The Free Milk of Human Kindness ...from Silicon Valley to Rwanda

Friendship is certainly boosted by proximity, but over my lifetime there have been a number of people who I have been destined to respect and love and yet not get to have anywhere near my neighborhood.  Such are my friends Roger and Faith Shaw.

Visiting with Roger and Faith in 2007

When we lived in Carmel on the cliffside estate, our employer had us host a fundraiser for visiting Rwandan cyclists who spoke every manner of smile but very little English.   Faith, who at that time lived in San Jose, was hired to translate their Kinyarwanda so the guys could tell their stories to the  invited guests.

Faith and I had one of those instant bonds; we found that we spoke the same language indeed.  Over the next few years my husband and I had some very dear encounters with Faith and her husband, Roger. For a time we lived close enough to visit each others homes.

While time and distance came between us, for Roger and Faith left California and moved to Rwanda, my appreciation of who my friends are and what they are doing continues to grow.

I hope you will watch an unsophisticated but fascinating video of Roger, learning about his larger neighborhood and showing why he wants to give milk to Mwendo neighbor children, but before you do, from their web page  in Rwanda, here is a bit of Faith's background:

First and foremost, she herself was a refugee separated from her parents after fleeing Rwanda's first genocide. She was taken in by another family, but was shamelessly exploited. They told her that her parents were dead, that there was no hope and they forced her into servitude.
A year later, Mrs. Hindley, an English missionary rescued Faith and hid her under blankets in the footwell of a vehicle and drove her to freedom. Mrs. Hindley re-united Faith with her parents. Later, growing up as a refugee in Uganda with very little money in the family, an unknown sponsor paid her school fees. 
Faith eventually attended Makere University. One evening, outside her college dorm, she discovered an abandoned baby crying in the trash. She took him to hospital and made plans to adopt him. Unfortunately, despite Faith's efforts, the little boy died a few days later. 
Sometime after graduating, Amin's soldiers arrested Faith on trumped-up charges and held her in a cell where she was certain to be raped that very evening. However, a man who described himself as a friend of her father's saw her in jail and somehow negotiated her immediate release. Neither Faith nor her father ever identified the man.   
Faith left Uganda and moved to Kenya and took a job as a teacher. Later she won a scholarship for post-graduate education for refugees. She moved to England to become a student again. It was here that she met and married her husband, Roger. They had two daughters, Zoe & Murika, and later the family relocated to the USA. In 1994, they watched Rwanda's second genocide unfold on the TV news. It was a horrifying event resulting in the murder of 800,000 people. The aftermath was heart breaking. Among many awful tragedies, thousands of children were left without anyone to care for them. This painful reality weighed heavily on the hearts of Faith & Roger and they recalled how someone had helped Faith when she had been a child in need. They couldn't quite reconcile their comfortable family life in California with the suffering of so many abandoned children in Rwanda.

In 2000 Faith visited her homeland and saw children in need in the aftermath of war.
In 2003,  Roger and Faith bought a four bedroom house in Ruhengeri.

They hired a nanny - Judith, and a cook - Gatzinzi, and they accepted the first four orphans, Ruzindana, Anne, Mutoni & Alice. Faith's dad did a great job of running the home and being a role model for the children and staff to look up to. Sadly for all of us, he passed away in 2006. 

In 2006 they incorporated and children kept coming...if the cook
didn't find another orphan, one of the children did.  Faith sold her paintings and jewelry she made to support the children and her church helped too. She would fly back and forth from their home in San Jose, California where Roger was still working in Silicon Valley... but it wasn't the vision they had.  They wanted the children to  live as a  family and they decided together to give up their work and home in California to become  Mom and Dad to an ever growing family in Rwanda.


In 2012 they relocated the rescue home to Bugesera. The website has wonderful pictures of the home they built there and the children who are growing up. It isn't accurate to call the Ishimwe rescue home an orphanage, for the children who live there are sons and daughters.  Faith and Roger have eighteen children!


 In the years since,  Roger has built a fish farm, a whole other story in itself, to help the area be more self sustaining.   Faith started Pioneer School, a place where the Ishimwe children can learn amongst other children of the community, broadening their sense of belonging and purpose.  The Ishimwe children learn at home to grow their food, and raise animals. At school they study reading, writing, arithmetic, computers, music and art and they are learning how knowledge, work and cooperation can call forth abundance enough to share.

