WEDDING CEREMONY READINGS
1.“The Art of Marriage” – Wilfred Peterson
A good marriage must be created.
In the art of marriage the little things are the big things…
It is never being too old to hold hands.
It is remembering to say “I love you” at least once each day.
It is never going to bed angry. It is having a mutual set of values and common objectives It is standing together facing the world.
It is forming a circle that gathers in the whole family.
It is speaking words of appreciation
and demonstrating gratitude in thoughtful ways.
It is having the capacity to forgive and forget.
It is giving each other an atmosphere in which each can grow.
It is finding room for the things of the spirit.
It is a common search for the good and beautiful.
It is not only marrying the right partner,
It is being the right partner.
2. “Be happy where you are” – Author Unknown
Be happy where you are. Sadly, many of us continually postpone our happiness indefinitely. It’s not that we consciously set out to do so, but we keep convincing ourselves, “Someday I’ll be happy!” We tell ourselves we’ll be happy when we get out of school, get our first job, a promotion, or pay off our loans. We convince ourselves that life will be better after we get married, go on a nice vacation, have a baby, or retire. The truth is, there’s no better time to be happy than right now. As Alfred D’Souza put it: “For a long time it had seemed to me that my life was about to begin – real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business…At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.” So stop waiting for better days and treasure every moment that you have. And treasure life even more if you have somebody to share it with, somebody special. Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is mystery. Today is a gift. That’s why it’s called the present. Happiness is a journey, not a destination.So work like you don’t need the money. Love like you’ve never been hurt. And dance like no one’s watching.
3. “Conscious commitment” – John Wellwood
Marriage is a conscious commitment to being together and not just staying together. Whatever problems our personalities may have, we will not let them get between us. If our egos are at war, we will not let that ruin our deeper connection – we will always come back and meet on this deeper level. We will help each other to wake up and become all that we can be. We will keep opening to each other and to life itself in and through your relationship.
4. From”The Irrational Season” - Madeleine L’Engle
Ultimately there comes a time when a decision must be made. Two people who love each other must ask themselves how much they hope for as their love grows and deepens. Since it is the nature of love to create, a marriage itself is something that needs to be created. To marry is the biggest step in human relations we can take. If we commit ourselves to one person for a lifetime this is not a rejection of freedom; rather it is a bold step into the responsibilities both of freedom and of a love that is permanent. It is embracing a love which is not possession, but participation. It takes a lifetime to learn another person. When love is not possession, but participation, then it is part of that co-creation which is our human calling.”
5. “Marriage joins two people in the circle of its love”- Edmund O’Neil
Marriage is a commitment to life, the best that two people can find and bring out in each other. It offers opportunities for sharing and growth that no other relationship can equal. It is a physical and an emotional joining that is promised for a lifetime.
Within the circle of its love, marriage encompasses all of life’s most important relationships. A wife and a husband are each other’s best friend, confidant, lover, teacher, listener, and critic. And there may come times when one partner is heartbroken or ailing, and the love of the other may resemble the tender caring of a parent for a child.
Marriage deepens and enriches every facet of life. Happiness is fuller, memories are fresher, commitment is stronger, even anger is felt more strongly, and passes away more quickly. Marriage understands and forgives the mistakes life is unable to avoid. It encourages and nurtures new life, new experiences, and new ways of expressing a love that is deeper than life.
When two people pledge their love and care for each other in marriage, they create a spirit unique unto themselves, which binds them, closer than any spoken or written words. Marriage is a promise, a potential made in the hearts of two people who love each other and takes a lifetime to fulfill.
6. “Soul Mates” – Thomas Moore
Marriage is not only the expression of love between two people, it is also the profound evocation of one of life’s greatest mysteries, the weaving together of many different strands of soul. We can’t enter marriage soulfully without first preparing ourselves, by being in the world creatively and by weaving the tapestry of our own talents and destiny. Marriage itself is a kind of weaving, not only of two individuals, but of every aspect of personal, social, and even cosmic life. If we understand marriage only as the commitment of two individuals to each other, then we ourselves overlook its soul, but if we see that it also has to do with family, neighborhood, and the greater community, and with our own work and personal cultivation, then we begin to glimpse the mystery that is marriage.
7. “Marriage and family” – Sam Keen
When we approach marriage and family life as a sacrament, we encounter the great mystery that is the heart of both love and faith. As a man and woman come to love each other unconditionally, after shattering habitual roles and abandoning masks, they become at once dearer and more mysterious to each other. Lovers, like true saints, have learned to cherish, trust, and embrace that mysterious other to whom they are joined but may never fully understand. Drinking from the fountain of the mysterious other – the Unknown God, the unfathomable soul, the lover who remains a familiar stranger – passion may be renewed daily.
