Poetry & Prose
for
Weddings

From “The Prophet” by Kahlil Gibran
When love beckons to you, follow it,
Though Love's ways are hard and steep.
And when Love's wings enfold you yield to them,
Though the sword hidden among its pinions may wound you.
And when Love speaks to you believe in it,
Though Love's voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden.
For even as Love crowns you so shall it crucify you.
Even as Love is for your growth so is it for your pruning.
Even as Love ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
So shall Love descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.
Like sheaves of corn Love gathers you unto itself.
It threshes you to make you naked.
It sifts you to free you from your husks.
It grinds you to whiteness. It kneads you until you are pliant;
And then Love assigns you to its 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



"Let These Be Your Desires" by Kahlil Gibran

Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself
But if your 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 lips.




"Timeless" by Kahlil Gibran

You would measure time the measureless and the immeasurable.
You would adjust your conduct and even direct the course of your spirit according to hours and seasons.
Of time you would make a stream upon whose bank you would sit and watch its flowing.
Yet the timeless in you is aware of life's timelessness,
And knows that yesterday is but today's memory and tomorrow is today's dream.
And that that which sings and contemplates in you is still dwelling within the bounds of that first moment which scattered the stars into space.
Who among you does not feel that his power to love is boundless?
And yet who does not feel that very love, though boundless, encompassed within the center of his being, and moving not from love thought to love thought, nor from love deeds to other love deeds?
And is not time even as love is, undivided and paceless?
But if in your thought you must measure time into seasons,
Let each season encircle all the other seasons,
And let today embrace the past with remembrance and the future with longing.

:"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 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 and calls him to vast distances…
Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest people infinite distances exist, 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 and before an immense sky.

Rainer Maria Rilke - From First Poems

Understand, I'll slip quietly
Away from the noisy crowd
When I see the pale
Stars rising, blooming over the oaks.
I'll pursue solitary pathways
Through the pale twilit meadows,
With only this one dream:
You come too.

 “Know Deeply, Know Thyself More Deeply” by D.H. Lawrence

Go deeper than love, for the soul has greater depths,
love is like the grass, but the heart is deep wild rock
molten, yet dense and permanent.

Go down to your deep, old heart, and lose sight of yourself.
and lose sight of me, the me whom you turbulently loved.

Let us lose sight of ourselves, and break the mirrors.
For the fierce curves of our lives is moving again to the depths
out of sight, in the deep living heart.




The Gem by D.H. Lawrence

And man and woman are like the earth,
that brings forth flowers in Summer, and love,
but underneath is rock.
Older than flowers, older than ferns,
older than foraminiferae,
older than plasm altogether is the soul of man
underneath;
and when, throughout all the wild orgasms of love,
slowly a gem forms, in the ancient, one-more-molten
rocks of two human hearts, two ancient rocks,
a man's heart and a woman's.
That is the crystal of peace, the slow hard jewel of trust,
the gem of mutual peace emerging from the wild chaos
of love.


"Sonnet XVII"  by Pablo Neruda


I do not love you as if you were the salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.



"Sonnet LXXXI" - by Pablo Neruda


And now you're mine. Rest with your dream in my dream.
Love and pain and work should all sleep, now.
The night turns on its invisible wheels,
and you are pure beside me as a sleeping ember.

No one else, Love, will sleep in my dreams. You will go,
we will go together, over the waters of time.
No one else will travel through the shadows with me,
only you, evergreen, ever sun, ever moon.

Your hands have already opened their delicate fists
and let their soft drifting signs drop away;
your eyes closed like two gray wings, and I move

after, following the folding water you carry, that carries
me away. The night, the world, the wind spin out their destiny.
Without you, I am your dream, only that, and that is all.



"Sonnet LXXXI"  by Pablo Neruda


Maybe nothingness is to be without your presence,
without you moving, slicing the noon
like a blue flower, without you walking
later through the fog and the cobbles,

without the light you carry in your hand,
golden, which maybe others will not see,
which maybe no one knew was growing
like the red beginnings of a rose.

In short, without your presence: without your coming
suddenly, incitingly, to know my life,
gust of a rosebush, wheat of wind:

since then I am because you are,
since then you are, I am, we are,
and through love I will be, you will be, we'll be.