Which brings us again to  Roger's latest hope and his video.  The children at Pioneer School all get a big fresh glass of milk each day from the cows at the Ishimwe home.  Roger wants to bring free milk to the neighboring school and several homes where the children are not able to attend school.

After watching Roger's video, I  remembered an advertising slogan from an American bread company of the 1950's, "build strong bodies twelve ways."  We can laugh now at white Wonder Bread with its 12 added nutrients, but Roger's milk will build strong bodies and it is also likely to kindle love and good purpose in the grateful recipients.

And to think of the promise that is attached to giving even a cup of cold water to a little one.


hoping the best for you,

Jeannette
ABOUT DONATIONS!
Some people have asked if they can donate...yes, that would be lovely!
  If you click on the video link that is in the story and I will provide it again HERE you will see to the right of the video picture is a donate button through an organization that Roger chose called Generosity.   They do not charge a fee to either side, but they do make a space to give Generosity a donation as well, if you so choose.  This site requires a credit card.

I gave my donation via PAYPAL to the Ishimwe website  with a note to specify that this particular donation was for MILK MONEY  for ROGER,  You simply click on the button to make a single donation and the option for PAYPAL will come directly up as well as other choices.

A Springtime Project I Didn't Plan

What a funny title for me to post...as if I plan everything out so carefully and fulfill those specifications with well timed regularity. 

   

From sea to shining sea I suspect no one was planning on quite the weather that has been going on.  In California it is a dry and early spring, though today there were some sprinkles.  I have read reports and heard tales of snow aplenty and lots of troubles in other regions.  We've got peach blossoms and a drought to face.

But it isn't weather that is rearranging the calendar of my current intentions, it is a health need.
Sometimes it is  hard to get lined up with life having its own way.  We have our ways of insulating ourselves from the facts of life. Other times the mandates given leave little to no room for choice.  I think of a particular friend who has been given a very fast introduction to how fleeting life is.  He does still have choice, of course, for he and she who loves him, are choosing to face each day's troubles with faith. It takes courage.

So what do I want to share here? I'm being given some healing treatments that take a fairly large commitment to complete.  I don't want to do the math on five afternoons a week for 60 treatments,but I believe it will take me pretty close to summer.   I have to fence a bit with myself, to get into the right stance, to really take it on in a spirit of gratitude.

When I got back today from my two hours in a closed chamber I ran to the back yard to look and see if the peach tree was still lovely.  Everything passes and changes so quickly in spring.  Maybe relinquishing this spring to needs of my body will quicken my sense of how precious time is...maybe I will be more productive, less wasteful, of the fragile precious commodity...life.

with best wishes,

Jeannette

Free Rein- One Decision after Another

One of the techniques I used to employ as a family therapist with children, and adults requested it too often times, was to give them free rein in a sand tray.  The size and depth of the box was very specified so that the diorama- like creation in the box was truly scaled to the child’s field of vision. They could make a small world from my large and very odd collections of miniature items sitting ready on nearby shelves and in trays and baskets at hand. 

 Often children who had a hard time talking would begin to relax and as they were drawn to different items and arranged them in the sand I could learn quite a bit before they ventured to explain or share anything verbally. Did they use the tray leaving all the sand as I presented it, raked smooth with a miniature rake and left level all around, or did they dig down to the blue bottom of the box and make a pond or heap the sand in little hills or make one very big mountain?  I never suggested the addition of water to the box, but then I never refused either; it was a good sign that they could ask for what they really wanted or felt they needed and water is a primal element of life and hope.  

I would  watch quietly from the other side of the box, not interfering in any way.  When creating in the box began to slow down, if talking had not begun spontaneously, I would ask to be told the story or might only need to say a gentle opening line such as,  “This is the story of…” or   “One day…”  My young charge would usually take up the tale and walk me through the world they had pieced together.  Plastic plants, something I would not use in any other realm, made me happy when they showed up in sand tray worlds, for it usually indicated the child had some connection to nature.  People and animal figures were not all of the same scale and it was always interesting to find out who different figures represented.  

There were times when the trays did not yield any words; eyes averted, little heads shook "no."  I wouldn’t press. I would ask permission, which was always granted, to photograph the tray and not take them apart until the person had departed.  I really had to watch the time when using sand trays.  I didn’t want any subsequent visitors to view another’s tray. So much for resting in between sessions, but in a way it was restful, lining all the horses back up on the animal shelf and digging up the secrets that had been buried in the sand.  Yes, the wet sand was a little messier to deal with, but those were some great worlds that were created when they had water in them.