8. “Love is here and now” – Author Unknown
Love is here and now, real and true, the most important reality in our lives. Love is the creator of our favorite memories, the foundation of our fondest dreams. Love is a promise that is always kept, a fortune that can never be spent, a seed that can flourish in even the most unlikely of places. This radiance that never fades, this mysterious, magical joy, is had by those who are open to love.
9. “Friendship”- Judy Bielicki
True friendship provides so many of the essentials for a happy life. It is the foundation on which to build an enduring relationship. It is the mortar that bonds us together in harmony. It is the calm and warm protection we need when the world outside seems cold and chaotic. True friendship holds a mirror to our shortcomings and failings, without destroying our sense of worthiness. True friendship nurtures our hopes, supports us in our disappointments, and encourages us to grow to our best potential
10. “Love is friendship caught fire”- Laura Hendricks
Love is friendship caught fire; it is quiet, mutual confidence, sharing and forgiving. It is loyalty through good and bad times. It settles for less than perfection, and makes allowances for human weaknesses. Love is content with the present, hopes for the future, and does not brood over the past. It is the day-in and day-out chronicles of irritations, problems, compromises, small disappointments, big victories, and working toward common goals. If you have love in your life, it can make up for a great many things you lack. If you do not have it, no matter what else there is, it is not enough.
11. “Sorrow prepares you for joy” – Rumi
“Sorrow prepares you for joy. It violently sweeps everything out of your house, so that new joy can find space to enter. It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart, so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place. It pulls up the rotten roots, so that new roots hidden beneath have room to grow. Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart, far better things will take their place.”
12. “I am nothing special” – Nicholas Sparks
I am nothing special; just a common man with common thoughts, and I’ve led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten. But in one respect I have succeeded as gloriously as anyone who’s ever lived: I’ve loved another with all my heart and soul, and to me, this has always been enough.
13. “They loved each other” – Dr. Zhivago
They loved each other, not driven by necessity, by the “blaze of passion” often falsely ascribed to love. They loved each other because everything around them willed it, the trees and the clouds and the sky over their heads and the earth under their feet. Perhaps their surrounding world, the strangers they met in the street, the wide expanses they saw on their walks, the rooms in which they lived or met, took more delight in their love then they themselves did.
14. “He’s not perfect” – Bob Marley
He’s not perfect. You aren’t either, and the two of you will never be perfect. But if he can make you laugh at least once, causes you to think twice, and if he admits to being human and making mistakes, hold onto him and give him the most you can. He isn’t going to quote poetry, he’s not thinking about you every moment, but he will give you a part of him that he knows you could break. Don’t hurt him, don’t change him, and don’t expect for more than he can give. Don’t analyze. Smile when he makes you happy, yell when he makes you mad, and miss him when he’s not there. Love hard when there is love to be had. Because perfect guys don’t exist, but there’s always one guy that is perfect for you.
15. “When your mind is filled with love” – Buddha
When your mind is filled with love, send it in one direction, then a second, a third, and a fourth, then above, and then below. Identify with everything, without hatred, resentment, anger or hostility. This mind of love is very wide. It grows immeasurably and eventually is able to embrace the whole world. –
16. “First Man First Woman”
When the earth was first made, all things were present, but people saw only their isolation from one another and from the mountains and rivers that had created them. For a long time each creature followed a separate path, until the first man looked at the first woman and envisioned a unity not seen before. From their love, happiness was created and a thread soon connected man to woman, stars to trees, and the ocean to the rock. Some called it Nature, others called it the plan of the Universe. But between men and women arose a bond of love, unbroken to the present day
17. From “Captain Corelli’s Mandolin” – Louis de Bernières
Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being in love which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two.
18. “Love is the reason for life”- Susan Schutz
Love is the strongest feeling known, an all encompassing passion, and extreme strength and overwhelming excitement.
Love is trying not to hurt the other person, trying not to change the other person, trying not to dominate the other person, trying not to deceive the other person.
Love is understanding each other, listening to each other, supporting each other, having fun with each other.
Love is not an excuse to stop growing, not an excuse to stop making your self better, not an excuse to lessen one’s goals, not an excuse to take the other person for granted.
Love is being completely honest with each other, finding dreams to share, working towards common goals sharing responsibilities equally.
Everyone in the world wants to love. Love is not a feeling to be taken lightly. Love is a feeling to be cherished, nurtured and cared for. Love is the reason for life.
