In a desperate attempt to alleviate the racking pain of my divorce, I signed up for a women's therapy group. At the outset, the therapist told us things would be different in her group. She said we would not sit around talking. Instead, we would have to get up, dance around the room, sing songs, role play, do intense homework, and make a piece of personal art every week. In addition, she required one simple, but critically important activity: Three times a day, we were to look deep into our eyes in a mirror and say, "You are precious and important."

What? Dancing, singing, drawing — okay. But whisper words of love? To myself? Yikes! I tried. I did. But it was so hard to speak such intense words of love to myself. In the best of times my husband never said anything so stunning. I found it next-to-impossible to do, but I noticed that the women who made it a habit experienced the most profound change. Especially Alise. Alise was tall, slender, smart, and beautiful. Anyone could see that. Anyone but Alise. Her husband was verbally, and probably physically, abusive. He reminded her regularly that she was nobody and nothing.

Week after week, the ten of us worked. We looked our dragons in the eye and named them. We clawed our way out of our internal dungeons. We experienced forgiveness. We forged communion with Spirit and real connection with one another. We bonded so thoroughly that we felt compelled to get together after the sessions ended. I decided to write a prayer for our first reunion. I don't usually tell God what I want to write, but this time I said, "Listen, dear God, I already know the title. It has to be The Man in the Moon.

The man in the moon was a three-inch gold mercury glass ball with a pudgy smiling face and sparkling rhinestone eyes. I bought him for my first post-marriage Christmas tree. I loved looking at him throughout the holidays, and at the end of the season, I just couldn't bear to put him away. I hung him from the dining room chandelier, so he and I were eye-to-eye night after night. When the chandelier had to be sold, I hung him over the bathroom sink. He never failed to make me smile.

For our last class, we were instructed to bring a gift for a giveaway ceremony. We were to select something meaningful out of our personal possessions, wrap it beautifully, and bring it to class. Fate would decide who would receive each gift. This was a problem. My house was sold, and I had just concluded an exhaustive triage of our possessions in preparation for a stay in a small furnished apartment, while I waited for permission from the court to move back to my family in Wisconsin. Everything my son and I loved was packed in forty-seven boxes going to storage. Aside from the few clothes and toys going with us to the rental apartment, everything was either given away, sold in the garage sale, donated to Goodwill, returned to my ex, or thrown out.

I walked around my barren house, looking for a giveaway gift. Where once there had been intriguing crystals, weird rocks, small treasure boxes, and funky pieces of art, there was air. Even the feathers, left every morning by the osprey who camped in my tree, were carefully wrapped and boxed. Living room...nothing, bedroom...nothing, office...nothing. Walking through the bathroom, the man in the moon caught my eye. Oh, no! Not my precious man in the moon! But, you know when you know — and I knew — he was the gift. I had to let him go. I kissed him one last time and gently tucked him into a nest of curly ribbons in a midnight-blue gift bag.

At the beginning of class, we put all our gifts on the floor in a circle and walked around them, first one way, and then the other, singing gentle songs and doing little dance steps. Gradually our eyes were drawn to a particular package. When we stopped singing, we bent to take our gifts. The distribution was perfect; no one reached for anyone else's gift. Alise held the man in the moon bag.

We took turns opening our gifts and sharing their meaning. Finally, it was Alise's turn. She poked under the ribbons and looked quizzically at the gold mercury ball. After a while, I said, "Do you know who that is?" She looked up at me blankly. "The man in the moon," I said. Alise looked down at him. "Do you know what he is saying?" I asked. Alise stared at the man in the moon but did not answer. I whispered, "You are precious and important." Alise began to cry. I began to cry. Everyone in class began to cry.

Alise is precious and important. I am precious and important. You are precious and important. We are all precious and important.

Part Two on Valentine's Day: The man in the moon defines love for us

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Janet Conner, S.E. (Spiritual Explorer), is an expert on the power of practical spirituality to heal your broken heart and transform your world. She is the cartographer of the map of spiritual healing and author of the seven travel guides in the Spiritual Geographyseries. In addition to divine dialogue, she welcomes human conversation at {email janetconner@tampabay.rr.com}janetconner@tampabay.rr.com{/email}. © copyright 2006 by Janet Conner.

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