This week I have been opening the boxes of toys I used for so many years.  They have been stored away while I was down in Carmel seven years. Since returning home I have taken yet another year to contemplate whether I want to, and whether it truly makes sense to have a dedicated therapy office again; I have decided that I will not.  It was interesting to me how like a child looking at my own story I felt as I explored the boxed up toys.  There were my little black rats, plastic flies, beautiful white doves, wedding cake toppers, muscle men, guns, garbage cans, tiny wine bottles, beer cans, horses, swans, flags, balloons on wires, fences, beds, cats, dogs, swings,umbrellas, knives, eggs and those plastic leaves and trees. I found space ships, red wagons, bikes, skateboards and cars as well as tiny money and miniature playing cards, babies and old ceramic figurines. There are even people that I made and baked out of clay to be sure the many colors of flesh and types of bodies we come in were represented. The basket trays had dividers and I  had filled them with mirrors, custom made wooden blocks, logs from my garden pruning and smooth stones from the beach. 

Just a few of the odd odds and ends...

One day a child who hid behind my couch most of his first session made a winding path of pebbles up a mountain he had shaped.  He took pieces of green cloth from the shelf, made a tent, planted a tree next to it and stuck a flag on the mountain’s peak.  He was starting to believe he could feel better about his life, but there still weren’t many people he could trust.  Not a dog or a squirrel or even a bird was up there with him; he was so alone.  But he had made a path and we talked about how he could choose to come back down the mountain when he felt safe. Eventually he chose to bring many more elements into his world and his mountain got more decorated and his valley had some new doings too.

Well, I have decided to give myself free rein. It's time for a new field of vision.  I have some ideas and like some of the young children I watched grow, I think I'll just set  down a few stepping stones one after the other … yes.

Looking for the Real Thing? Stay Close to the Source

West of Highway 80 in Northern California there are still valleys where farm after ranch seems to be keeping it real.

                  I was glad to see this farmer wasn't wrapping his hay bales in white plastic as some of the Sonoma county farmers have begun doing. It isn't pretty to look at, it might leach into the hay and where will the plastic go when the bale is unwrapped?

Across the golden field a plume of dust alerted us to the baler on his green John Deere tractor.

These longhorns were not the least bit friendly.  Not one ambled to the fence, nor even looked up from their grazing. They like their grass green and plenty of it.

 Just around the corner the grape lines march up the hill. The grapes are so purple they almost look black.  The other side of the road is hedged thick with fig trees that dangle their fruit over the lane.
We found a ranch selling peaches and bought a box of tree ripened beauties.

                  The passenger  who sat in the back seat with the peaches...so his momma could sit in front... started singing about bales of cotton and "if it had'na been for Cotton-eyed Joe I'd a been married a long time ago..."

 
And then we saw a crop we weren't sure what it was...it certainly didn't look edible.

Such a rich color...we plucked a sample and sure enough, we'd found a field of cotton.

Just the day before I'd been searching for a nightgown that was not part but 100 % cotton.  Label after label disappointed me.   Cream is cream, butter is butter and cotton is cotton. Am I fussy or old fashioned?  I must be both, for synthetics and substitutes just don't cut it...

"You got a jump down, turn around
Pick a bale a cotton
Got a jump down, turn around
Pick a bale a day..."  

  Bucktown Lane  was a sweet road to find...one of the farms near the end sells honey and eggs on the honor system.  The creek is edged with a tangle of roses with round red hips and blackberry bushes and we passed goats and donkeys and horses and the chickens wander wither they will.  And Grandma who had asked us to take her for a ride enjoyed it all, even though she couldn't remember why on earth we had wandered out there in the first place. Farm girl that she once was, it was she who made us figure out what that prickly looking crop was...soft lovely stuff is sometimes hidden behind  sharp and spiked exteriors, and that is certainly true of cotton.

When you are looking for something real... it helps to stay close to the source...

Hope  you have a real good day! 
 Jeannette

Everyone is trying to Figure Out what's Good for them...

Bread comes up in a lot of conversation lately. Not all bread is created equal and apparently not all people do well eating bread and I know everyone has to find what is right for them. I am not taking issue with to gluten or not to gluten...

Grandma's Bread Platter

But coming upon Grandma's bread plate I found myself reflecting on how bread is one of the oldest foods in our world. Every culture has a variation.  Ah, the bread that has been shared over time...The word companion comes from the Latin  for com (with) and panis ( bread).

