Like No Other Being

Photograph By: Betsy Barbour Hopkins

Great Blue Heron at Lakes Park in Ft. Myers

"Since you are like no other being ever created since the beginning of time,

you are incomparable."
- Brenda Ueland

Waiting... simply waiting for the New Year to begin when the second hand tocks to the first day of a new beginning. As for me, I choose to wait alongside the Great Blue Heron - he will most certainly show me how to spread my wings wide to fly elegantly and confidently into the newness! 



Winter's Grace

Hillside Cemetery Unexpected Snow

Photograph by: Karen Holmes

Sometimes the purpose of a day is to feel our sadness,

knowing that as we do we allow whole layers of grief, like old skin cells, to drop off us.

Anything that takes us closer to true compassion takes us closer to what will one day be an experience of greater joy. 

- Marianne Williamson in "Everyday Grace".

The holidays become an invitation to softly remember a dear loved one waiting for us now in a hard to explain place of grace: our hearts and also a far off home we have yet to visit. We create holiday markers of remembrance, but tender parts of us know they exist most profoundly in our own beribboned packages of memory. We sit down to open our parcels with kind regard, and the memories gather like a peaceful, quiet winter's snowfall of remarkable insights and goodness, and, yes, a feeling of loss... we are aware that because of those loved ones, and their influence, our lives are made better and we have become better...

The Giver and Receiver have become blessed in unison.

Every Day Grace

"...like all artists, I would thrive more easily with companionship,

with kindred souls making kindred leaps of faith."

- Julia Cameron's "the Artist's Way"

A year ago on a frosty evening, my friend Mary and I walked into the Art Association ready to attend a class that we hoped would inspire us... and it did. I have now learned the discipline of writing three morning pages and to gift myself with a weekly Artist's date. Within those accumulated pages a safe place exists for me to care for all the things I do not completely understand... each morning, on each page, I make my own small leap of faith. And when I come to my final word at the end of page three, I realize I have somehow been divinely led into rest and peace. Most often my final words each morning are: Thank you.

Betsy's Prayer Shawl - Knitted in Love

Like a prayer, or a wish, I send it out to you, hoping you can hear me...

hoping that my love reaches you somehow.

- Ann Hood

"Knitted in Love".

"Friendship like a shawl, is colorful and warm enfolding the good times

Sheltering from difficulties.

May this gift and the prayers woven into, through and from within it,

accompany you gently and firmly into a New Year of celebration."

I love you, Betsy.

I am deeply grateful for the inspiration of this precious gift...

As I wrap the soft feather whiteness around my shoulders,

I feel as if an angel wing is gently holding me...

If I listen very carefully I can hear the needles clicking

and the soft echoes of heaven-bound prayers whispered on my behalf.

In that moment I am assured that all is well.

Thank you, Betsy.



Whatever you think you can do or believe you can do, begin it.

Action has magic, grace, and power in it.

- Goethe.

The Day after Christmas...
I noticed in the plate upon my counter that the sprig of hand-picked rosemary had sweet blue blooms, and the garlic was sprouting in an effort to touch the sky... beginnings happening already... a New Year is approaching.