heart of a friend,
that would be giving as the angels give.
-- George MacDonald

Better to light one small candle than to curse the darkness.
-- Chinese Proverb

It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare,
it is because we do not dare that they are difficult.
-- Seneca

Tell me and I’ll forget; show me and I may remember;
involve me and I’ll understand.
-- Chinese Proverb

Music and silence combine strongly because
music is done with silence, and silence is full of music.
-- Marcel Marceau

The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.
-- George Bernard Shaw

Who you are speaks so loudly I cannot hear what you are saying.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams,
and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined,
he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
-- Henry David Thoreau

The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it.
-- Chinese Proverb

Unknown is what it is.
And to be frightened of it is what sends everybody scurrying around
chasing dreams, illusions, wars, peace, love, hate, all that.
Unknown is what it is.
Accept that it's unknown, and it's plain sailing.
-- John Lennon

My friend, you and I shall remain strangers unto life,
And unto one another, and each unto himself,
Until the day when you shall speak and I shall listen
Deeming your voice my own voice;
And when I shall stand before you
Thinking myself standing before a mirror.
-- Kahlil Gibran

The creative process is a process of surrender, not control.   
-- Julia Cameron

 An unexamined life is not worth living.
-- Socrates

Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.
-- Carl Gustav Jung

God is a metaphor for that which transcends all levels of intellectual thought. It's as simple as that.
-- Joseph Campbell

Be careful — what do you call learning?
If it is merely storing up experiences and beliefs
it will trip you up like a cord and prevent you from knowing.
Knowing happens directly.
When not even a thought stands between you and the thing you know...
then you see yourself as you are, not as you would like to be.
-- Meetings with Remarkable Men

To materialist eyes, India is a developing country;
to spiritual eyes, the United States is a developing country.
-- Ram Dass

To see where something leads, it’s best to wait
until you reach the end.
-- Way of the Peaceful Warrior

We are not held back by the love we didn't receive in the past,
but by the love we're not extending in the present.   
 -- Marianne Williamson

When you live on a round planet, there’s no choosing sides.
-- Wayne Dyer

Some men know that a light touch of the tongue,
running from a woman's toes to her ears,
lingering in the softest way possible in various places in between,
given often enough and sincerely enough,
would add immeasurably to world peace.
-- Marianne Williamson

Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power.We have guided missiles and misguided man.
-- Martin Luther King Jr.

A bird does not sing because he has an answer.
A bird sings because he has a song.
-- Unknown

If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.
-- Marcus Aurelius

The greatest part of our happiness depends on
our dispositions, not our circumstances.
-- Martha Washington

He or she who knows
that enough is enough
will always have enough.
-- Lao-Tzu

Use what talents you have.
The woods would have little music if
no birds sang their song except those who sang best.
-- Reverend Oliver G. Wilson

When the power of love overcomes the love of power
the world will know peace.
-- Jimi Hendrix

This is my simple religion.
There is no need for temples;
no need for complicated philosophy.
Our own brain, our own heart is our temple;
the philosophy is kindness.
-- The Dalai Lama

The most basic and powerful way to connect to another person
is to listen. Just listen.
Perhaps the most important thing we ever give each other is our attention...
A loving silence often has far more power to heal and connect thanthe most well-intentioned words.
-- Rachel Naomi Remen

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
-- Marianne Williamson

The personal life deeply lived always expands into truths beyond itself.
-- Anais Nin

We read the world wrong and say that it deceives us.
-- Rabindranath Tagore

Let us not look back in anger or forward in fear,
but around in awareness.
-- James Thurber

Ultimately we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves,
more and more peace,
and to reflect it towards others.
And the more peace there is in us,
the more peace there will be in our troubled world.
-- Etty Hillesum

We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.
-- Anais Nin

And let your best be for your friend.
If he must know the ebb of your tide,
let him know its flood also.
For what is your friend that you should seek him with hours to kill?
Seek him always with hours to live.
For it is his to fill your need, but not your emptiness.
And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures.
For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.
-- Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

In the end what matters most is
How well did you live?
How well did you love?
How well did you learn to let go?
-- Banner on the Wall

As long as a man stands in his own way,
everything seems to be in his way:
government, society, and even the sun, moon and stars.
-- Henry David Thoreau

He who smiles rather than rages is always the stronger.
-- Japanese Wisdom

Don’t ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that.
Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.
-- Harold Whitman

Meditate.
Live purely.
Be quiet.
Do your work with mastery.
Like the moon, come out from behind the clouds,
Shine!
-- Buddha

We are not human beings on a spiritual journey.
We are spiritual beings on a human jouney.
-- Dr. Wayne W. Dyer

Nothing real can be threatened.
Nothing unreal exists.
Herein lies the peace of God.
-- Course in Miracles

To a mind that is still
the whole universe surrenders.
-- Chuang Tzu

And so, while others miserably pledge themselves
to the pursuit of ambition and brief power,
I will be stretched out in the shade, singing.
-- Fray Luis De Leon

My mother said to me, “If you become a soldier, you’ll be ageneral, if you become a monk you’ll end up as the pope.” Instead, I became a painter and ended up as Picasso.
--Pablo Picasso

Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking.
There is an almost universal quest for easy answers
and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.
-- Martin Luther King Jr.

There is a soul force in the universe, which, if we permit it,
Will flow through us and produce miraculous results.
-- Mohandas Karamchad Gandhi

And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and
The winds long to play with your hair.
-- Kahlil Gibran

When people get married because they think it's a long-time love affair, they'll be divorced very soon,
because all love affairs end in disappointment.
But marriage is a recognition of a spiritual identity.
-- Joseph Campbell

The sage confronts difficulties,
therefore he does not experience them.
-- The Tao Te Ching

We think too small, like the frog at the bottom of the well.
He thinks the sky is only as big as the top of the well.
If he surfaced, he would have an entirely different view.
-- Mao Tse-Tung