"Two Happy Lovers" by Pablo Neruda


Two happy lovers make one bread,
a single moon drop in the grass.
Walking, they cast two shadows that flow together;
waking, they leave one sun empty in their bed.
Of all the possible truths, they chose the day;
they held it, not with ropes but with an aroma.
They did not shred the peace; they did not shatter words;
their happiness is a transparent tower.
The air and wine accompany the lovers.
The night delights them with its joyous petals.
They have a right to all the carnations.
Two happy lovers, without an ending, with no death,
they are born, they die, many times while they live:
they have the eternal life of the Natural.



By Rumi:
May these nuptials be blessed for us, may this marriage be blessed for us,
May it be ever like milk and sugar, this marriage like wine and halvah.
May this marriage be blessed with leaves and fruits like the date tree;
May this marriage be laughing forever, today, tomorrow, like the hours of paradise.
May this marriage be the sign of compassion and the approval of happiness here and hereafter;
May this marriage be fair of fame, fair of face and fair of omen as the moon in the azure sky.
I have fallen silent for words cannot describe how the spirit has mingled with this marriage



By Rumi:

A moment of happiness,
you and I sitting on the verandah,
apparently two, but one in soul, you and I.
We feel the flowing water of life here,
you and I, with the garden's beauty
and the birds singing.
The stars will be watching us,
and we will show them
what it is to be a thin crescent moon.
You and I unselfed, will be together,
indifferent to idle speculation, you and I.
The parrots of heaven will be cracking sugar
as we laugh together, you and I.
In one form upon this earth,
and in another form in a timeless sweet land.





From "All My Youth Returns" – by Rumi

The unimaginable,
the unknowable --
That is what you give my soul
when it moves in your direction.

Union is the pure wine.
My Life is the cup.
Without your wine
what use is the cup?

I once had a thousand desires
But in my one desire to know you
All else melted away.

The pure essence of your being
Has taken over my heart and soul.

Now there is no second or third,
Only the sound of your sweet voice.

Through your grace I have found
a treasure within myself.

I have found the truth of the unseen world.
I have come upon the eternal ecstasy.
I have gone beyond the ravages of time.
I have become one with you!

Now my heart sings.



"My Friend" author unknown

I love you
not only for what you are
but for what I am
when I am with you.

I love you
not only for what
you have made of yourself
but for what you are making of me.

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.



“The Journey” – Author Unknown

Two friends decided to journey together
towards a common destination.
Before they began their journey
they share their expectations as follows:

There will be days my friend,
when one will want to walk along the mountain path,
whilst the other may prefer the valley,
but we will come together at the end of the day
and share our experiences.

There will be days when one will want to sing and dance,
whilst the other will prefer to travel quietness,
so we will choose different paths,
but we will meet at the close of the day
and be content with our experiences.

There will be days when one may want to rest,
whilst the other may want to move further along the path,
but at the right time we will come together
and be happy that each has fulfilled their own needs.

There will be days when we shall travel
together as one.

If we can respect the other’s need whilst still fulfilling our own,
then our journey will be an experience to rejoice in.


From "The Irrational Season" by Madeleine L'Engle
"Ultimately there comes a time when a decision must be made. Ultimately two people who love each other must ask themselves how much they hope for as their love grows and deepens, and how much risk they are willing to take. It is indeed a fearful gamble. Because it is the nature of love to create, a marriage itself is something which has to be created. To marry is the biggest risk in human relations that a person can take. If we commit ourselves to one person for life this is not, as many people think, a rejection of freedom; rather it demands the courage to move into all the risks of freedom, and the risk of love which is permanent; into that love which is not possession, but participation. It takes a lifetime to learn another person. When love is not possession, but participation, then it is part of that co-creation which is our human calling."



"A History of Love" by Diane Ackerman

“Love. What a small word we use for an idea so immense and powerful. It has altered the flow of history, calmed monsters, kindled works of art, cheered the forlorn, turned tough guys to mush, consoled the enslaved, driven strong women mad, glorified the humble, fueled national scandals, bankrupted robber barons, and made mincemeat of kings. How can love’s spaciousness be conveyed in the narrow confines of one syllable? Love is an ancient delirium, a desire older than civilization, with taproots spreading into deep and mysterious days. The heart is a living museum. In each of its galleries, no matter how narrow or dimly lit, preserved forever like wondrous diatoms, are our moments of loving, and being loved.”


