Caroline Myss - 9 July

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To David Smith, a dear friend and colleague, with heartfelt gratitude

I am deeply grateful to the many people who contributed their letters to this book. While I was unable to use the more than twelve hundred wonderful stories submitted by all these gracious individuals, rest assured that their spirit and their influence is on every page of this book. I can never thank these individuals as much as they deserve, for they have changed my own life more than I can say, as I hope they will change yours.

And to my forever editor, brilliant Leslie Meredith, my boundless gratitude, love, and appreciation for being my creative mate for more than ten years. Without the support of an editor who has a soul filled with vision, dedication to our projects, and faith in their outcome, this book, among all the others we have done together, would not have turned out to be such an inspiration. My heartfelt love and appreciation also goes to Ned Leavitt, my agent, for his constant support of this book along with all my other ideas. He is indeed a patient man. And my great thanks to Dominick Anfuso, Editorial Director, who is such a positive and warm person to have on the Free Press creative support team, and Martha Levin, my champion and Publisher; Suzanne Donahue, Associate Publisher; Carisa Hays, Director of Publicity; and Cassie Dendurent Nelson, Publicity Manager.

My dear sister-in-law, Amy, who has become my sister, deserves more than my love and thanks for her devotion to my work. She supplies all the organizational skills I will never have and a dedication to perfection and details that allowed me to relax into the creative process. She is a right hand, a colleague, and a trusted friend.

Tami Simon, owner of Sounds True Productions in Boulder, Colorado, deserves more than my thanks for converting the text of this book to an audio series.

I have a dear and precious circle of friends, all of whom helped so much with their insights and support, whom I thank so very much with deep love and affection: Michael Gluck, Mary Neville, Penny Tompkins, Donald McKay, Penny Simon, Chandra Sammons, Lynn Bell, Jim Curtan, Pat Pilkington, Dawn Jiosi, Charles and Sue Wells, Barbara Porter, Kathy Musker, Ingrid Williams, Meryl Martin, Prentiss Prevette, Maureen Connolly-King, Sue Marco, and Peter Occhiogrosso. I also thank Andy Bettis for the use of his office and computer while in Findhorn, Scotland, during the final, desperate days of working to meet the deadline. My gratitude also goes to Ted Falkiewicz, Peter Harlan and Gail Prauss, who organized their activities and schedules around mine in order to support the demands of my writing schedule.

And with great love and devotion I thank my Earth Angels, without whom life would be a very difficult journey: my mom and my brother, Ed. Some people you love more than can be measured in words. I could never adequately describe how much my mother and my brother mean to me. I am blessed with a wonderful and loving family that also includes these Earth Angels: my dear friend, Donald Meshirer, my cousins, Pam and Andy Kruzel, Marilyn and Mitch Kaminski, Colleen Daley, and Chris and Richard Witek, who never cease to be a positive force in my heart and spirit. My nieces and nephews, who showed up late at night with instant message support, checking in to see how Auntie was doing, are more loved and appreciated by me than they will ever know: Angela, Allison, Joe, Rachel, Sarah, and Eddie. And finally, my creative Earth Angels who share the day-to-day rigors of my life and help me to succeed and survive the demands of my life: my business colleague and dear friend, David Smith, and my devoted assistant, Judy Haskett, who has been with me for years. Without Judy, my professional life would be even more ungrounded and chaotic than it is. Again, with the deepest thanks and so much love, I thank each of you once more.

W hen I was growing up Roman Catholic, we were bilingual in English and angels. Miracles could happen every day. The invisible power of angels and saints was everywhere and their existence was a given, a fact, ordinary. It would have been unthinkable not to believe in them.

Every day was a saints day and gave us the opportunity to recognize the importance of a particular virtue or energy that each saint embodied. We regularly invoked the saints and angels strengths: St. Jude gave us the courage to face impossible causes; St. Anthony helped us notice and find lost objects; St. Francis protected our animals and taught us compassion for all life. Even as an adult, when I was selling my home recently and wanted to make it go as fast as possible, I borrowed a statue of St. Joseph from a close childhood friend and, according to tradition, buried it upside down in the backyard. Say what you will, but my house sold within days of that little ritual.

For some of us children, the angels and saints were our first brush with invisible power. These nonphysical beings peopled our spiritual world and surrounded us with their support. We were never alone, and when we called or prayed to them, they always answered. They were our first spiritual community. Their lives modeled the power of faithproof that no physical force on earth, from political oppression to illness, could defeat heaven.

To this day, the saints and angels are invisible forces in my life. Yet I also have a faith in an even greater power: the energy, or grace, that animates our seemingly impersonal but intimately interconnected universe. We receive infusions of grace on a daily basis, but in the middle of the everyday tasks of making a living and taking care of our family and friends, we can miss its subtle power. Grace holds together the whole of our lifeand all of our lives collectively. It watches over us and will come to our aid if we ask.

Many times I have wished that I could convince others to have faith in this immeasurable, invisible force that surrounds and protects us. I feel profound bliss in knowing that even in the direst times, our prayers are heard and answered. I have seen and experienced far too many miracles to believe otherwise. Like you, Ive had to move mountains in my personal and professional life. Whenever I am striving mightily on my own, pushing and getting nowhere, I usually realize that its time to step back and remember that, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, / Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove. As the Tao Te Ching also advises, Do your work, then step back. The only path to serenity. Nothing is impossible for you when you have faithin yourself and in your purpose.

Faith is an active forcenot a passive onean invisible power, like love. It is not simply a belief in goodness, it is a belief put into action in the present moment. In the ancient Hindu belief system, faith also conveys protection, by giving us trust and confidence in the rightness of what we are doing. Faith enables us to have a positive attitude and hope even in the face of seemingly irreversible setbacks.

God works anonymouslyinvisiblythrough these powers of faith, love, and grace. Perhaps this is because we humans are too meddlesome to be trusted with a direct divine intervention. Remember that mortals in ancient mythology who looked directly at a god (who was not disguised in an earthly form) went blind or mad from the sight. God frequently sends divine grace through human agents who perform nonrandom acts of kindness.