The world is your kaleidoscope, and the varying combinations of colors which at every succeeding moment it presents to you are the exquisitely adjusted pictures of your ever-moving thoughts. ~ James Allen

I am completing a week-long juice fast here at The Spa Resort in Chiang Mai, Thailand.  This is part of a three-week detox program I am participating in.  Each morning, reading this beautiful poem by Rumi, I have been reminded of the benefits of emptying the belly.

There’s hidden sweetness in the stomach’s emptiness.

We are lutes, no more, no less. If the soundbox is stuffed full of anything, no music.

If the brain and belly are burning clean with fasting, every moment a new song comes out of the fire.

The fog clears, and new energy makes you run up the steps in front of you.

Be emptier and cry like reed instruments cry. Emptier, write secrets with the reed pen.

When you’re full of food and drink, an ugly metal statue sits where your spirit should.

When you fast, good habits gather like friends who want to help.

Fasting is Solomon’s ring. Don’t give it to some illusion and lose your power,

but even if you have, if you’ve lost all will and control, they come back when you fast, like soldiers appearing out of the ground, pennants flying above them.

A table descends to your tents, Jesus’ table.

Expect to see it, when you fast, this table spread with other food, better than the broth of cabbages.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” ~Marianne Williamson

Personal transformation can and does have global effects.  As we go, goes the world, for the world is us.  The revolution that will save the world is ultimately a personal one. ~ Marianne Williamson

Don’t ask what the world needs.  Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it.  Because what the world needs is more people who have come alive. ~ Howard Thurman

I want God to play in my blood stream, the way sunlight amuses itself on water. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

Let the beauty we love, be what we do.  ~ Rumi

What is within you is greater than anything within your surroundings. ~ Mary Morrissey