I have two favorite memories of college biology: how living organisms are classified and the color of leaves. The true color of leaves is present all spring and summer. Buried under the layers of chloroplasts lies the deep reds, oranges, yellows, and browns that leaf lovers long for with the cooling Autumn winds. Chloroplasts' purpose feeds the tree by soaking up the sun's rays into those green cells. As the extended time of the sun fills the battery like cells, the green begins to slip away, or fall off allowing the leaf a moment of colorful glory before separating and falling to the ground; its job done. Poet e .e. cummings wrote his poem l(a. His words hang in my classroom. Students stare at the trailing letters pondering the code, musing any meaning. His poem reads l(a le af fa ll s) one l iness To look at this poem, start with the idea of falling and let the letters and the parenthesis mimic the falling nature of the leaf. A fun side note, the typewriter Cummings used contained only one key to press both a numeral 1 and a lower case l onto the page. My grandmother's typewriter had the same function. One alone falls. Together on a tree, leaves' color create a majesty inspiring numerous paintings and poems. Autumn is the leaf's time to shine. In like fashion, the true color that comes after we shed the weight upon our shoulders and look up reflecting our inner growth is stunning. We've all weathered storms. We all walk the path of loneliness. Our heartache unites us more than divides as we cling to the tree of life side by side and radiate personal growth and understanding fed by the heat of life's crucible. Our individual stories feed the whole tree giving courage and comfort. We are not alone. Today's plans include a walk. The time to reflect, look up, and gather leaves as I go will bring what I crave most: a sense of peace that life is in balance. Each leaf reminds me to be true to how I am designed. Each leaf reminds me to let go, show my true color, and shine. When I want to cry or stop being positive because the days are too much, I try to remember to look up and know this shall pass. What I choose to do with this time shall imprint my life as long as I walk this earth. "To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven" Ecclesiastes 3: 1 (KJV)

My husband's hobby stems from the hills of Moravia where his uncle has a wine cellar filled with his wine. The climate in Czech, much less humid, produces a nicely flavored wine. The hills of Eger, Hungary further south have some of the sweetest whites making their famous Tokaj in three levels of fine dessert wine. My husband enjoys reds. He grows the whites for me. Virginia brings the sun, heat, growing season - everything a grape needs to arrive at the right level of sugar for harvest. Virginia brings mildew, Japanese beetles, black rot in a heightened fashion. Virginia creates a challenge. Self-taught, my husband grooms and coaxes the land. He watches and protects as his crop of a hundred vines begin to swell, the skins showing fullness. This year the whites, like Traminette, struggled and had to be taken early. Only five gallons produced. The reds, his Chambourcin did much better. Ten gallons pressed using the vintage wine press he restored. My friend had the press holding plants and dirt as a decoration. We traded a saddle for the press and my husband's surprise at his birthday told me I did good. Growing grapes for wine takes time. The real challenge begins once the harvest has been pulled. Last year, a bad year for reds, the five gallons stayed in the carboy till our son's graduation from college in May 2020: the worst possible year to celebrate any monumental achievement or rite of passage. We sat outside, al fresco with his best friend's family and enjoyed lasagna and my husband's wine. Moravia has flavorful wine, but this batch, the batch that stayed in the same carboy thinking about life for months staying at just the right temperature, was a fine, fine tasting wine. The color rich and deep and the flavor rival of any I have had in France or from California. When the remaining wine was bottled separately after the dinner, however, and stored in individual bottles the flavor changed. Richness comes from staying together, blending together taking time together. Depth of character develops through time spent soaking up the essence of each other's pressed goodness. The same is true of us as a people. Father Robert Capon wrote, "God makes wine. Only the ungrateful or the purblind can fail to see that sugar in the grape and yeast on the skins is a divine idea, not a human one." We will grow in goodness and grace, when we recognize through thankfulness the divine in coming together, working together, sweetening the hardships together, and ultimately being pressed together, so we have something more than ourselves of value to offer the world. May our lives be like a fine wine from vine to the table for all to enjoy.

