Elementary Émigré

I came here a six years ago.
I was but a babe.
I was born in another land,
Not the land of my mother’s birth.
My mother speaks two languages –
Italian and Vietnamese –
And I speak two languages,
But they are not the same.
My mother escaped her land
Spending antique jewels for a boat ride
Not knowing that neighbors
Would attack and take the food
And water from innocent passengers.
I don’t know this from my mother.
She doesn’t talk of this.
I read books and watch movies
And listen when the old ones talk.
Then I imagine how things really were.

(c) 2005 Salle Hayden

The Made-up Holiday

When I was a child, there were two holidays in February outside of Valentine's Day. I mean real holidays, when the school was closed and stores were open, but most official functions were shut down. They, of course, honored two of the most important men to have lived in this country, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.

These men were important because they had been presidents of the United States, but there was more. George Washington could have been king and declined that honor in order to show us all just what a common-person country we should be. Abraham Lincoln was a man so burdened by troubles and dark depression in his own life, but he gave light to tens of hundreds, and that light continues to shine as the USA continues to define diversity and show a beacon to the world of acceptance and justice.

Now those holidays are cheapened by inclusivity -- all presidents are honored on one day. Okay, it may take a lot to achieve the position of power that the president is in the world today, but not all of our presidents have been so honorable that we can lump them together into the same bag of prestige. There were Teapot Dome and Watergate that brought a down-turning of that lamp the lady in the harbor carries. There have been made-up gossips and crises that have affected the honor of the office. And so we're supposed to honor each of these men equally?

Rescind this holiday and go back to giving due to those who have earned it.

CENTER ON PRINCIPLES by Stephen R. Covey

Real character development begins with the humble recognition that we are not in charge, that principles ultimately govern. I don't talk much about ethics and values because to me those words imply situational behaviors, subjective beliefs, social mores, cultural norms, or relative truths. I prefer to talk about universal principles and natural laws that are more absolute. You may think that it's just a matter of semantics and that when most people talk about values they really mean these universal principles.

But I see a clear difference between principles and values. Hitler was value-driven; Saddam Hussein was value-driven. Every person and organization is driven by what they value. But they aren't necessarily ethical or principle-centered.

The Humility of Principles
The key to quality of life is to be centered on principles. We're not in control; principles are in control. We're arrogant when we think we are in control. Yes, we may control our actions, but not the consequences of our actions. Those are controlled by principles, by natural laws.

Building character and creating quality of life is a function of aligning our beliefs and behaviors with universal principles. These principles are impersonal, external, factual, objective, and self-evident. They operate regardless of our awareness of them, or our obedience to them. If your current lifestyle is not in alignment with these principles, then you might trade a value-based map for a principle-centered compass. When you recognize that external verities and realities ultimately govern, you might willingly subordinate your values to them and align your roles and goals, plans, and activities with them. But doing so often takes a crisis: your company's downsizing; your job's on the line; your relationship with the boss goes sour; you lose a major account; your marriage is threatened; your financial problems peak; or you're told you have just a few months to live. In the absence of such a catalytic crisis, we tend to live in numbed complacency so busy doing good, easy, or routine things that we don't even stop to ask ourselves if we're doing what really matters. The good, then, becomes the enemy of the best.

Humility is the mother of all virtues: the humble in spirit progress and are blessed because they willingly submit to higher powers and try to live in harmony with natural laws and universal principles. Courage is the father of all virtues: we need great courage to lead our lives by correct principles and to have integrity in the moment of choice. When we set up our own self-generated or socially-validated value systems and then develop our missions and goals based on what we value, we tend to become laws unto ourselves, proud and independent. Pride hopes to impress; humility seeks to bless.

Just because we value a thing doesn't mean that having it will enhance our quality of life. No "quality movement" in government, business, or education will succeed unless based on "true north" principles. And yet we see leaders who cling to their current style based on self-selected values and bad habits even as their "ship" is sinking when they could be floating safely on the life raft of principles. Nothing sinks people faster in their careers than arrogance.

Arrogance shouts "I know best." In the uniform of arrogance, we fumble and falter pride comes and goes before the fall. But dressed in humility, we make progress. As the character Indiana Jones learned in The Last Crusade, "The penitent man will pass." In pride, we often sow one thing and expect to reap another. Many of our paradigms and the processes and habits that grow out of them never produce the results we expect because they are based on illusions, advertising slogans, program-of-the-month training, and personality-based success strategies. Quality of life can't grow out of illusion. So how do we align our lives with "true north" realities that govern quality of life?