But we needn't be literal, bread  has come to mean sustenance, and yours may not be made from grain...but the hope and the prayer remain that mankind may rightly win his bread and protect the ancient gifts of this earth while so doing.   And that there be real bread enough for everyone.

....Give us this day our daily bread...

with best wishes,

Jeannette

The World We're Building

I'm glad to be back in our house...glad to be back in Sonoma County.  Seven years is significant time to be away from an area that you've known for many years.  Out and about looking around I feel like the old aunt who comes to visit and says, "My, how you've changed."  

Impressions...sometimes they are good and sometimes they leave dents.

If only we would let creation impress more upon us, impress upon us the nature of beauty, the mandates of love, the limits of necessity and somehow too, the destructive nature of excess. 

I live in a morning house now.

Out on an errand recently, I saw in my rear view mirror the profile of a new casino built on a field that in its most fallow estate was yet a paradise.   I had heard the casino was big and I could see why it had generated great concern about accommodating  the traffic it would generate; the parking lot was enormous, and I could only see part of it. 

I myself was making my way back from a big box store having been told it was the only place those simple (old fashion) roll down shades would be offered.  Even then, the version I found was not all that much like what I remember.  I rarely frequent such stores, the sheer array of merchandise overwhelms me.  People need things, but not all we have glittered up has purpose, even if we grant a certain amount of whimsy just to delight.

I reminded myself to  watch my own purchases and decisions and participation and try to have a voice in the many decisions being made. I see that it is our land-rock, soil, water, and air, as well as our civic premises, our social framework, that we are changing.

What might be built here some day?

While I'd caught only a glimpse of this casino I'd  heard so much about;  fought over from its inception, built in the years I've been gone, a glimpse was enough. for me. I'd signed a petition questioning the wisdom of it way back when.  It was allowed because indigenous tribes have the authority to govern themselves under different guidelines as a "domestic dependent nation." I thought about how old a story land- and people- abuse is, and how wrongs, once done, are hard to right...generations later consequences continue to unfurl.

And aren't a lot of consequences unforeseen or unintended?  I felt a little blue. Casinos on farmland that had been protected by the Williamson Act in my rearview mirror and on the radio news of tyranny and tragedy in distant lands and closer to home health insurance confusion aplenty.

There are many strange edifices being built and modified on the fly these days. If we create edifices of concrete or edifices of law that fundamentally  change the landscape, later repair or remodeling is likely to be only cosmetic.  As I heard one man say on the radio, "the toothpaste is already out of the tube."   A simply analogy, but sometimes simple is really what we need to get us to stop and see if what we are creating is truly an asset, a worthy addition to things as they are because we may not ever be able to put it back as it once was.

Recently treated as guest in the Green Music Center, another large building also built during my absence from the northland, I watched the members of an orchestra, as their rendition of a composer's music filled the room.  I was reminded how much orchestral music depends on attention, on ready waiting, how essential timing is; you play your part in the given time.   When composers, and the musicians who keep their creations alive, reflect the impressions creation has had upon them, music can  stir those questions about God and man and this world we are rattling around in. 

If I want to see the sunset, I have to go looking, but for a sunrise, I just have to wake up.

What's a soul to do in this world?  I think of my life and the lives of family and friends, how many life decisions and choices and the difficulties they have created must be accepted as part of the landscape now. Regrets can't add much to the future, they aren't a pure fuel; the energy for the future needs both foundation and vision. 

What did I know in my wandering youth?  I set out searching...but what did I know to search for? Love, faceless and dimly defined, was the ready answer. I wasn't really anticipating the larger unfolding  picture. 

 When Jesus said his command was summed up in love he also told his friends that he had much to tell them that they were not yet ready to receive or bear. That often rings true for me,  but the  command to  "Love one another"   sounded  simple enough. Yet I find it is taking a life time to learn about love, and it's complicated by the fact that in the world, when it comes to love, there are many "lawless" amongst us.  And as one dear friend recently said, she is overwhelmed just hearing about everything that is going on.

I know, it's a lot of thoughts and impressions to toss your way,  from my driving around my old homeland, checking out the local stations on the radio, peeking in my rear view mirror and thinking about how to go forward... but it helps me to remember I would do well to simplify, and then ascertain and focus where I can have influence.  We've got the permit to build what we want, but not everything we can do is needed or beneficial.