Last night ended happily. My heart enjoyed tapping into the different people I met at our local Oktoberfest. Social distances observed, my mask on despite being outside, I talked and interacted with complete strangers in a capacity longed for these past several months Little Emma stopped by my book table. We talked about mummies and research. I told her about indigenous people groups. She absorbed what I said and I took in her beautiful innocence. Emma is 11 years old. I met Dolores at 84. Dolores served as a marine for 21 years starting back in 1957. She was kicking butt and taking names on many continents before I was even born. She showed me her original military id. Gorgeous and dangerous - that's Dolores. She's an amazing icon of girl power. I met Tai, who escaped from Vietnam with his family back in '75. They lost everything - left behind what couldn't be carried. He used to be a gymnast, a French chef's assistant, martial arts student, oil painter...the more he talked, the more I saw the strength of growing up in a country that emphasized dexterity of hands combined with the tragedy of exile to rebuild, reinvent, and flourish. Tai knew the meaning of true grit. Two of my students stopped by to say hello. Seeing them in person was joyous. We are together for the second of a two year course in research. Their smiles and beautiful faces weren't distorted with a computer screen stuffing them into a tiny, talking square. Their vibrant embracing of life has been missing in my classroom. Diana took a moment to inquire about writing a book. She's a writer and her stories are about to be told. The more opportunities I had to connect with people, hear their stories, learn from them, the more I began to understand how quarantine has robbed us of a vital truth in our existence. In class, we always look at how meaning is made. Bottom line, meaning does not evolve from just one person. It takes two. Somewhere in the possibility of being misunderstood lies the bridge to connecting one soul to another, an experience's understanding with an unrelated experience sharing a similar impact. Somewhere in the coming together of two minds, meaning shapes and pushes into being uniting us, helping us grow. To relegate stories only to books misses out on the potential meaning we meet every single day. Lives that bump into our lives carry stories of conflicts overcome, failures learned, growth through disappointment and heartbreak. I tell my students we read to know we are not alone. Reading allows us to connect on a very intimate level where vulnerability can be risked. A book's grace can be found by closing the cover and walking away when the connection doesn't hold. A book's strength lies in the power to make us feel, to stir in us a recognition of the strength and power to overcome. In a book, two strangers connect finding common ground on the imagination's playground. Meeting another in the middle completes our sense of community. In quarantine, we have been only half ourselves. Times of isolation provide opportunities for reflection and personal growth. However, seeing others at some stage in their own characterization and development through their own conflicts and obstacles inspires and encourages us to be that same role model for someone else watching our lives. Though not bound by a cover and not made up of pages, each of our lives share the stories of who we are - who we are still becoming. Life will make much more sense when we come together and share our stories one with another. If meaning and purpose are cloudy and distant, pick up the phone, write an old fashioned letter, take a moment to connect in the safest manner for you, and breathe in the stories of the lives that bring richness to our day to day. The act of picking up a book is only slightly different than the act of saying hello. I for one can be found again this afternoon from 4-8 pm, properly social distancing, but soaking up the stories that stop by to say hi.

Ötzi was real, is real. His life is a mystery and an inspiration. The finding of his corpse back in 1991 turned our knowledge around. Previously we believed people groups living over 5000 years ago in the Neolithic era were primitive, simple folk, not nearly as evolved or intelligent as we are. After all they hadn't discovered Bronze yet. Ötzi's existence, however, resurrected many questions of how much we underestimated him and his people. His mummy challenges how much we still have to learn. Iceman Awakens is completely fictional, but years of research have gone into the details and framing of the character Gaspare, the young Iceman. Some of those details found in the story are listed here. Chealana, his wolf, is his faithful companion. On the corpse of his mummy was found a form of canine hair indicating questions about the domestication of the canine species. He was 43-45 when he died, but if he did have a pet/domesticated dog, why not a wolf? His name Gaspare is a form of the word gaspar, which is adapted from the semi precious stone jasper. Many theories surround his status and role in his society, but there seems to be agreement on the fact that Ötzi was most likely a holy man. Jasper, the stone, was often found in association with ancient holy men and archeology of the past. Both the stone and his name infuse this idea of holy man into the story and his destiny that he is learning during his coming of age rite of passage. If he was a holy man, then he needed to find that calling at some point. Over 12 rites of passage of ancient tribes were consulted to consider what might be activities deemed symbolic and worthy of a man in the tribe. This set Gaspare's age for the novel at 13 years old. Following books in this series are focused on getting him to the mountain where he was murdered, but the main focus of Iceman Awakens was to breathe life back into his society and culture and lay the ground work for how he was positioned in life to end up murdered in such a merciless manner. Next week I'll add more details into the back ground of how the story Iceman Awakens was framed by history of a man misunderstood and unknown except as Ötzi, the Iceman