Four Human Endowments
As human beings, we have four unique endowments: self-awareness, conscience, independent will, and creative imagination that not only separate us from the animal world, but also help us to distinguish between reality and illusion, to transform the clock into a compass, and to align our lives with the extrinsic realities that govern quality of life. Self-awareness enables us to examine our paradigms, to look at our glasses as well as through them, to think about our thoughts, to become aware of the psychic programs that are in us, and to enlarge the separation between stimulus and response.

Self-aware, we can take responsibility for reprogramming or re-scripting ourselves out of the stimulus-response mode. Many movements in psychology, education, and training are focused on an enlarged self-consciousness. Most popular self-help literature also focuses upon this capacity. Self-awareness, however, is only one of our unique endowments.

Conscience puts us in touch with something within us even deeper than our thoughts and something outside us more reliable than our values. It connects us with the wisdom of the ages and the wisdom of the heart. It's an internal guidance system that allows us to sense when we act or even contemplate acting in a way that's contrary to our deepest values and "true north" principles. Conscience is universal. By helping companies and individuals develop mission statements, I have learned that what is most personal is most general. No matter what people's religions, cultures, or backgrounds are, their mission statements all deal with the same basic human needs to live (physical and financial),to love (social), to learn (educational), and to leave a legacy(spiritual).

Independent will is our capacity to act, the power to transcend our paradigms, to swim upstream, to re-write our scripts, to act based on principles rather than reacting based on emotions, moods, or circumstances.

While environmental or genetic influences may be very powerful, they do not control us. We're not victims. We're not the product of our past. We are the product of our choices. We are "response-able," meaning we are able to choose our response. This power to choose is a reflection of our independent will.

Creative imagination empowers us to create beyond our present reality. It enables us to write personal mission statements, set goals, plan meetings, or visualize ourselves living our mission statements even in the most challenging circumstances. We can imagine any scenario we want for the future. If our imagination has to go through the straightjacket of our memory, what is imagination for? Memory is limited. It's finite; it deals with the past. Imagination is infinite; it deals with the present and the future, with potentiality, with vision and mission and goals with anything that is not now but can be. The man-on-the-street approach to success is to work harder, to give it the "old college try." But unless willpower is matched with creative imagination, these efforts will be weak and ineffective.
Nurturing Our Unique Gifts
Enhancing these endowments requires us to nurture and exercise them continuously. Sharpening the saw once a week or once a month just isn't enough. It's too superficial. It's like a meal. Yesterday's meal will not satisfy today's hunger. Last Sunday's big meal won't prepare me for this Thursday's ethical challenge. I will be much better prepared if Immeditate every morning and visualize myself dealing with that challenge with authenticity, openness, honesty, and with as much wisdom as I can bring to bear on it.

Here are four ways to nurture your unique endowments.
Nurture self-awareness by keeping a personal journal. Keeping a personal journal a daily in-depth analysis and evaluation of your experiences is a high-leverage activity that increases self-awareness and enhances all the endowments and the synergy among them.

Educate your conscience by learning, listening, and responding. Most of us work and live in environments that are rather hostile to the development of conscience. To hear the conscience clearly often requires us to be reflective or meditative a condition we rarely choose or find. We're inundated by activity, noise, conditioning, media messages, and flawed paradigms that dull our sensitivity to that quiet inner voice that would teach usof "true north" principles and our own degree of congruency with them. I've heard executives say that they can't win this battle of conscience because expediencies require lies, cover-ups, deceit, or game playing. That's just part of the job, they say. I disagree. I think such rationalization undermines trust within their cultures. If you have back-room manipulation and bad mouthing, you will have a low-trust culture.

A life of total integrity is the only one worth striving for. Granted, it's a struggle. Some trusted advisors, PR agents, accountants, legal counselors might say, "This will be political suicide," or "This will be bad for our image, and so let's cover up or lie." You have to look at each case on its own merit. No case is black and white.

It takes real judgment to know what you should do. You may feel that you operate "between a rock and a hard place." Still, with a well-educated conscience or internal compass, you will rarely, if ever, be in a situation where you only have one bad option. You will always have choices. If you wisely exercise your unique endowments, some moral option will be open to you.

