Let us enter this New Year with Peace in Our Hearts, on Our Lips, in Our Prayers.

We call to spirits of the North. We honor Mother Earth and her abundance. May we stand steady on her ground. May this dear planet and all her children grow stronger every day.

We call to the spirits of the East. We honor wind and ask that new opportunities for peace fill the air and that the white Dove of peace flies freely in all nations.

We call to the spirits of the South. We honor fire and ask that we be infused with warmth, enthusiasm and passion for the mission of creating peace on earth.

We call to the spirits of the West. We honor water and ask that it cleanse the hearts and souls of all women and men, and sooth our angers and wounds so that we may never again thirst for war.

We call to the spirits of above, of below and within; we ask to be united with God, Goddess and Great Spirit of All That Is. With all the forces of the universe, we pray for harmony in our world.

Let Peace live in your life, and in your world. Let Peace live in your day-to-day, and in places far away. Let Peace abound, all around. May Peace be in your heart. Aho!

© 2008-2012 Reverend Laurie Sue Brockway. Adapted from The Goddess Pages.

This appears in the New Year edition of the Self Healing Expressiona Ezine.

A poll today from SodaHead.com shows that 63 percent of respondents think that black wedding dresses are "cool," while only 37 percent think they are "creepy."

Single people polled thought that black wedding dresses were cool by a 76 percent to 24 percent margin. But those who have already walked down the aisle did not go ga-ga over the idea. Married respondents were split 50 percent/50 percent regarding if black wedding dresses are cool or creepy.

See more on this poll here.

Everyone is so worried about money these days.

Money issues can make you feel stalled and stuck. When economic times are bad and money is tight, you might find yourself overcome with fearful thoughts and worry. Money problems can meddle with your sense of self-worth and value. Losing a job, business or career opportunity can be devastating and not having enough money can make you feel lesser than others who do.

It is so important to realize that good fortune comes to us in many forms, as both material and spiritual wealth. In times of trouble and financial strife, we still have access to the spiritual riches of the universe. That may sound like a cliché, but it is so true. Be ready and willing to see prosperity through your spiritual eyes and you may be delighted to discover the many ways in which wealth may abound in your life – even in the form of a kind gesture or a new opportunity.

When times are tough, we often focus on what doesn’t work and we forget to express gratitude for all that is working. As long as you are living and breathing, there is hope--hope enough to rise above painful circumstances and connect with a sense of greater good and greater material and spiritual wealth.

Try this self-blessing: I bless myself with the power to rise above financial pain and reclaim the abundance of the universe that is might. I set myself upon a healing path, and walk toward deeper awareness, prosperity, love, success and joy in life, and the good health to enjoy it.

Be inspired by this quote: “Do not let circumstances influence your thoughts and moods. By rising over them mentally, you will eventually rise over them materially.”- Remez Sasson

I came across the Plunge Project recently and enjoyed reading this great site by bride-to-be--turned-blogger, Nicole Christine (VanScoten) Denton.

Like many brides who love to share their journey to the altar, she started the Plunge Project as a place to document her own journey down the aisle. She loved it so much she decided to continued to blog after her November 6, 2010 wedding.

Nicole explains that her specialty is writing for real brides who "want more than your average cookie-cutter wedding yet still have a budget to keep in mind." But she also writes about married life, DIY projects, and other things that catch her fancy.

It's a really fun read. Find out more about Nicole and the Plunge Project here.

If you are marrying for the second time, or getting married after having other long term relationships, it is important to find spiritual closure with the ones who came before.

Spiritually releasing ties you might have to old loves is also an important part of your emotional health--it enhances your readiness for a new marriage, and can help make your new union stronger.

In the Jewish faith, a spiritual divorce is called a “Get” and is something granted by a rabbi. In ancient times the get was the divorce; today it serves to help couples feel spiritually free of their former partner as well as legally unbound. While it is little more than a piece of paper written in Hebrew and signed by the clergy (in the Talmud it’s referred to as a Sefer Keritut, scroll of cutting off) some couples seek it as a decree that separates two souls from the holy union they agreed to on their wedding day. An annulment, in the Catholic faith, is a similar concept, in that is spiritually frees a person of that faith to marry again in the Church. In some indigenous cultures, marriage is in spirit and thus divorce is as well. Among one shamanic tribe in Mexico, a chief will bless a couple’s decision to separate if a new home and husband has been found for the wife. If that requirement is met, then the couple is absolved of financial and spiritual obligation to one another.

In any language and any cultures, a spiritual divorce is as important as a legal divorce, and is as relevant even if you never married the person who played an important romantic role in your life. Before you can fully connect to your new beloved, and before he can fully give himself to you, you both must commit yourselves to a spiritual cleansing of the imprints of relationships past.

If you are negatively or inappropriately connected to an ex –through a dysfunctional relationship, bad memories anger or upset related to child rearing – is important to find peace for yourself and to free your ex as well. By the same token, even a good relationship with a one time love requires a spiritual divorce, so that you can take all of yourself in to your new relationship.