"The Confirmation" by Edwin Muir (1887-1959)

"Yes, yours, my love, is the right human face,
I in my mind had waited for this long.
Seeing the false and searching the true,
Then I found you as a traveller finds a place
Of welcome suddenly amid the wrong
Valleys and rocks and twisting roads.
But you, what shall I call you?
A fountain in a waste.
A well of water in a country dry.
Or anything that's honest and good, an eye
That makes the whole world bright.
Your open heart simple with giving, give the primal deed.
The first good world, the blossom, the blowing seed.
The hearth, the steadfast land, the wandering sea,
Not beautiful or rare in every part
But like yourself, as they were meant to be."



"On Love” by Thomas a 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.”

“Time In A Bottle" by Jim Croce
“If I could save time in a bottle, the first thing that I'd like to do, is to save every day ‘till eternity passes away, just to spend them with you. If I could make days last forever; if words could make wishes come true; I'd save every day like a treasure and then, again, I would spend them with you. If I had a box just for wishes, and dreams that had never come true; the box would be empty, except for the memory of how they were answered by you. But there never seems to be enough time to do the things you want to do, once you find them. I've looked around enough to know that you're the one I want to go through time with.”



From "The Hymn of the Universe” by Teilhard de Chardin

"Only love can bring individual beings to their perfect completion, as individuals, by uniting them one with another, because only love takes possession of them and unites them by what lies deepest within them. This is simply a fact of our everyday experience. For indeed at what moment do lovers come into the most complete possession of themselves if not when they say that they are lost in one another? And is not love all the time achieving - in couples, in teams, all around us - the magical and reputedly contradictory feat of personalizing through totalizing? And why should not what is thus daily achieved on a small scale be repeated one day on world-wide dimensions?
Humanity, the spirit of the earth, the synthesis of individuals and peoples, the paradoxical conciliation of the element with the whole, of the one with the many: all these are regarded as utopian fantasies, yet they are biologically necessary; and if we would see them made flesh in the world what more need we do than imagine our power to love growing and broadening, till it can embrace the totality of human beings and of the earth?"



“I Believe…” by Dianna Manning

I believe that love can last a lifetime
and that the heart can tell
when love is real-
I believe in daring to take chances
and coming out and saying
what I feel.

I believe in passionate embraces,
in promises
and lingering goodbyes.
In all the sweet, unspoken possibilities
I see each time I look
into your eyes.

I believe in holding on to happiness
in doing what my heart
tells me to do….

I believe that love
can last a lifetime…
I want to spend that lifetime
loving you.

"i carry your heart with me" By e.e. cummings
I carry your heart with me,
I carry it in my heart and I'm never without it.
anywhere I go, you go, my dear.
and whatever is done, by only me, is your doing, my darling.
I fear no fear for you are my fate, my sweet.
I want no world for beautiful, you are my world my true.
it's you or whatever a moon has always meant,
and whatever a sun will always sing is you.
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the tree called life
which grows higher and higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide
and this is the wonder that is keeping the stars apart
I carry your heart,
I carry it in my heart.

 

"TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL" by Maya Angelou

We, unaccustomed to courage
exiles from delight
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its high holy temple
and comes into our sight
to liberate us into life.

Love arrives
and in its train come ecstasies
old memories of pleasure
ancient histories of pain.
Yet if we are bold,
love strikes away the chains of fear
from our souls.

We are weaned from our timidity
In the flush of love's light
we dare be brave
And suddenly we see
that love costs all we are
and will ever be.
Yet it is only love
which sets us free.

"DOVE POEM" -Author Unknown

Two doves meeting in the sky
Two loves hand in hand eye to eye
Two parts of a loving whole
Two hearts and a single soul

Two stars shining big and bright
Two fires bringing warmth and light
Two songs played in perfect tune
Two flowers growing into bloom

Two Doves gliding in the air
Two loves free without a care
Two parts of a loving whole
Two hearts and a single soul

"Song of the Open Road" by Walt Whitman

I do not offer smooth prizes,
But offer rough new prizes,
These are the days that must happen to you:
You shall not heap up what is called riches,
You shall scatter with lavish hand all that you earn or achieve.
However sweet the laid-up stores,
However convenient the dwellings,
You shall not remain there.
However sheltered the port,
And however calm the waters,
You shall not anchor there.
However welcome the hospitality that welcomes you
You are permitted to receive it but a little while
Afoot and lighthearted, take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before you,
The long brown path before you, leading wherever
you choose.
Say only to one another:
Camerado, I give you my hand!
I give you my love, more precious than money,
I give you myself before preaching or law:
Will you give me yourself?
Will you come travel with me?
Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?