So much depends on how well you educate your conscience, your internal compass. When my kids were in athletics, they paid the price to get their bodies coordinated with their minds. You've got to do the same with your own conscience regularly. The more internal uncertainty you feel, the larger the grey areas will be. You will always have some grey areas, particularly at the extremity of your education and experience. And to grow, you need to go to that extremity and learn to make those choices based on what you honestly believe to be the right thing to do.
Nurture independent will by making and keeping promises. One of the best ways to strengthen our independent will is to make and keep promises. Each time we do, we make deposits in our personal integrity account the amount of trust we have in ourselves, in our ability to walk our talk. To build personal integrity, start by making and keeping small promises. Take it a step and a day at a time.

Develop creative imagination through visualization. Visualization, a high-leverage mental exercise used by world-class athletes and performers, may also be used to improve your quality of life. For example, you might visualize yourself in some circumstance that would normally create discomfort or pain. In your mind's eye, instead of seeing yourself react as you normally do, see yourself acting on the basis of the principles and values in your mission statement. The best way to predict your future is to create it.

Roots Yield Fruits
With the humility that comes from being principle-centered, we can better learn from the past, have hope for the future, and act with confidence, not arrogance, in the present. Arrogance is the lack of self-awareness; blindness; an illusion; a false form of self-confidence; and a false sense that we're somehow above the laws of life. Real confidence is anchored in a quiet assurance that if we act based on principles, we will produce quality-of-life results. It's confidence born of character and competence. Our security is not based on our possessions, positions, credentials, or on comparisons with others; rather, it flows from our own integrity to "true north" principles.

I confess that I struggle with total integrity and do not always "walk my talk." I find that it's easier to talk and teach than to practice what I preach. I've come to realize that I must commit to having total integrity to be intre, their mission statements all deal with the same basic human needs to live (physical and financial),to love (social), to learn (educational), and to leave a legacy (spiritual).

Independent will is our capacity to act, the power to transcend our paradigms, to swim upstream, to re-write our scripts, to act based on principles rather than reacting based on emotions, moods, or circumstances.

While environmental or genetic influences may be very powerful, they do not control us. We're not victims. We're not the product of our past. We are the product of our choices. We are "response-able," meaning we are able to choose our response. This power to choose is a reflection of our independent will.

Creative imagination empowers us to create beyond our present reality. It enables us to write personal mission statements, set goals, plan meetings, or visualize ourselves living our mission statements even in the most challenging circumstances. We can imagine any scenario we want for the future. If our imagination has to go through the straightjacket of our memory, what is imagination for? Memory is limited. It's finite; it deals with the past. Imagination is infinite; it deals with the present and the future, with potentiality, with vision and mission and goals with anything that is not now but can be. The man-on-the-street approach to success is to work harder, to give it the "old college try." But unless willpower is matched with creative imagination, these efforts will be weak and ineffective.

Love

Love, like falling leaves of autumn,
makes us all remember sadly
all the days of early childhood
we would return to, if given chance
through falling word from sleeper's lips
or mother come to capture loved ones.

As your lover lays beside you
and softly snores his dreams away
your remember only your childhood
and the lovely, passed on days,
but as he wakes and kisses tender
befall your lips from his,
you remember only the present
and your lover's words of praise.

(c)1959 Salle Hayden

Great Resources

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Wait! Stop! Don't Think!!

Meditation is a slippery grab,
Holding onto what one shouldn't
Want. Ah, that target of
Zen desirelessness that was
My bowling, one distant misty day.
Zen desirelessness of the old chief,
"Today is a good day to die."
Incongruent, illogical and
Subconscious connection to the All.
Trust only experience?
There there is no trust at all,
For subjective experience cannot have
A priori reality on which to base
One's sensual intake evaluation.
Life should be so simple!

(c)2006 Salle Hayden

I am NOT Borderline Personality Disordered! So There!

