This story I would like to tell is about friends of mine. Friends of my husband’s and mine, who recently got refugee visa’s from the Ukraine, and are now living in Oakville, CT.

Twenty something years ago, my husband is working in the shop, and the woman who was the engineer, she was crying. He said, “What is wrong Galina?” She said that my friend Irina in the Ukraine, she lost her husband at 28 years old of diabetes, because if the was money, there was no medicine, and if there was medicine, there was no money.

I was born into a prepared place here,
Where geniuses leave their marks,
That everything is better still.

Thank you you who first sung a song.
Perhaps the birds led the way.

Thank you you who first baked a pot from clay.
Perhaps fiery stones led the way.

Thank you you who first made a word.
Perhaps the call of sheep led the way.

Thank you you who first picked berries and nuts as food.
Perhaps you watched the deer and squirrel.

Thank you you who first made a wooden spoon.
Perhaps you saw rainwater gather in a cleft of wood.

Oh I could walk 10,000 miles
Maybe your heard that song
Today I am walking to see 10,000 plus daffodils
On Wigawam Road in Litchfield, CT
And its Laurel Ridge Farm
And it was what was an unusable piece of farm land
That these private land owners decided what could they do with it
They decided to plant daffodils
They are also deer resistant
Which is great hear in the north east
For your flower and veggie garden
It has been raining a lot
And it is a really sunshiny day
I am staying up in Goshen

Wow, I just saw this team all kneeling down together
Of football players praying on a field
What a powerful sight to see that witness that wow
I‘d like to see more of that going on to many of the places I go to
Prayer is so powerful
It is just a pipe line, a communication, a resource just to tap into
For being grateful, for asking for help, for healing
It encompasses so many venues of your life
I guess this team I don’t know if they want to win the game
Or they are asking for a player, for guidance, or their coach, family

I love to see things that are so tangled they defy all logic to untangle or even understand their pattern.

Near our house is a Byzantine church. That in itself is so beautiful when they play the church bells with something like a piano keyboard. Anyhow, there is a huge nettle, a giant, wild hedge with small birds darting in and out.

Hundreds of birds seem to live in there. It is so amazing that they can so quickly and accurately navigate this dense and obtuse tangle of hedge at such a high speed. They must be geniuses.

Like most people, I appreciate lightning staying away from where I am.

Notice this is different than saying that I don’t like lightning I am fine with it, as long as it stays away from me.

One day I was reading a book: The Diary of Saint Faustina. In the Catholic Church she is noted for The Chaplet of Divine Mercy which Jesus gave to her. Her diary has many conversations with Jesus that she transcribed. Pope John knew her, and of her, and made the Sunday after Easter, Divine Mercy Sunday.

Take a walk. Hmmm. Did I do that today? No, I’m doing it now.

You know, I choose to remember to take a walk every day.

Does it happen?

Usually, but sometimes I’ll just let it slide, or not feel like not do it.

And I find that when I do that, that I don’t feel as well. I don’t flow as well.

After all, we are made up of energy. When I walk, I am moving my energy around. I’m revitalizing my body. You know, it’s just a good thing for me to do.

So, I choose to remember that on my list should be me.

I love walking thru fall leaves.

Not just walking thru them, but really kicking them up into the air, like wanting to see them fall again and again – to float gently down, swaying this way and that, living a little poetry for a minute, something myriad generations before had admired and enjoyed.

I was just thinking today about sunsets.
The infatuation we have with sunsets.
Going to see a sunset.
Being at the beach and not leaving.
Waiting for a sunset.

Going on vacation and looking at sunsets.
Hiking and taking time to pause to see a sunset.
Also the other opposite of that is sunrise.
We get up at the crack of dawn.
Just to see the sunrise.
Being one of the first people of the day.

I love sunflowers. I mean, here is a flower that grows bigger than me. It is gigantic. And the seeds are so visible, so wildly bountiful, and so orderly arranged.

I see them growing in the community garden, and I admire their towering, poetic, lilting stance.

There are two local farms that plant thousands of sunflowers – acres and acres - and let you walk among them. It is breath-taking. So many circles of purple-black with a rim of yellow against a backdrop of greens and a light blue sky – like nature is looking with 10,000 eyes upon the world.