Happy Eve of The New Year!
May it be a time full of love and joy.
May it hold us each in the arms of warmth and grand health and humor.
May we remember the ways we connect and touch and matter to one another.
May the passing of loved ones be noted as powerful and precious.
And, may the birth of newness remind us again and again that the origin of all greatness is within us each.
We are more alike that we can ever imagine.
We are braver and stronger than we know.
We hold the light of our beings close to our hearts,
it's from here we shine our love.
Let yours beam!
xo

Thanks Giving

A is for applesauce warm from the cooking down
B is for birds and basil and a pile of books beside the bed
C is for Clay and Charlie
D is for Dylan and dinner and devotion
E is for exploring and enthusiasm
F is for Francis and family and a heap of dear friends
G is for goodness and gladness
H is for humor and healthy happy loved ones
I is for Irises and inspiration
J is for Jesse and Jackie and justice for all
K is for kindness and kazoos
L is for my Larry and laughter and love
M is for marveling at the moon
N is for nieces and nephews
O is for opportunity and the ocean
P is for play and prayer and passion and Pearl
Q is for quest and questions and quiet
R is for rubies and roses
S is for sisters and saints
T is for Thea and Thanks Giving
U is for umbrellas in the rain and unity
V is vegetable and vanilla the city of Venice and the state of Vermont
W is for words and wisdom
X is for the xylophone I wanted to buy myself
Y is for yesterday and tomorrow and especially today
Z is for zippers and zing!

I think it important each day to sit for a moment in the place we came from, in this I mean the space we feel as absolute quiet and love. 

A wee bit of time to remember what we want to share. 

What and who makes us shine. 

To surround ourselves with this light and encourage it to radiate. 

xo

the first prize

what is it for you

moments and memories 

placing a tiny seed into darkness

and hoping and wishing one day it 

will become something precious

my first prize is love

and the children 

i call my own

xo

To honor the blossom in all its glory 

And too the passing of what was 

What my friend Leila calls the peeling off

This curious thing called death

Autumn, friendship, love

Life

All the ways and ones to say 

Goodbye

xo

crushed remains 

of what ~ you ask 

as i drop to my knees

in the sand

the smell ~ the taste 

pink salt and grit 

a hundred memories 

open my heart

the very thing 

i hope for

xo

your mirror
your book
your glasses
my memories

my love

on the calendar for july
the names of nineteen loved ones
birth days or anniversaries

there are more

my name

is on the list

your name is on the list

you the grandmother who helped make me who i am
you a woman trilling while stirring vanilla sauce
in a kitchen with english ivy growing up
along the windowsill
looking out to white birch trees
a winter long and cold

xo

always 
each day
every moment
a reason to give thanks
could be a memory or a moment
could be a dream or a whole heap of hope
regardless 
always a reason 
to give
thanks
xo

May is coming, May is here. She wears flowers in her hair, flowers everywhere. She throws her cares to the wind and waits for them to come back as dreams. They tangle in her hair. She tastes salt. With her arms thrown open she knows the word Joy. 

May brought me a first born son~a man I adore beyond measure. A man who holds the history of love in his veins. His eyes the color of the sky without a cloud in sight. He is goodness.

May is a celebration, an invitation, a way to say hello to what will be. A reminder to never wake up with the word sorry in your heart. Forgiveness is medicine rooted in wisdom. It makes things flower. 

xo

The Ides of March 

came and went 

yesterday. 

Below 

a few reminders

things 

could have
gone bad. 

They didn't.

6. A Deadly Blizzard on the Great Plains, 1941
A Saturday-night blizzard strikes the northern Great Plains, leaving at least 60 people dead in North Dakota and Minnesota and six more in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. A light evening snow did not deter people from going out—“after all, Saturday night was the time for socializing,” Diane Boit of Hendrum, Minnesota, would recall—but “suddenly the wind switched, and a rumbling sound could be heard as 60 mile-an-hour winds swept down out of the north.”

8. CBS Cancels the “Ed Sullivan Show,” 1971
Word leaks that CBS-TV is canceling “The Ed Sullivan Show” after 23 years on the network, which also dumped Red Skelton and Jackie Gleason in the preceding month. A generation mourns.

9. Disappearing Ozone Layer, 1988
NASA reports that the ozone layer over the Northern Hemisphere has been depleted three times faster than predicted.


Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/top-ten-reasons-to-beware-the-ides-of-march-8664107/#HeLd5oIEP8IYebGz.99

12.4K23316905042.3K1. Assassination of Julius Caesar, 44 B

With the arrival of February comes Valentine's Day xo

There are about a dozen Saint Valentines, plus a pope.

'Saint Valentine's keys' were given to lovers as romantic symbols and an invitation to unlock the giver's heart. 



On the night before Valentine was to be executed he wrote the first valentine, to the daughter of his jailer. He signed it "Your Valentine."

In England, a character named "Jack" Valentine leaves sweets and presents for kids. I've never thought of Mister V as a man named Jack. Though in grammar school a boy named Jack gave me two candy hearts. I held my breath when I read the words. 

What else could I do?