19. “Loving someone…”
Loving someone is the beginning of all wisdom, all sympathy, all compassion, all art, all religion; and in it’s larger sense is the one thing in life worth doing.
20. “When the satisfaction…”
When the satisfaction or security of another person becomes as significant to one as one’s own satisfaction or security, then the state of love exists.
21. “Marriage brings together two people”
Marriage brings together two people, not only in the present but also in the presence of their past and the experiences that have shaped and reshaped their hearts and lives.
22. “To Know Yourself” – Swami Satchidananda
Marriage is between two reflections of God, two pairs of eyes that see one vision, two who are dedicated to serve one another and humanity at large. Two minds come together to help each other realize their true nature. Walking side by side with the right partner is a good way to reach God quickly. When the love of a husband and wife blends together and becomes love of God, their marriage becomes is a divine institution.
23. “Only if one knows the truth of Love” – Ramana Maharshi
Only if one knows the truth of Love,
Which is the real nature of existence,
Will the strong entangled knot of ego be untied.
Only if one attains the height of Love will liberation be attained.
Such is the heart of all religions.
The experience of God is only love,
Which is seeing only love, hearing only love,
Feeling only love, tasting only love and
Smelling only love, which is bliss.
24. “Why Marriage?” – Mari Nichols
Because to the depths of me, I long to love one person, with all my heart, my soul, my mind, my body…Because I need a forever friend to trust with the intimacies of me, Who won’t hold them against me, Who loves me when I’m unlikable, Who sees the small child in me, and Who looks for the divine potential of me…Because I need to cuddle in the warmth of the night with someone who thanks God for me, with someone I feel blessed to hold…Because marriage means opportunity to grow in love in friendship…Because marriage is a discipline to be added to a list of achievements…Because marriages do not fail, people fail when they enter into marriage expecting another to make them whole…Because, knowing this, I promise myself to take full responsibility for my spiritual, mental and physical wholeness. I create me, I take half of the responsibility for my marriage Together we create our marriage… Because of this understanding the possibilities are limitless.
25. “Words at a Quaker Wedding” – R.B. Crowell
To become a husband and wife makes each of you responsible no longer for yourselves alone. It demands of each an increase, beyond all you now might think, of patience – patience to bear the enlarged responsibilities, and to bear with the incapacities, the weaknesses, the human failings which you are each aware of in yourself and will discover in the other. For God has created no man or woman even nearly perfect. But we grow in both our virtue and our capacity to love by the testing, against the world and each other, of those weaknesses which by the grace of God we can convert into strengths; and by the finding of those strengths and beauties in each other which we hardly dared suspect were there. But these are the rewards of unfolding years; years, not weeks or months. The glory of a great marriage lies in the surprises which loving support, acceptance, and graceful forgiveness can bring forth.
26. “Looking For Your Face”- Rumi
From the beginning of my life I have been looking for your face, but today I have seen it. Today I have seen the charm, the beauty, the unfathomable grace of the face that I was looking for. Today I have found you, and those who laughed and scorned me yesterday are sorry that they were not looking as I did. I am bewildered by the magnificence of your beauty, and wish to see you with a hundred eyes. My heart has burned with passion and has searched forever for this wondrous beauty that I now behold. I am ashamed to call this love human, and afraid of God to call it divine. Your fragrant breath, like the morning breeze, has come to the stillness of the garden. You have breathed new life into me. I have become your sunshine, and also your shadow. My soul is screaming in ecstasy. Every fiber of my being is in love with you. Your effulgence has lit a fire in my heart, and you have made radiant for me the earth and sky. My arrow of love has arrived at the target. I am in the house of mercy, and my heart is a place of prayer.
27. “Let Us Walk Together” – Author Unknown
Let us walk together yet not as one, but such that our shadows are separate and distinct, such that our souls are unbound and free. Let us share our time, yet do not give all your time, nor take all of mine for in order to develop to the fullest, to be free, we must have solitude and individuality.
Let me wander in solitude, when I need to be alone, yet be near, when I need you. Let us share our love. Give freely of your love, but do not smother me, my soul must breathe a free air. Take my love, but do not demand it, for love given of obligation, is stale and without life. Let us share our lives.
Share my life, but do not try to shape it. Let me share your life, but do not let it revolve around me. Let us share ourselves. Accept me as I am; do not attempt to change me to fit your dreams. Respect me for what I am, not for what I was or one day may be. Share yourself with me, but do not allow me to limit your freedom or bind your soul. Let us share our minds, thoughts, goals, values and dreams. Let us develop these within ourselves without restriction or loss of freedom.
