Hello, lovely reader!  How nice of you to tarry a bit with me.  (When's the last time you read the word 'tarry'?)  Summer is here with a vengeance - hot, humid, big ol' thunderstorms, dappled sunlight filtered through deep green leaves... cookouts, baseball games, summer swimming parties.  With so much to do, it's nice sometimes to just take a quiet breather.

 

So... breathe with me, a bit?

 

 

 

 

Not one day in anyone's life, so her father taught, is an uneventful day, no day without profound meaning, no matter how dull and boring it might seem, no matter whether you are a seamstress or a queen, a shoeshine boy or a movie star, a renowned philosopher or a Down's-syndrome child.

 

 

 

 

Because in every day of your life, there are opportunities to perform little kindnesses for others, both by conscious acts of will and unconcious example.

 

 

 

Each smallest act of kindness - even just words of hope when they are needed, the remembrance of a birthday, a compliment that engenders a smile - reveberates across great distances and spans of time, affecting lives unknown to the one whose generous spirit was the source of this good echo, because kindness is passed on and grows each time it's passed, until a simple courtesy becomes an act of selfless courage years later and far away.

 

 

 

 

Likewise, each small meanness, each thoughtless expression of hatred, each envious and bitter act, regardless of how petty, can inspire others and is therefore the seed that ultimately produces evil fruit, poisoning people you have never met, and whom you never will.

 

 

 

All human lives are so profoundly and intimately intwined - those dead, those living, those generations yet to come - that the fate of all is the fate of each, and the hope of humanity rests in every heart and in every pair of hands. Therefore, after every failure we are obliged to strive again for success, and when faced with the end of one thing, we must build something new and better in the ashes, just as from pain and grief we must weave hope, for each of us is a thread critical to the strength - to the very survival - of the human tapestry.

 

 

 

 

 

Every hour in every life contains such unrecognized potential to affect the world that the great days for which we, in our great dissatisfaction yearn are already with us; all great days and thrilling possibilities are combined always in *this* momentous day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy sigh.  Isn't that just the best?  He lays out, so beautifully, my feelings about the notion that we're all connected.  The idea of something "good" that I do, reaching across the Universe and touching someone else that I don't know, and never will... it just brings such a sense of awe and yearning to me.  I'm a part of something I'll never fully understand... but I have faith that it exists, and that I can make a difference with my choices.

 

Do you feel that way too?

 

Or do you feel disconnected?  As if your presence on this Earth means little except to those in your immediate circle?

 

I wonder if that's part of what contributed to my winter 'blahs'... a sense of disconnection?  A sense of separation?

 

What can we do to remind ourselves that the disconnect is temporary... that we're NOT separate.  Not apart.

 

Not alone.

 

?

 

Your thoughts are welcome, my friends.  Feedback is a good thing.  I love hearing from you - even if it's just a "hi, how are you, thanks for the newsletter, good to hear from you" type of email.

 

Contact... connection... good things.

 

Thanks for being part of my group - those of you whom I know 'in real life' and those whom I don't.  I'm glad you're here with me, on this journey round the sun.

 

Speaking of which... I've now made that journey 52 times!!  I had a birthday late last month, Leonine Lady that I am.  I have days where I feel 52... and days where I feel 12.  And days where I feel a hundred and six.

 

 

 

 

 

Currently reading:  Venetia Kelly's Traveling Show

Currently listening to:  My Name is Mary Sutter (book on CD)

Just watched:  The Life Before Her Eyes  (weird, but haunting)

Watched last month:  The Cure (I laughed, I cried - and felt my heart swell with warmth.  A really good indie film with a very watchable cast.)

Latest CD purchase:  Meet Joe Black (thanks, Bree!)

Listening to, even as I type:  Pandora, an online, streaming music provider where *I* can choose what I listen to.  I can tell it that I love a song, or that I hate a song.  And if I hate it?  They'll turn it off immediately, and promise never to play it again.  Ahhhhh, the power!!  Check it out at www.pandora.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two fun things!  

 

 

 

 

In connection with the Evolution Ezine, I was contacted and asked to create a video to go with another Ezine artist to be featured next month, a musician by the name of Nicky Hart, who hails from across the Pond in the UK.  I spent a few happy hours crafting a video which I have uploaded to YouTube.  You can see the video by clicking on the link below this article.  

 

I'm available for custom creations such as this. If you have music you'd like to be put into a slideshow with my images, please contact me - I'd love to talk with you about it!

 

Okey doke... NOW, I wish you a grand time in your life until next we 'meet' again, be it online, or in real time.  Thanks for reading!

 

If there's someone you think would enjoy this newsletter (it IS free, after all), please click the "forward to" button below.  I really enjoy it when I get new subscribers.

 

If you're tired of these email missives, please click the "unsubscribe" button below.  It works, and I'll no longer darken your in-box again in newsletter form ;-)

 

Spread light, folks.  Shine brightly.

 

Love,