Everyone you have ever loved leaves their imprint and it is best to disconnect from them spiritually before your wedding day. If you and your fiancé both work on this together it can bring powerful results. Here are some steps you can take over time to fully move on from an ex-love:

• Acknowledge what the relationship was about for you. For better or for worse, how did it change your life?

• Look at the best parts of the relationship(s) and how they contributed to where you are now.

• Look at the worst parts, all the lessons learned, and how these contributed to where you are now.

• Look at ways to bring completion to any relationships that remains an open book that can interfere with the new chapter you are writing with your new marriage (letting go of old wedding gifts, giving the sheets you once shared to charity, working to let go anger and discord, etc.).

• Remember happy memories with and let those forever stay in your heart and honor them as part of the growth that brought you to the great relationship you have now.

• Seek to ritually relinquish spiritual ties to and to lessen the connection to that person through symbolic gestures. Karen Weisman, who with Tami Coyne authored The Spiritual Chicks Question Everything, once held a divorce shower for a friend to help him let go of his ex and move on to new love. They gave him kitchen gifts, she says, and “We made him play silly games and his sister had us all sing the theme song from The Mary Tyler Moore show and we tossed a beret in the air at the end.”

Spiritual divorce rituals of can be done with the help of friends; or you can do them individually or as a couple. The process will move your relationship to the next level by acknowledging where you’ve both been and what you’ve been through. It can help show you that all your relationships were the building blocks that brought you to this moment in time and can help you relinquish unfinished relationship issues that could get in the way of your happiness and commitment.

© Rev. Laurie Sue Brockway 2011

Adapted from Wedding Goddess: A Guide to Turning Wedding Stress into Wedding Bliss, (Perigee/Penguin). You can order an autographed copy here.

Worried that the world is going to end today on May 21, 2011? Concerned that you are single and may have to ascend solo to the heavens? Be proactive about finding your soulmate here on earth and you may find a miracle at the end of the day--you're still here and a new door to love has opened.

Why not try some spiring cleaning for the heart and soul. Hey, what have you got to lose?

It may seem wacky to think that a pile of old magazines or relics from relationships past that are collecting dust can keep new love at bay, but clutter and memorabilia can impact your love life. For all soulful singles who are standing by for love, and even those of your who are in relationships, I suggest that you utilize this stir of springtime to clean house in your life, on all levels, and get yourself even more tuned-up for love! I’m not the first to say it: a good, soulful spring-cleaning will bring you a fresh start for the season of love.

In order to truly be ready to engage in a relationship you have to be committed to bringing order into your life on ALL LEVELS -- physical, psychic, emotional, financial, and spiritual. It is often a process of gently releasing, letting go, identifying and giving up that which stands in the way of letting soul love in. This includes unsuitable relationships and unsuitable ties to old flames (you know the ones!). Let yourself mourn what you must leave behind -- an important process, even if you are leaving a very alive lover! -- and then you can move one.

There is a very specific spiritual law that states that “nature abhors a vacuum.” Get rid of something and something new can come in. All of the worlds religions have specific ways to release the old -- from body, mind and spirit -- and there is a reason for this: If your life is too cluttered or filled up with “stuff”, if your house is messy or your mind is disorganized, if you are not honoring your body or your spirit, it very hard to feel connected to your own divine nature and therefore it is difficult to create a life of your choosing.

This is the time to at least start to rethink your romantic game plan and slowly work your way toward transforming -- or releasing -- the relationships that are not your soul mate.

The best bet for a fresh start is to make symbolic gestures in the physical realm. Clearing the decks of dreck and disarray will help you create a healthy foundation for your life. And then, a healthy foundation in your life will help you create the space for your soulful love to come in. These things take time. Be gentle with yourself but start somewhere!

Try some of these “Life Cleaning” tips:

Let go of memorabilia from past or failed relationships. This includes anything that ties you inappropriately to the past, or to a love affair that is long over. Naturally you want to save anything that is valuable or sacred, but pack it up and place it in storage -- at least for now. You should not be looking at pictures of your old loves on the mantle, or stuff that reminds you of them, while trying to get ready for the new. Keeping a photo of your ex on display energetically keeps him or her around your house!

Make cleaning up your life a fun and rejuvenating ritual. Play music, such as “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta Hair,” and dance around as your ditch the old the make room for the new.

Write an elimination list . Identify and begin to tranform thoughts, items, relationships, “things” you know are in the way of your soul mate success. These are things you choose to release or transform for the highest good. If you are ready to let things go, burn, flush or bury the list.

So many interfaith and intercultural couples are marrying these days that blended marriages are now part of the norm. Still, any couple planning a wedding has questions about how to proceed. Here are four tips for interfaith and intercultural couples on religious protocol and choosing the kind of ceremony you want from my new book, Your Interfaith Wedding: A Guide to Blending Faiths, Cultures and Personal Values in One Beautiful Wedding Ceremony.

