Good Morning! My friend, Tanya, always starts her texts to me with these words. It warms my heart each time. It is a good thing she does, a small thing, but a good thing. I’m collecting good things. As I opened my Facebook page this morning, I saw a video created by Selena Shannon for … More “Where is the Good? Follow that…”
“Argh!! Each day so many despicable news items! It’s enough to make one stop in one’s tracks, when what is required is for us to push full steam ahead. ” This is me, as I begin my daily task of writing. I check myself, check the news, and open my clean, new page. It’s hard … More My reminder: Are you living in integrity with your heart and soul?
It’s tough right now, but it’s possible! We can find the good. My Facebook pages are rife with troubles, but also bursting with things that surprise and delight me. Today, amid the wonderful and amazing ideas from teachers who are preparing for the beginning of school, and the crazy and brain-fogging news, I found some … More On this day, finding miracles…
Sometimes you just get lucky. I met this man when I was in high school. I didn’t know it at the time, but he was to be a life-long partner and lover. At first we clashed, and over the years we have worked through all kinds of our own personal challenges as part of the … More I married my best friend…happy 48th!
A dear friend of mine, Mark Maxwell-Smith, has carved out a new persona for himself under the name of PUN. A man who might otherwise have taken his retirement years to enjoy the fruits of a long and illustrious career, he chose instead to bring his warm heart and dedication to children to work as … More A one-man beacon of light…
Our eyes met for the first time across a crowded room in La Jolla many years ago. She was adding to her expertise as a yoga teacher, and I was hoping to get some relief from a painful pinched nerve as I struggled to add restorative yoga to my movement resources. Rolled our eyes, we … More Bloom where you are planted…
“Once we accept that a living creature has feelings and suffers pain, then by knowingly and deliberately inflicting suffering on that creature, we are guilty, whether it be human or animal.”–Dr. Jane Goodall As educators we know that the true name of the animal in the title of this essay is “sea star,” and most … More It matters to the starfish…
No one has been a better steward of our world than Vivan Gussin Paley, who left us on July 26, 2019. As a very young teacher and mother, I discovered her work, beginning with Wally’s Stories. Paley worked with young children, many of them challenged with emotional wounds from their home lives. She spent her … More Vivian Gussin Paley: Helping our world through listening to children.
(Photo from National Archives) I will never forget the gaze of those human beings with such emaciated bodies. As a little girl, I saw newsreels of concentration camp victims. These were people whom I knew were connected to me in some way, although no one I knew personally was part of that horrific tragedy. Perhaps … More It’s not about politics, and it matters.
My friends amaze me. One wonderful friend has taken up the mantle of writing a Facebook post every day for a year. Each post begins with a haiku she has written, and contains a carefully chosen photo, along with her insightful reflection for the day. It’s an inspiring personal project. I hope you will check … More Stories: Our Human Connection