Personality Disorder Test Results Paranoid |||||||||| 34% Schizoid |||||||||| 38% Schizotypal |||||||||||||||| 70% Antisocial |||||||||||| 46% Borderline |||||||||||| 46% Histrionic |||||||||||| 50% Narcissistic |||||||||||||||| 62% Avoidant |||||||||||| 50% Dependent |||||||||||| 46% Obsessive-Compulsive |||||||||||| 46%

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Breath of Life

Weighty, lying on my chest,
Across the highest ribs that
Rest under collar bone, this
Is her nest, her resting place.
She cares not for my book or
Program. She does not look
At my face for more than a
Moment, then her gaze lifts up
As if to watch a lazy summer fly.
But now it’s winter and no flies
Survive, so I know it’s just her
Way of keeping me in my place.
And then I feel it upon my cheek,
The tiniest caress, flowing from
Her nostrils poised just above.
This is the thing we share, or
At least a symbol of it. This is
The breath of life, given and
Returned, from cat to woman
And out to the farthest reaches
Of space, because the moon ring
Signals that travel is good tonight.
This is the breath of life, keeping
Us balanced and growing and
On the right path. Inside us,
It is chi and outside, moonbeams.

(c) 2006 Salle Hayden

Be Careful What You Speak

I didn’t know, couldn’t have known,
That you were being noble. My poem
Did not make it true, but you never know
How much your words can do. Be careful
What you say, for God can only affirm
Every syllable, to manifest what you would
Or wouldn’t do for yourself. This silver thread
From God to me, that ties my heart to what
I want to know, is a bond stronger than steel.
Now is the time for us to confirm everything
That has ever been said between. We must
Make sure that the Gods don’t hear what
We don’t want them to know. We must be
True to the image of purity that washes us
Through and through, because that river is
The Nile (a sad pun, but too real) that keeps
Us from the vision that our illusions veil.
Day after day, I try to say the wisdom
Of my heart, to speak my mind and let
You know what it is that I must say, but
If time and fear befriend me now, giving back
Some of lost past, to feed my soul with
Living vines of flowers that cannot last,
But fall away to be kicked aside along
My garden path, I can but look over my
Shoulder to see it trudging on, dust swirls
At its feet and halos on its crown. That is
The fear I’ve spoken of not so long ago,
Telling you what life was for this wraith
Who could not go forward or sideways but
Only look back, to beat herself with fear
Knowing that some fine day, she’d be
Meeting up with it here. And so she tries,
So very hard, to be careful how she says
The things she wants to have come through
And silence for the other. The Gods’ ears
Are well attuned to listening for lies, and
The Gods’ eyes are accustomed to seeing
What she wants – and more. She has not
Fooled anyone, except her foolish self,
With all this carefulness of words and
Soulful striving on. What God wants for
Us to know, we’ll know before we’re gone.

(c) 2005 Salle Hayden

Breakthrough Your Comfort Zone to the Success Zone

Picture this...
A little child is crawling around a new surrounding when they notice– for the first time – a huge staircase. As this little one gazes up at this new “object”, what thoughts do you think are going on in their mind? How do one-year-olds think about new things? How do they react to the unknown?
If you are around children, you know the response. They would say, "Wow, I've got to get to the top!"
Alternatively, do you think they would look up at the huge staircase and think, "Wow I've got to get to the top!" But, wait a minute…I didn't go to stair climbing school. Maybe I'm not ready. I'll just wait until I have my degree in stair climbing, and then watch me go!"
On the other hand, would this little one look up at the huge staircase and think, "Wow, I've got to get to the top. But wait… I might get hurt. I may fail. I've heard that 22% of one-year-olds fall on staircases. In fact, CNN just announced stair climbing as a code orange! It's too risky."
Or would this one-year-old think, "Wow, I've got to get to the top...But wait. What will my friends say? What if I succeed? They may think that I don't fit in with the group back in the sandbox. They might think I'm one of those snobby, famous stair climbers. You know what they say... It's lonely at the top. I better not. It's just too risky.
NOT! A one-year-old wouldn't say any of these things. A one-year-old is hungry for adventure! They have an inborn, risk-taking ability. It is their nature to risk! They see it. They want it. They take it. They taste it.
Now, listen to this: Every one of you reading this knows this child intimately; because this little one is YOU! You were once a one-year-old. You once had incredible risk-taking ability. You used to see it. Want it. Take it. Experience it with all your senses.
So, what happened? What happened to the natural risk-taking ability that you were born with?
Life happened. Circumstances occurred. Disappointments experienced. And you, like I did, began to let fear creep in. Slowly and surely, fear began to grow until it was bigger than your dream, bigger than your faith.
Have life’s circumstances and disappointments blocked out your risk-taking ability? Has fear crushed your hunger for adventure?
The first step to getting your hunger for adventure back is to recognize and honor your innate risk-taking ability. It is your nature to risk!
Understand that there are sometimes when evaluating risk and even being careful about risk is appropriate, but look around you. Isn’t there somewhere else in your life where stepping off the cliff would make more sense than being paralyzed by the fear? Breakthrough your comfort zone to the success zone!