If only we would let creation impress more upon us,
 impress upon us the nature of beauty, 
the mandates of love, 
the limits of necessity
 and somehow too, 
the distracting and destructive nature of excess. 

with love,

Jeannette

Friend or Foe and How Do You Know?

A simple spice has reminded me that calling things by their proper names according to their actual properties is important and helpful.  It reminded me of the value of looking into subjects more deeply and unearthing distinctions that might otherwise be blurred.  It made me think about how substances can be related but different, or how even the same substances or actions  can be used to different effects.  I thought about how some consequences are unintended, but there they are anyway and  how much choices can  matter,  and how and why things happen and what can be learned from mistakes.  But for now I'll  just tell you about my botanical investigation and leave you to your own applications in other domains.

There's a Middle Eastern spice combination  that a local restaurant floats in olive oil as a bread dip.  Za'atar is a combination of ingredients mostly very familiar to me, salt, thyme, sesame seeds and oregano,  and one that surprised me, sumac.

Sumac in my mind always has the word poison in front of it; poison sumac, poison ivy and poison oak  are all bushes whose oils can cause  welts of pain and itching to the skin of many people. Unfortunately, as a native  Californian, I have been intimately familiar with poison oak, but I learned quickly as child, how to spot my enemy in all its seasonal guises.  

 Although  I've read that some Native Americans of California nibbled at young poison oak shoots and I know that currently there are homeopathic preparations of titrated poison oak to teach the body to  defend itself against the plant irritants, I wasn't so sure that I wanted to eat sumac on my bread. But then I reminded myself that  I didn't really know for a fact what exactly it was I was eating.  

 I found a small commercially  packaged box of sumac at a store  but the supplier did not identify the substance beyond its common name. The ingredients simply read "ground sumac berries." At least I had learned what part of sumac I'd been eating,  but of what kind of sumac ?  The trees and plants I know by name I know mostly by their common names.  In most realms in life, I often  know just enough to know  that if I would pay a little closer attention, I might actually know just enough to keep myself out of trouble.   I realized I needed the botanical scientific descriptors to find out anymore about  "Sumac."  Latin isn't really,  as some like to say, a dead language, it's just that for the most part it's no longer spoken and therefore doesn't tend to change.  Speakers of all languages the world over can refer to species with the same name by using the Latin botanical descriptors.  

I found help in my  Guide to Field Identification of TREES of North America that I keep handy  in the door pocket of my car.   SUMAC is quite a big family and as I read about the clan I was in for a few surprises.  My tree book reminded me that members of a family  are then grouped into Genus and then further grouped into species.  So Family, Genus ( always capitalized) and then species ( lower case).

"CASHEW (SUMAC) FAMILY  (Anacardiaceae)   This family, represented in temperate and tropical regions, comprises about 600 species of trees, shrubs and vines, with resinous, acrid or caustic juices."  page 202

The Family includes, to name only a few using their common names: 

 Mangos in Florida, 
California Pepper trees, 
Texas Pistachios, Cashews, 
Florida Poisontree,  
Staghorn Sumac, 
Shining Sumac 
and yes, 
Poison-Sumac.

So while  poison sumac is indeed in the same family  as  the sumac used as a spice, it is in a different Genus.  The scientific botanical name of the poison oak that  had caused me so much itching after childhood jaunts in the hills is  Toxicodendron diversilobum, although it used to be referred to as  Rhus toxicodendron.   Poison-sumac is Toxicodendron vernix  and the sumacs that are used  to spice food are Rhus coriaria.

So they are different, but they are related...and I did find some minor cautions and lots of other possible health benefits  when I searched on the internet using the botanical name, Rhus coriaria.   I also learned its common name, Sicillian sumac. 

Parables of poison plants and spices tease my mind as I think about local, national and global stages...but I'll keep my promise and let you apply any analogies you might think of,  and as always,  let me know what you think if you like.

 best wishes!

Jeannette

Winter Storms and Springtime Beckons

The mustard is blooming in California's fields...

Long ago in my previous post on the last day of 2012,  I shared bay leaves as a symbol of  consistency, rosemary for remembrance and thyme associated with activity, thriftiness and energy, and since then all manner of work demands and other calls of duty have kept me busy. 

The phrase that it is "more blessed to give than to receive" comes to  mind, for although I gave those herbs to others with those hopes for them, I'm grateful to peek back at the last  two months and see that I am myself remembering to pursue activities with renewed intention, remembering my first love, and reining in some of the seemingly insignificant and yet wasteful ways in which I wander.  