1. Be honest about where religion fits in. For example, if you family is not terribly religious and if you’ve not stepped into a synagogue since a childhood Chanukah party, would you want a Jewish ceremony in a temple with a rabbi and cantor? Or would you perhaps be most comfortable including a symbol of the religion, such as the breaking of the glass and a Hebrew prayer? Some couples “fake” religious beliefs to appease family. They worry so much about offending love ones. I suggest asking what do you two truly want? Most importantly, be completely honest with one another (and then, your officiant). Honor your heritage and your parents, but make sure you are creating this ceremony for the two of you – not just to please others.

2. If you are an interfaith couple, take a highly personalized approach. There are some particular challenges that interfaith couples face when it comes to the ceremony and the family. It depends of how religious the bride or groom is, and the situation within each family. As a wedding officiant I deal with it on a case by case basis. Overall, I believe in blending traditions, celebrating ancestry in a balanced way and including everyone there in a non denominational way. The ceremony should walk the middle line and have love as its common denominator. Then it can be seasoned with traditions and family participation. No one should be offended, and all should feel included.

3. Figure out, together, the general tone you would feel most comfortable with. Religious, non-denominational, civil, offbeat, humorous, solemn. Would something romantic and offbeat be more your style? On the spectrum between a formal and traditional ceremony and the wackiest exchange of vows you can think of, where are you? Somewhere in the middle, or somewhere on the edge, wanting to be different?

4. Select a Ceremony Style that will Make You Smile. With so many couples marrying outside of their faith, and/or physically marrying in a location other than a house of worship, an entire world of possibilities exists. Some of the best weddings are those that create a seamless blend two lives and two families while celebrating love as the common denominator. Seek to blend of the treasures of traditional with the contemporary. Be respectful of the traditions of your parents, your in-laws and the ancestors who came before them, but select a wedding ceremony style and tone that is truly suited to you and you beloved.

God our Father, we thank you for our families; for the love that we share and for the joy of our marriage.

Strengthened by our union help us to serve and comfort those who suffer. We ask this in the Spirit of Jesus Christ. Amen.

“Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.” So said St Catherine of Siena whose festival day it is today. Marriage is intended to be a way in which man and woman help each other to become what God meant each one to be, their deepest and truest selves.

Many are full of fear for the future of the prospects of our world but the message of the celebrations in this country and far beyond its shores is the right one – this is a joyful day! It is good that people in every continent are able to share in these celebrations because this is, as every wedding day should be, a day of hope.

In a sense every wedding is a royal wedding with the bride and the groom as king and queen of creation, making a new life together so that life can flow through them into the future.

William and Catherine, you have chosen to be married in the sight of a generous God who so loved the world that he gave himself to us in the person of Jesus Christ.

And in the Spirit of this generous God, husband and wife are to give themselves to each another.

A spiritual life grows as love finds its centre beyond ourselves. Faithful and committed relationships offer a door into the mystery of spiritual life in which we discover this; the more we give of self, the richer we become in soul; the more we go beyond ourselves in love, the more we become our true selves and our spiritual beauty is more fully revealed. In marriage we are seeking to bring one another into fuller life.

It is of course very hard to wean ourselves away from self-centredness. And people can dream of doing such a thing but the hope should be fulfilled it is necessary a solemn decision that, whatever the difficulties, we are committed to the way of generous love.

You have both made your decision today – “I will” – and by making this new relationship, you have aligned yourselves with what we believe is the way in which life is spiritually evolving, and which will lead to a creative future for the human race.

We stand looking forward to a century which is full of promise and full of peril. Human beings are confronting the question of how to use wisely a power that has been given to us through the discoveries of the last century. We shall not be converted to the promise of the future by more knowledge, but rather by an increase of loving wisdom and reverence, for life, for the earth and for one another.

Marriage should transform, as husband and wife make one another their work of art. It is possible to transform as long as we do not harbour ambitions to reform our partner. There must be no coercion if the Spirit is to flow; each must give the other space and freedom. Chaucer, the London poet, sums it up in a pithy phrase:

“Whan maistrie [mastery] comth, the God of Love anon,

Beteth his wynges, and farewell, he is gon.”

As the reality of God has faded from so many lives in the West, there has been a corresponding inflation of expectations that personal relations alone will supply meaning and happiness in life. This is to load our partner with too great a burden. We are all incomplete: we all need the love which is secure, rather than oppressive, we need mutual forgiveness, to thrive.

As we move towards our partner in love, following the example of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit is quickened within us and can increasingly fill our lives with light. This leads to a family life which offers the best conditions in which the next generation can practise and exchange those gifts which can overcome fear and division and incubate the coming world of the Spirit, whose fruits are love and joy and peace.

I pray that all of us present and the many millions watching this ceremony and sharing in your joy today, will do everything in our power to support and uphold you in your new life. And I pray that God will bless you in the way of life that you have chosen, that way which is expressed in the prayer that you have composed together in preparation for this day:

God our Father, we thank you for our families; for the love that we share and for the joy of our marriage.

Strengthened by our union help us to serve and comfort those who suffer. We ask this in the Spirit of Jesus Christ. Amen.