 

"The Magic of Love" by Helen Steiner Rice

Love is like magic, and it always will be,
For love still remains life's sweet mystery.
Love works in ways that are wondrous and strange,
And there's nothing in life that love cannot change!
Love can transform the most commonplace
Into beauty and splendor and sweetness and grace.
Love is unselfish, understanding and kind,
For it sees with its heart, and not with its mind.
Love is the answer that everyone seeks;
Love is the language that every heart speaks.
Love can't be bought, it is priceless and free.
Love, like pure magic, is life's sweet mystery!



 

"A NEW BEGINNING" by Gwen Frostic

On this earth there is a oneness
A rhythmic flow through everything that lives
The things with roots and stems and leaves
The things with shells and fins and furs
The things with wings with which to fly
The things that crawl and those that walk
Each thing must eat and breath and rest
Each thing must seek and each is sought for
Each has a birth, a purpose to fulfill
To each an end and then a new beginning.


"BRIDAL SONG" by John Ford

Comforts lasting, loves increasing,
Like soft hours never ceasing:
Plenty's pleasure, peace complying,
Without jars, or tongues envying;
Hearts by holy union wedded,
More than theirs by custom bedded;
Fruitful issues; life so graced,
Not by age to be defaced,
Budding, as the year ensue'th,
Every spring another youth:
All what thought can add beside
Crown this bridegroom and this bride!


"I Love You For..." by Carl Sandburg

I love you for what you are, but
I love you yet more for what you are going to be.
I love you not so much for your realities
As for your ideals.

I pray for your desires that they may be great
Rather than for your satisfactions,
Which may be so hazardously little.

A satisfied flower is one
Whose petals are about to fall.
The most beautiful rose is one hardly more than a bud
Wherein the pangs and ecstasies of desire
Are working for larger and finer growth.

Not always shall you be what you are now.
You are going forward toward something great.
I am on the way with you and therefore –
I love you.


"Love" by Rod McKuen

Love,
puts the music in laughter,
the beauty in song,
the warmth in a shoulder,
the gentle in strong.

Love,
puts the magic in memories,
the sunshine in skies,
the gladness in giving,
the starlight in eyes.


Love,
puts the fun in together,
the sad in apart,
the hope in tomorrow,
the joy in the heart.



"WHY MARRIAGE?" by Mari Nichols-Haining

Because to 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 in friendship...

Because marriage is a discipline
To be added to a list of achievements...

Because marriages do not fail, people fail
When they enter into marriage
Expecting another to make them whole...

Because, knowing this,
I promise myself to take full responsibility
For my spiritual, mental and physical wholeness
I create me,
I take half of the responsibility for my marriage
Together we create our marriage...

Because with this understanding
The possibilities are limitless.



"In Love Made Visible" by Mary Swenson

In love are we made visible
As in a magic bath
are unpeeled
to the sharp pit
so long concealed

With love's alertness
we recognize
the soundless whimper
of the soul
behind the eyes
A shaft opens
and the timid thing
at last leaps to surface
with full-spread wing

The fingertips of love discover
more than the body's smoothness
They uncover a hidden conduit
for the transfusion
of empathies that circumvent
the mind's intrusion

In love we are set free
Objective bone
and flesh no longer insulate us
to ourselves alone
We are released
and flow into each other's cup
Our two frail vials pierced
drink each other up


“Invitation to Love” by Paul Laurence Dunbar.
Come when the nights are bright with stars
Or when the moon is mellow;
Come when the sun his golden bars
Drops on the hay-field yellow.
Come in the twilight soft and gray,
Come in the night or come in the day,
Come, O love, whene'er you may,
And you are welcome, welcome.

You are sweet, O Love, dear Love,
You are soft as the nesting dove.
Come to my heart and bring it rest
As the bird flies home to its welcome nest.

Come when my heart is full of grief
Or when my heart is merry;
Come with the falling of the leaf
Or with the redd'ning cherry.
Come when the year's first blossom blows,
Come when the summer gleams and glows,
Come with the winter's drifting snows,
And you are welcome, welcome.