Helping a senior member of the family downsize has helped my husband and me to be more energized about cleaning up our own paper trails and examining shelves and drawers for objects that we can toss, give away or sell now, at our seeming leisure. 

Challenges faced by loved ones reminds us how important investing in one's health is...and if others face rehabilitation after injury, illness or surgeries, what can the same application of effort do to a basically healthy body that does not often enough fight against the forces of inertia?

This week we planted five trees up north at the house where we raised our family. Huge neighboring trees had smashed through the back garden and taken out most of the mature fruit trees. There are tenants in the house and it is a long drive for us get there, but we were able to mobilize, get trees, get ourselves there and dig those holes and situate new trees just in time for the rain to water them. It is already rewarding, whether or not we ever eat of the fruit is not really the question.

  

I am grateful for the reminders I have received to be consistent, to remember those who have gone before us and to remember those who will come after us.  I am glad to be reminded to be active and to apply my energy in purposeful thrift with hope.

The storms of winter are not yet over, but it isn't too early to get ready for springtime, is it?

Jeannette 

What Color Does it Look Like to You?

Colors, colors, colors....there are so many to enjoy.  I had to move my little rack of potted plants while the deck is being rebuilt and I may have found a spot for it I like just as well or better than where it use to be. My yellow pots caught my eye and it all begged to be photographed. Sometimes I see things and think I will come back and take a picture later, but then the wind  blows or the flowers pass.  So I grabbed my camera for this shot and then took it with me on my trip to the vegetable garden. I didn't get far before I took another photo.  Under the redwoods I pass a potted rose that sits in a little slice of light and it looks very red and lovely to me...

 It's just starting to rain and I have time only to pick a few strawberries and some kale.  On my way back to the cottage, I pick one of the red roses and discover that next to the red strawberries  

                     the roses  aren't really all as red as I usually see them to be...

Thinking about gradations of color and the glory of being able to see them, I  started reading a little bit about what is often called being "colorblind" but  is more accurately called color vision deficiencies.

 Excerpted from What is Colorblindness and the Different Types  

 People with normal cones and light sensitive pigment (trichromasy) are able to see all the different colors and subtle mixtures of them by using cones sensitive to one of three wavelength of light - red, green, and blue. A mild color deficiency is present when one or more of the three cones light sensitive pigments are not quite right and their peak sensitivity is  shifted (anomalous trichromasy -  includes protanomaly and deuteranomaly).  A more severe color deficiency is present when one or more of the cones light sensitive pigments is really wrong (dichromasy - includes protanopia and deuteranopia).
5% to 8% (depending on the study you quote) of the men and 0.5% of the women of the world are born colorblind. That's as high as one out of twelve men and one out of two hundred women. 

  And here is a link to a free on-line test.  Parents and teachers might find this website especially helpful as undiscovered vision deficiences can cause multiple difficulties for children .  

                                            The deck....the REDwood deck is coming along. Of course weather and time will turn this bright wood to some shade of gray like the old fence it abuts.

Well, I better go wash my kale and ponder its silvery blue green hues into some edible form.

'til next time then...
Jeannette

Post script:  If you read the early afternoon version of this post, it hadn't been edited for typos and "thinkos" by the man who finished the deck...while I was making kale chips...Next time I can wash the veggies outside, well if it isn't raining.

What Matters is...

I will have to track down where this comes from in the volumes of C. S. Lewis...but it is too good a quote to not share in the meantime.

Don't bother too much about your feelings. When they are humble, loving, brave, give thanks for them: when they are conceited, selfish, cowardly, ask to have them altered. In neither case are they you, but only a thing that happens to you. What matters is your intentions and your behaviour.

~An Evening Edit~
After doing various work and errands today I returned to my desk and before I could begin my search for the source of this quote I found that a kind anonymous soul had left me this comment:

hi there, i, too, was trying to track down the source of this quote, and i've found it, so i thought i ought to share it with you. (:
it's from Letters of C. S. Lewis (edited by W. H. Lewis). there are a few typos in the quote you posted; the actual quote actually says:
"Don't bother much about your feelings. When they are humble, loving, brave, give thanks for them: when they are conceited, selfish, cowardly, ask to have them altered. In neither case are they you, but only a thing that happens to you. What matters is your intentions and your behaviour."