Adapted from Lisa Jimenez, M. Ed.

I Am

I am the poet whose words, like arrows, fling
Images into the world, to land at the feet of
Men and pigs. Dogs cock their heads and
Listen to my poems. Birds sit still and blink
Their black-button eyes to hear my wit. Even
A cat can hold her tongue whilst mine is
Being exercised. I am the voice of spirit
And soul who gives each hearer knowledge
She is whole and full of promise. I am
That one who sings in voices that can be
Heard and understood by any language
Speaker, intuitively knowing the message
Is meant for him alone. I am the one who
Knows that each moment is pregnant with
Choice, and hopes for optimistic love to
Abound through. I am the one who mourns
The loss of hope in those who cannot see
Beyond the darkness they spew from within.
I am the leader to the path of change, knowing
That each and every one of us has choice,
And thereby more control than known. I am
The one who models attitude to the down-
Trodden and sore of bones and bread. I am
The one who brings life to the sad and dead
Survivors of abuse in this world with my
Words of joy and shouts of pain, connecting
With each spirit – that is only piece of spirit –
To make the light shine through. I am that one.

(c) 2006 Salle Hayden

The Comfort Zone

There’s a small warm place between us
That will nourish both as it’s used to
Comfort us with music and light, and
Pounding rhythms of drums in the night.
There’s a kiss that will plant the seeds
And grow into a garden with bouquet
Of colors and varieties scented with
Posy-posing flowers, all with the same
Petals, but so different, each one with
A name that cannot be spoken because
It is not known. There’s a touch, so mild
It’s barely felt, that conveys desire too
Deep for words to speak, yet the words
Are not needed here. There’s a pressure,
Growing steadily, that returns to past
Mistakes and triumphs, intertwined with
All the moments of the Now to weave
A carpet of forever under our four feet.
There is a need, a hunger that can be
Fed here. This is a place we will sup
Again and – if lucky – again. But not
So many times to become bored or
Angry at what is not here. This is a
Place to rest awhile between the big
Important moments of our lives, the
Comfort Zone in which to be renewed.

(c) 2005 Salle Hayden

Financial Freedom is a Simple Equation

My son is going though his second bankruptcy. This is a terrible time for him, with financial decisions he wishes he didn’t have to make and moral decisions he knows that his grandfather would abhor. I could feel the pain he was feeling because I too, very often wonder why it is that some people experience financial independence and others do not. It really is a mystery.

How to get financial independence is not a mystery however!

Rather, financial independence is a very simple thing. It is hard work and takes time, but the process is very simple! In fact, financial independence can come from following a very simple plan. All of the books on financial independence can ultimately be boiled down to this basic equation. It is an equation that is as simple as it gets. In fact, it isn't even a multiplication problem, it is an addition equation! And we all learned addition in the first grade! Just as 1 + 1 = 2, so does this powerful yet simple equation add up to real financial independence!

What is this equation? Get ready, your life is about to change forever if you will allow yourself to understand and live by the simplicity of this equation. Here it is:

Smart Decisions + Good Math = Financial Independence

Let's break it down and take a closer look:

Smart Decisions:

Get a solid academic education. You might say, "Okay, I get it, but most of the people on the Forbes 400 never went past high school." So did most of the people on the welfare line! Most people aren't Bill Gates or Sam Walton. Most people who earn from $100,000 to $150,000 a year are college graduates. "But I'm forty! I can't go to college." Yes you can. You will be 44 when you get out and have 21 years of a much better income. The fact is that most good jobs and careers go to those who have educated themselves. It is still the surest way to a long-term larger income. If you still don't want to go to college, see the last paragraph under smart decisions.

Get more training. At the very least go get some training in your specific area of expertise. The promotions will go to those who are the best trained, so become the best trained! Take a course, even if your employer won't pay for it, because eventually they WILL pay you for it!

Work hard. The many high achievers I know personally who have become and are becoming financially independent are hard workers. Every one of them works long hours. They sacrifice for the security they are shooting for and have attained. Yes, everyone gets emails that say, "Financial Independence in 10 hours a week." Let me ask you, have you met anybody like that? I haven't. Not a single one. Even the success stories you here in the get rich quick industries show you that they worked HARD!

