Bonus Day

One of my favorite books about cancer survivors is Perseverance by Carolyn Rubenstein.  It’s filled with stories of young people who turn fear to hope.  A hope that changes the way they breathe in each day.  Peering at my mortality makes each day a “bonus day”, just waiting for me to decide its meaning.  Along my bay walk I pass a garden splashed with deep heather pink, and Anne Frank’s words, “nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”  Today, what will you do with this bonus day?

Bluffs - Moss Beach CA

The sheer aesthetic beauty of the cypress path along the bluffs to the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve is overwhelming.  Spread across a soft green blanket these tall majestic wonders wrap my soul in sacred solitude where my heartbeat is instantly synchronized with that of the trees.  And in that instant I am drawn within, and for a few steps find myself straddling between their spiritual healing and the pull of a world so hard to slow down.  Today, look to nature for sacred solitude moments to slow your life down and be touched by the spiritual healing within.     

Half Moon Bay California

It’s early and I am walking the coastal trail along Half Moon Bay CA.  The sun is barely up and the Pacific wind is cold.  I’ve been reading Matthew Kelly’s book The Rhythm of Life which is all about the courage it takes to be the best version of ourselves.  This cold morning I walk to the edge of life, feeling the surf pounding the shore, pondering who I will become, as a new day stretches before me.  Who will you become today?  Passion + Purpose = Life Energy

Gift of Self-Discovery

Gordon was my age, lived next door, and during elementary school was probably my best friend.  Our yards backed up against an open sewage ditch that remained a drainage ditch after they laid in a sewer system.  Playing in our ditch, we learned about Louisiana snakes, lizards, salamanders, exotic insects and plants.  Life was an adventure that I shared with Gordon as I learned about myself.  It is through the giving of ourselves, the relationships we form with others that we discover who we are and who we can become.  Thank the Gordon’s in your life today for the gift of self-discovery.    

Easter Memories

I was 3+ when we returned from living in Japan.  My dad was fighting in the Korean War, and we were living in a second story apartment above the little store and deli across the street from my uncle’s furniture store.  Around Easter I contracted pneumonia and was hospitalized.  Memories of the oxygen tent, being scared and alone still linger, but my most powerful memory is of the love I felt from my immediate & extended family.  Love is a life-giving energy that heals and at 3+ I learned an important lesson I haven’t forgot.  Love starts with loving oneself.  Give yourself a kiss today and heal. 

Gratitude & Blood Moons

Last night I missed the first of a series of “blood” moons or lunar eclipses.  It’s caused by an incredibly close Mars that aligns with Earth and the Moon, and only occurs a handful of times every two-thousand years.  You missed it to?  According to NASA we have an opportunity to see it again on October 8^th, April 4, 2015, and Sept. 28, 2015.  Dr. Mary Steinhardt, U Texas resilience expert, tells us to feel gratitude for the good and bad, for gratitude is a potent tool for snapping us out of fear and self-pity. Even on my worst days I find things to be grateful for, I just have to mindful to look. Be mindful of your gratitude today.     

Somehow Life Just Happens

All too quickly, life somehow just happens.  One day I’m complaining to my parents about having to wear shoes, and the next day our high school principal is telling me, “Billy if I see you walking around with your blue tennis shoes untied again, you’ve had it!”  And then, I’m tightening the laces on my jump boots, checking the 21 rounds for my 45, and securing the 420 rounds for my M16, as the jump master says, “GO!”  Was it minutes, days or years when I am taking my first step after breaking my back and not walking for almost two years?  I was barefoot and scared, but so very mindful of where I had been, even if life had somehow just happened.  Be mindful of how life happens today.