The Universe Is Smiling: "Blessing"

Q: What is today's wisdom?
A: Blessings are around us. Let's have the clarity to recognize them.

"You never know where a blessing can come from."
 - Teena Marie
"Nourish beginnings, let us nourish beginnings. Not all things are blest, but the seeds of all things are blest. The blessing is the seed."
- Muriel Rukeyser

The Universe Is Smiling: "Musing"

Q: What is today's wisdom?
A: Take some time musing.

"No great work has ever been produced except after a long interval of still and musing meditation."
- Walter Bagehot
"Reflection is a flower of the mind, giving out wholesome fragrance; but revelry is the same flower, when rank and running to seed."
- Desiderius Erasmus

The Universe Is Smiling: "Stillness"

Q: What is this week's wisdom?
A: A moment of stillness brings us in contact with our true, divine Self. Enjoy some stillness this week - with a smile :)

"Learning ho to be still, to really be still and let life happen - that stillness becomes a radiance."
- Morgan Freeman
"In the midst of movement and chaos, keep stillness inside of you."
 - Deepak Chopra
"How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank.
Here will we sit, and let the sounds of music
Creep in our ears; soft stillness, and the night
Become the touches of sweet harmony."
- William Shakespeare

The Universe Is Smiling: "Poetry"

Q: What is today's wisdom?
A: Find the poetry in every day :)

"Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words."
 - Robert Frost
"Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood."
- T.S. Eliot
"I decided that it was not wisdom that enabled [poets] to write their poetry, but a kind of instinct or inspiration, such as you find in seers and prophets who deliver all their sublime messages without knowing in the least what they mean."
- Socrates

The Universe Is Smiling: "Cloudmaker"

Q: What is today's wisdom?
A: We are such cloudmakers. See the sunshine beyond the clouds? Doesn't it make you smile?!

"Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud."
- Maya Angelou
"A cloud does not know why it moves in just such a direction and at such a speed... It feels an impulsion, this is the place to go now. But the sky knows the reasons and the patterns behind all clouds, and you will know, too, when you lift yourself high enough to see beyond horizons."
- Richard Bach

The Universe Is Smiling: "Transformation"

Q: What is today's wisdom?
A: Even if we might dream of being someone or something else, we are perfect the way we are.

"First comes thought; then organization of that thought, into ideas and plans; then transformation of those plans into reality. The beginning, as you will observe, is in your imagination."
- Napoleon Hill
"Transformation literally means going beyond your form."
- Wayne Dyer

The Universe Is Smiling: "Day & Night"

Q: What is today's wisdom?
A: Keep smiling - day and night :)

"Our emotions are only incidents in the effort to keep day and night together."
 - T.S. Eliot
We invoke the Sun God who incessantly works day and night and rises daily without showing any kind of lethargy."
 - Rig Veda
"To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best day and nicht to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight and never stop fighting."
- E.E. Cummings

The Universe Is Smiling: "Music"

Q: What is today's wisdom?
A: Let your heart sing with a smile.

"There are only two things worth aiming for, good music and a clean conscience."
- Paul Hindemith
"Music is love in search of a voice."
- Leo Tolstoy
"It's east to play any musical instrument: all you have to do is touch the right key at the right time and the instrument will play itself."
- J.S. Bach
"You are the music while the music lasts."
- T.S. Eliot

The Universe Is Smiling: "Friendship"

On January 9th I had put up this drawing for a contest, asking for a title and a matching quote. The contest ended on February 13th. I got a lot of great quotes to chose from but left it to the voters on Facebook and an independent jury of friends that hadn't sent in any submissions. The first winner got the print of the drawing mounted on a 6"x6"x2" wood block with the winning quote on the back panel, while the second and third winner got a print of the drawing. It was a lot of fun, and we'll do another contest in the Fall.
The wood block is available on my ETSY store "TheUniverseIsSmiling".

1. winner: "Friendship" "There is a magnet in your heart that will attract true friends. That magnet is unselfishness, thinking of others first; when you learn to live for others, they will live for you."  - Paramahansa Yogananda

2. winner: "Sentience"  “Until one has loved an animal, a part of one's soul remains unawakened.” 
- Anatole France

3. winner: "Trust "You are Loved. All is Well." - Abraham-Hicks  

The Universe Is Smiling: "Waiting for Spring"

Q: What is today's wisdom?
A: Let's go ahead and evoke spring. Something has to give :)

"You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep spring from coming."
 - Pablo Neruda
"Spring has returned. The earth is like a child that knows poems."
- Rainer Maria Rilke
"Behold, my friends, the spring is come; the earth has gladly received the embraces of the sun, and we shall soon see the results of their love!"
- Sitting Bull