Thus our two free souls, may wander together as they develop in freedom. As we share our lives, as we walk through life together, know my love is yours, but not my soul for it must be free.
28. From “The Gift of the Sea”” – Anne Morrow Lindburgh
When you love someone you do not love them all the time, in exactly the same way, from moment to moment. It is impossibility. The only continuity possible, in life as in love, is in growth, in fluidity, in freedom, in the sense that dancers are free, barely touching as they pass, but partners in the same pattern.
The only real security is not in owning or possessing, not in demanding or expecting, not in hoping even. Security in a relationship lies neither in looking back to what was in nostalgia, nor forward to what might be in dread or anticipation, but living in the present relationship and accepting it as it is now. One must accept the security of the winged life, of ebb and flow, of intermittency.
29. “Marriage means being in love for the rest of your life” – Chris Ardis
Marriage is love walking hand in hand together. It’s laughing with each other about silly little things and learning to discuss big things with care and tenderness. In marriage, love is trusting each other when you’re apart. It’s getting over disappointments and hurts, knowing that these are present in all relationships. It’s the realization that there is no one else in this world that you’d rather be with than the one you’re married to. It’s thinking of new things to do together; it’s growing old together. Marriage is being in love for the rest of your life.
30. “I Am Love” Author Unknown
Some say I can fly on the wind, yet I haven’t any wings. Some have found me floating on the open sea, yet I cannot swim. Some have felt my warmth on cold nights, yet I have no flame. And though you cannot see me, I lay between two lovers at the hearth of fireplaces. I am the twinkle in your child’s eyes. I am hidden in the lines of your mother’s face. I am your father’s shield as he guards your home. And yet… Some say I am stronger than steel, yet I am as fragile as a tear. Some have never searched for me, yet I am around them always. Some say I die with loss, yet I am endless. And though you cannot hear me, I dance on the laughter of children. I am woven into the whispers of passion. I am in the blessings of Grandmothers. I embrace the cries of newborn babies. And yet… Some say I am a flower, yet I am also the seed. Some have little faith in me, yet I will always believe in them. Some say I cannot cure the ill, yet I nourish the soul. And though you cannot touch me, I am the gentle hand of the kind. I am the fingertips that caress your cheek at night. I am the hug of a child. I am love.
31. “The Covenant of Marriage” – Covenant Community
Marriage has certain qualities of contract, in which two people take on the housekeeping tasks of living, together, to enhance life’s joy. However, marriage is more than a contract. Marriage is a commitment to take that joy deep, deeper than happiness, deep into the discovery of who you most truly are. It is a commitment to a spiritual journey, to a life of becoming — in which joy can comprehend despair, running through rivers of pain into joy again. And thus marriage is even deeper than commitment. It is a covenant — a covenant that says: I love you. I trust you. I will be here for you when you are hurting and when I am hurting I will not leave. It is a covenant intended not to provide haven from pain or anger and sorrow. Life offers no such haven. Instead, marriage is intended to provide a sanctuary safe enough to risk loving, to risk living and sharing from the center of oneself. This is worth everything.
32. From “The Bridge Across Forever”- Richard Bach
A soul mate is someone who has locks that fit our keys, and keys to fit our locks. When we feel safe enough to open the locks, our truest selves step out and we can be completely and honestly who we are; we can be loved for who we are and not for whom we’re pretending to be. Each unveils the best part of the other. No matter what else goes wrong around us, with that one person we’re safe in our own paradise. Our soul mate is someone who shares our deepest longings, our sense of direction. When we’re two balloons, and together our direction is up, chances are we’ve found the right person. Our soul mate is the one who makes life come to life.
33. “On Marriage from The Prophet”- Kahlil Gibran
You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore. You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days.
Yes, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God. But let there be spaces in your togetherness, and let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
Love one another, but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the sores of your souls. Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread, but eat not from the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but each one of you be alone, even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping. For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. And stand together yet not too near together: for the pillars of the temple stand apart, and the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.
34. “Velveteen Rabbit”
“What is REAL?” asked the Velveteen Rabbit one day. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”
“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When someone loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”
“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.
“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”
“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”
“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept.
“Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand… once you are Real you can’t become unreal again. It lasts for always.”
35. “The Invitation” – Oriah Mountain Dreamer
It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living…I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.
It doesn’t interest me how old you are…I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dreams, for the adventure of being alive.
It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon…I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow. If you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain…I want to know if you can sit with the pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it, or fade it, or fix it. I want to know if you can be with JOY, mine or your own…If you can dance with wildness and let ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes…without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, or to remember the limitations of being human. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul…I want to know if you can be faithful and, therefore be trustworthy. I want to know if you can see beauty even when it is not pretty every day…and if you can source your own life from ITS presence. I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, “YES!” It doesn’t interest me where you live or how much money you have…I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done for the children. It doesn’t interest me who you are or how you came to be here…I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back. It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied…I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.