Develop yourself. Become a better person. Better people get better jobs and get paid better dollars! Make sure that every day you are becoming a person who is on the growth track, raising yourself to a higher and higher level with each and every passing day! Eventually your development will catch up with you and your income will soar!

Stay out of debt. This is the smartest decision you will ever make. No Debt! If you have one bill to pay every month, your mortgage, that's a debt! But it is an investment with the added benefit of providing me and my family with shelter! There fore, I don’t consider a mortgage a debt. I’m talking about luxury debt for a car, a home entertainment system, or any kind of debt that does not improve your education, therefore building for your future. It is possible to postpone or live without the luxuries today so that you can build your financial freedom.

Own your own business if you can. If don't want to go to college, or did go to college and you just want to control your destiny and finances, the smart decision is to own your own business. Most millionaires in America are the people who own their own businesses. It takes risk, a lot of hard work, and many ups and downs, but owning your business gives you the opportunity to accumulate great wealth, because the profit is all yours.

Good Math:

Spend less than you earn. We learn 1 + 1 = 2 very early on. Eventually, we learn negatives and we learn that 1 – 2 = -1. That seems very simple, right? Yet many people live their lives in such a way that they spend more than their income and destroy their opportunity for long-term financial independence. There are two ways you can make this "good math" work for you. You can increase your income or you can decrease your spending. Increase your income by making the smart decisions listed above. Decrease your spending by making hard choices. One of these two options must be taken if you are going to achieve long-term financial independence.

Invest on a regular basis. To achieve financial independence, you will have to put away money regularly. This is a math principle of simple addition, but most people don't get it. Or if they do understand it, they don't practice it! Whether it is every paycheck, or the first of the month, or quarterly, or however you can do it – simply do it! When you hit 65 years of age, you will be glad you did. And if you put away enough and into the right investments, you may just be thankful a lot sooner than that!

Let your interest accrue. This is compounding and it is powerful! If you earn twelve percent on your money every year, do you know how soon it will be until you have twice as much as you started with? There is an investment rule called “the rule of 72.” That is, divide 72 by what average interest you make and that is how many years it takes to double your money. In this case, at twelve percent, your money doubles every six years! This works because you earn twelve percent on not only the original amount but the interest you earned as well. Start with $100 and the next year you have $112. If you take the $12 out then you will only make twelve percent on $100 again. If you let it accrue, you will make twelve percent on $112. This will cut almost two years off of the time it takes to double!

Where the real power comes in is over longer periods of time. Let's say someone dies and leaves you $25,000 when you are eighteen. You could do any number of things with that money:

1. Buy a snazzy car. This is not a good idea, though most eighteen year-olds would do just this.

2. Invest the money and take out the interest every year. This is nice. You have $3000 disposable income every year. Over forty-two years you make $126,000 for doing nothing and you still have $25,000 in your investment!

3. Here is the real deal! Leave the money alone at twelve percent (about the long-term average for the stock market). At the end of forty-two years you decide to retire and go to your investment summary to see how much you have. You find that your money doubled seven times leaving you with 3.2 million dollars! Can you retire on that? You betcha.

You can achieve financial independence. You can live the life you have always dreamed of. You can have a life where you have enough at all times, especially in the end. It is possible. You just have to make smart decisions and use good math!

To review:

Smart decisions:
· Go to college.
· Get better training.
· Work hard.
· Develop yourself.
· Stay out of debt.
· Own your own business.
Good math:
· Spend less than you earn.
· Investment some money regularly.
· Let your interest accrue.

Create the Right Affirmation for You

How to approach building an affirmation for your life –

• Write this in present tense, not future (I am, I have, I accept, etc.)
• Be positive
• Write them - short & specific - with your name
• Use small steps toward big change
• Repeat regularly during the day for at least one month, (start at new moon???) on a schedule that you can keep (rising or sleeping)
• Meditate first to connect to higher self, higher power and spirit guides

I Am Earth Mother

I’d write you a poem,
If I knew where I stood,
If I could think of something
That might not be wrong.
On such a short meeting
To feel so much –
To care about you with such
Small hope of return.
But Earth Mother overcomes.
I shall be here.
I shan’t wait for you.
I shall come to you,
To care.

(c) 1972 Salle Hayden