— C. S. Lewis, letter to Mrs Sonia Graham, June 13, 1951, Letters of C. S. Lewis (edited by W. H. Lewis) 

So thank you, Anonymous. I've crossed out the "too" and italicized the "you" which does highlight meaning and have a source to quote as well.  I hope you 'll come visit and comment on my posts again.
And as I bumbled around today, I thought about these words of C.S.L. more than once...
                                            ~~~
Editing continued on Saturday morn ... Whoever you are, Anon,  you would be a great proofreader! I have now also fixed the semi-colon that needed to be a colon from your second alert.  Such small details can really make a difference, and I for one do not want to promote mistakes in other's excellent work.    Thank you.
I picked the quote up off a Facebook page dedicated to C.S. Lewis.  I will now try to be as diligent as my anonymous commenter and let those folks know of their errata.

Save a Dollar Now...Eschew Plastic

                                              Jeannette's three dollars  worth....

It is often true of me that I don't bother to look further into many issues of life.  This  morning  Nature ID  featured a "California Sand Dollar."   As she says,  " I'm assuming most people are okay simply knowing it's a sand dollar and don't bother to look any further as to what kind of animal this is. I've included the best links I could find..." 

So for me, as for many people, a sand dollar is a sand dollar by any other name, but today I  read further and learned that the diet of Dendraster excentricus, aka, the Pacific sand dollar, includes "particulate detritus. "

Thinking of the mineral rich soup of the ocean  reminded me of reading I have done off and on about plastic. What happens to plastic when its short life of convenience to us is over and its long life of degradation begins?  One place plastic keeps showing up is in the ocean; not only in visible floating pieces that beach combers can pop back into the garbage when bottles and bags and plastic parts wash up....but in teeny tiny confetti, alphabet soup down to microscopic molecular goo size pieces that ocean life ingests when they are after the mineral rich organic detritus that is their right fare.


So I have been trying to eschew plastic.  You know, eschew as in abstain from, refrain from, give up, forgo, shun, renounce, steer clear of, have nothing to do with, relinquish, reject, forswear...
( aren't dictionaries fun books?) 


It isn't easy, and all I can claim is to have made some progress...but  I keep having experiences that remind to be more careful what I create a demand for by being careful what I purchase. 

   This trip to the local dump...it was a good reminder.
As their common name implies  Pacific sand dollars can be found from  Baja California to Alaska.   

  For many people it is a bit of thrill, a touchstone, a reminder of creation's beauty and mystery to find a fragile ornate exoskeleton  in the tide line on a sandy beach.  


 So think about saving a dollar...I don't have any gold dollars to photograph for you, but I have many golden moments in life courtesy of nature's beauty and bounty.
From land's perspective we see only a hint of all the life in the sea.  When I think of how ubiquitous  plastic is  becoming in the world's waters, it spurs me on to keep on reducing my use of vessels and objects that I'll some day have to throw away.

And by the way...where is "away" anyway?  

The Most Important Nutrient ... Bread for Thought

Sometimes

when I eat I realize that gratitude 

might be

 the most important ingredient  

of my breakfast..

nay of the whole day!

Out on a Limb

                                      Sometimes people you love get themselves out on a limb...

I mean that figuratively of course. But in the case of my kitty, who is the photographic model for today's  musings on the feelings that can freeze a person in a dilemma thought by thought, limb by limb...

my kitty is literally up a tree.

I know would be rescuers shouldn't really grab their camera, but I couldn't resist.

Maybe this gives a little more perspective...?

Yes, she really is up there and it is steeper than she might have realized when she first clambered up and she must have had some good momentum going to get as high as she did...and now she realizes that coming back down is a different issue and that she has quite a long ways to fall.

But what would the fall really mean? Facts help a lot. Not panicking goes a long way too...and staying in the moment, and breathing.  These are the kinds of things I tell myself when I'm in trouble.   I need to remind myself of these basics and they help me to experience that there is sufficient grace for today...but if you try to remind someone else, even if they know it's true...it sounds so pat. After all, you are down on the ground and they are, in that moment, well, out on a limb.  

 And there are so many awkward feelings, little voices that can distract right when you need all your facilities and focus.  There really is no shame in needing help, in asking for help...anyone of us might have to at anytime...that's how life is.  

Yes, she got down...I barely was able to help her at all...although I like to think that when I leaned on the trunk and stretched my arms up as high as I could, it gave her just enough sense of love and support to apply all her kitty prowess as she skittered back down to the forest floor.

~~~