36. “Love is Our Essence” – Yoga Journal
Love cannot be found, for love is not an object. Love is our essence and it is only revealed when we stop relating to ourselves and others as objects. Love can never be attained. The disappointment that we feel in not having found the love we want in not a defect of love, but of our approach.
Love wants us too. Love needs to be expressed through us, but it must wait until we have shaken everything that we think has love in it. Love must wait until we have become exhausted and supremely disappointed in our search to find love where it isn’t. Then it appears.
Love is not a business. We can’t make a deal for love; we can’t hope to have love just because we sign on the dotted line of a contract. Love comes by itself when we stop wanting, when wanting is exhausted. In that moment, we become the love that we have been hoping to find.
The love we are seeking is always stalking us. It is never far from where we are right now. We are looking in the wrong direction. Become silent. Become still. In this silence love appears.
Don’t settle for security. That is not love. Don’t settle for getting what you want. That is not love. Don’t settle for flattery or fleeting pleasure. Love is deep and lasting. But it can’t be found. It can’t be won, like a prize. We have to see that it is already there within us. We must first find it where it is, and then we will see it everywhere.
Love is not a trap we set for the unsuspecting. Love is not imprisoning others in our self-centered fantasies. Love is a profound caring for life, and all of its expressions. Love always takes us out of our self and into the Self. Real love is rare, because the price of love is everything we want, everything we hope for. Wanting and hoping keeps the objective world alive, and where the objective world is alive, love is not. Only when all objects and ideas of self and others have merged into the Self can love appear. We do not to cling tightly to the imagined objects of our love.
The greatest gift we can give someone we love is the gift of their freedom from our attachment. Don’t waiver. Don’t be held back by attachments, by fears. It seems hard to do. It is , at first, but then love itself gives us more than we could ever have imagined. Love gives us freedom, and in this freedom, we are love, and wherever we turn, whatever we do, we give love, and in giving love, we receive the love that we are.
Throw yourself into the ocean of the Self with ruthless finality. The love that is found in the Self leads us ever deeper into love. Be still, be silent, be carried away by the deep currents moving right now within you. The Self is an ocean of infinite love.
37. “Anam Cara” – Celtic Spiritual Tradition
In the Celtic tradition, there is a beautiful understanding of love and friendship. It is Anam Cara. This is the idea of soul love; the belief of souls connecting and bonding. In Celtic Spiritual tradition, it is believed that the soul radiates through the physical body what some refer to as an aura. When you connect with another person and become completely open and trusting with that individual, your two souls begin to flow together. Should such a deep bond be formed, it is said you have found your “Anam Cara” or soul friend.
Your Anam Cara always accepts you as you truly are, holding you in beauty and light. The Celts believed that forming an Anam Cara friendship would help you to awaken the awareness of your own most beautiful nature and experience the joys of others. The “Anam Cara” is someone to whom you reveal the hidden intimacies of your life. With the “Anam Cara”, you share your innermost self, your mind and your heart. This friendship is an act of recognition and belonging. When you have an “Anam Cara”, your love cuts across all convention, morality and category. You are joined in an ancient and eternal way with the “friend of your soul”.
This art of belonging awakens and fosters a deep and special companionship. When you love, you open your life to another. All your barriers are down. Your protective distances collapse. This person is given absolute permission to come into the deepest temple of your spirit. Your presence and life can become their ground. It takes great courage to let someone so close. Where a friendship recognizes itself as a gift, it will remain open to its own ground of blessing. When you are blessed with an Anam Cara, you have arrived at that most sacred place: home. This bond between souls is indissoluble: It is what is broken by no chances, what no interval of time or space can sever or destroy, and what even death itself cannot part.
38. “Dog Reading”
A reading according to (your dog’s name)
When your loved one comes home, always run to greet them.
Never pass up an opportunity to go for a joyride and be company.
Romp, run and play daily. Defend the one you love.
Sometimes messes happen, don’t get defensive or take them personally.
When you are happy let it show, dance around and wag your entire body.
Avoid biting when a simple growl will do.
Allow yourself to show needs and be vulnerable with your best friend.
Delight in the simple joy of a long walk with the one you love.
Be loyal, never pretend you are something you are not.
If you want what lies buried, dig until you find it.
When someone is having a bad day, be silent, sit close by and nuzzle them gently.
Love unconditionally, always.