"UNTITLED" by Christina Rossetti

What is the beginning? Love.
What the course. Love still.
What the goal. The goal is Love.
On a happy hill
Is there nothing then but Love?
Search we sky or earth
There is nothing out of Love
Hath perpetual worth;
All things flag but only Love,
All things fail and flee;
There is nothing left but Love
Worthy you and me.


"SUDDEN LIGHT" by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

I have been here before,
But when or how I cannot tell;
I know the grass beyond the door,
The sweet keen smell,
The sighing sound, the lights around the shore.

You have been mine before,
How long ago I may not know:
But just when at that swallow's soar
Your neck turned so,
Some veil did fall, - - I knew it all of yore.

Has this been thus before?
And shall not thus time's eddying flight
Still with our lives our love restore
In death's despite,
And day and night yield one delight once more?


"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.


"Epithalamion" by Richard Crashaw

Long may this happy heaven-tied band
Exercise its most holy art,
Keeping her heart within his hand
Keeping his hand upon her heart;
Except from her eyes
Feel he no charms;
Find she no joy
But in his arms;
May each maintain a well-fledged nest
Of winged loves in each other’s breast;
Be each of them a mutual sacrifice
Of either’s eyes

May their whole life a sweet song prove
Set to two well-composed parts
By music’s noble master, Love,
Played on the strings of both their hearts;
Whose mutual sound
May ever meet
In a just round,
Not short though sweet;
Long may heaven listen to the song
And think it short though it be long
Oh, prove it a well-set song indeed, which shows
Sweetest in the close


"The Master Speed" by Robert Frost

No speed of wind or water rushing by
But you have speed far greater. You can climb
Back up a stream of radiance to the sky,
And back through history up the stream of time.
And you were given this swiftness, not for haste,
Nor chiefly that you may go where you will
But in the rush of everything to waste,
That you may have the power of standing still-
Off any still of moving thing you say.
Two such as you with such a master speed
Cannot be parted or wept away
From one another once you are agreed
That life is only life forevermore
Together wing to wing and oar to oar.


"Sonnet XVI" by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love's sake only. Do not say,
I love her for her smile- her look- her way
Of speaking gently- for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day-
For these things in themselves, Beloved, may
Be changed, or change for thee- and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry,
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
But love me for love's sake, that evermore
Thou mayest love on, through love's eternity.


"Sonnet #18" by William Shakespeare

Shall I compare thee to a Summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And Summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And oft' is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd:
But thy eternal Summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.


"Sonnet 116" by William Shakespeare

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.



"May The Road Rise Up to Meet You" – Irish blessing

May the road rise up to meet you,
May the wind be always at your back,
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
And the rains fall soft upon your fields.

May you have warm words on a cold evening,
A full moon on a dark night,
May the roof above you never fall in,
And the friends gathered below never fall out.

May you never be in want,
And always have a soft pillow for your head,
May you be forty years in heaven,
before the devil knows you are dead.

May you be poor in misfortunes, rich in blessings,
Slow to make enemies and quick to make friends,
But be you rich or poor, quick or slow,
May you know nothing but happiness from this day on.



A Navajo Wedding Blessing

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 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



Cherokee Wedding Prayer
Father Sky 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 wind - and ask we sail though 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 forces of the universe you created, we pray for harmony and true happiness as we forever grow young together.


The Apache Wedding Prayer

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

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

Now you will feel no loneliness,
for each of you will be companion to the other.

Now you are two persons,
but there are three lives before you:
his life, her life, and your life together.

May beauty surround you both
on the journey ahead and through all the years.

May happiness be your companion
to the place where the river meets the sun.

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

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



"A Marriage Reading" from Buddha’s Scriptures

Like the energy from within the sun,
a great marriage is a sum more than its parts:
it shines like rays of goodness
from the fusion of souls in harmony.
And like the sun, its brilliance knows the relationship to time,
a brilliance that will light your path,and warm your hearts,
and guide you safely forward into the journey of your life.
Let this marriage be that fusion of inspiration for those to follow.


“We Go Now Together” -Author Unknown

We go now together,
our hearts linked in the ineffable
sands of time,
in the ceremony of our love.

Our creative forces are merged
our eyes see as one.
Our ears hear from the center
and our hands are the birds of our connection
they flutter and they fly
in the sky of our union.

There is no desert on this plane
and the rain here is a multitude
of bliss.

When we forego rage
we embrace the infinite.

When we create together
we become the extension of the Mother
and in our happiness
we are the true children of the eternal Father
joined in peace and love,
we go now together.