The fantasy of the wedding day is that it represents undeniable public and private truth that you have been chosen. For that one day, you are the most valuable creature in the world - a treasure, a princess, a prize.

You take whatever works from wherever you can find it, and you keep moving toward the light.

Zen masters say you cannot see your reflection in running water, only in still water.

Every day when you wake up, ask yourself, 'What do I really, really, really want? ' You have to say really, really, really, otherwise you won't believe it.

You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestation of your own blessings.

I wanted to experience both. I wanted worldly enjoyment and divine transcendence. I wanted what the Greeks called kalos kai agathos, the singular balance of the good and the beautiful. I'd been missing both during these last hard years, because both pleasure and devotion require a stress-free space in which to flourish and I'd been living in a giant trash compactor of nonstop anxiety. As for how to balance the urge for pleasure against the longing for devotion...well, surely there was a way to learn that trick.

I think a lot of people who feel as though they desperately want to be married oftentimes simply desperately want to have a wedding.