I loved the Les Crane album "Desiderata" since I first heard it in the 1970s. You may want to consider using the entire 'album' or selections from it with your groups.

Here is some information about Les Crane's recording from Songacts.com:

"Crane is a San Francisco TV talk show host and husband of Tina Louise, who played "Ginger" on Gilligan's Island. The Rolling Stones made their American television debut on The Les Crane Show on June 2, 1964.

"Desiderata" was a poem written in 1906 by Max Ehrmann, an Indiana lawyer. It was about the search for happiness in life. In the 1960s, the poem made its rounds around hippiedom as "anonymous" ancient wisdom - it was widely reprinted because most people assumed it was in the public domain. Crane read the poem on a street poster (which stated the words "Found in Old Saint Paul's Church, Baltimore, dated 1692") and decided to record it.

The musical background was by Fred Werner, who found the poster in a Los Angeles store.

This won the Grammy for Best Spoken Word Recording in 1971.
The first recording of the poem was by the UK group Every Which Way in 1970 as "Child of the Universe". "

end of quote.

From another website on this inspirational poem, I learned that Desiderata is Latin and means 'things that are yearned for', which in the context of the poem more closely means 'essential things'...

And now, my attempt to hyperlink to the words of the poem:

click here


Ms. Azizi