Yesterday brought my children home and an Irish Cream Cheesecake from Sweet Pearlz in Manassas. It was my birthday. Sweet Pearlz has the smoothest, lightest cheesecakes belying the weight of calories under amazing rich flavor. We highly recommend giving her a visit. Her flavor combinations are surprising and spot on. My choice of cakes has changed over the years as has my choice of how to spend time celebrating. Yesterday, while not a perfect day, held all the goodness of what's important in life - family. Frankly I do not know the secret ingredients used to make those cheesecakes amazing, in fact I am more than happy to let Sweet Pearlz reign in the land of cheesecakes. I do have a go to recipe combining creamy pudding, a coating of chocolate, and puff. One of the cakes that my family loves is the Eclair cake. Whether enjoying a bite of amazing decadence or simply sitting sharing time, I wish you a weekend spent with family surrounded in a sense of being together. That is my final birthday wish for this year of 2020. Eclair Cake Ingredients Crust 1 cup water 1 stick of butter 1 cup flour 4 eggs room temperature Filling 1 - 8oz package cream cheese softened 1 large box vanilla instant pudding 3 cups of milk Topping 1 container coolwhip 1/2 chocolate chips 1 Tbls butter 1 Tbls confectioners sugar or to taste milk just a bit for desired consistency Instructions Preheat oven to 400 and lightly grease 9x13 pan In a saucepan, boil water and butter till butter is melted. Stir in flour all at once and remove from heat. Stir in one egg at a time being sure to stir completely and quickly. The egg should be completely mixed in before adding the next one. Spread in the prepared pan evenly. Bake for 30-40 minutes. It's important to check at this stage. Remove from oven when there is a nice golden puff. Let cool completely and don't poke the puff. In bowl mix together cream cheese, pudding packet and milk with a mixer. Spoon onto the cooled puff. Spread Coolwhip over the top of the pudding. Prepare the chocolate glaze and pour over the top. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

This little guy showed up this week crowing in our pear tree. The only thing that makes him bigger than our pigeons is the tail. His smallness is accentuated by a high pitch cry more pubescent sounding than our full-bodied roosters. He's the perfect snack for the migrating hawks and hungry foxes. We call him Rocky. He's got a lot of fight in him for a bantam. He needs it. He came alone. Due to his size and newness, we needed to separate Rocky from our other poultry. They would harm him before getting to know his great personality. I could hear Rocky crying, calling out early before the sun until late evening as the sun left. He felt alone and scared. Rocky was quarantined for his own good, but the effects of isolation are evident. Yesterday marked our fourth week of teaching virtually. Our classroom is defined by the black parameters of my laptop screen. Normal habits of greeting each student as they enter become estranged. Connections are unstable, videos are turned off, students sit in the silence hiding from the teacher and each other. To date the material covered is about 40% a regular semester and my effectiveness feels to be about 60%. My gauge for the former is derived from years of delivery; the later comes from my heart. How can my voice alone carry everything I need these students to hear? Each school day I feel like a human sponge. I can feel the anxiety, confusion, disappointment, and frustration from the other side of the screen. My students are hurting, alone in their isolation. We started to work with poetry and looking closely at student chosen quotes from their novels. Taking the power of a word into account, we began to see ourselves in the character's struggle. The repetition of "dominated by fear, the fear of failure" cried out when placed side by side with another random quote about the character. That fear beget more fear resulting in a family who lived in perpetual fear. As the words opened, silence came. Not an absent silence. This quiet spoke of connection. I knew they were with me. I knew they had heard. When we focused our attention on the characteristics of the individual words, we could begin to hear a message that included us. We could connect to another's struggles and know we are not alone. I went from speaking into the void, to feeling united with those I couldn't see. From early morning until I finish my day, I am surrounded by voices. Some are crying out in frustration, some share words of encouragement. From social media to the occasional friend I meet, we all just want to be heard. There's power in a well placed word. Precision and focus provide strength of thought. If I try to listen more to the character of who is speaking, who is crying to be heard by considering their chosen words, then maybe I'll be able to hear what they are trying to say and I'll find an unexpected point of view. "so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. Is 55:11 (NIV)

This past week, I waited for life to get a little easier. Where there were ebbs and flows of optimism, a deep fear creeped in and deepened a mark across the calendar. My family and friends found themselves engulfed in a state on fire. Oregon's sky was as red as the scenes from Mount Doom in the land of Mordor. Words will come later once everyone is safe. But the fear has sobering results. Many factors of the fire were out of our control, some were not. How we, as a people, respond will mark us as a generation to be remembered. The time is here to reach across the Continental Divide. The time is now to find a way to speak hope into the charred landscape people call home. As we begin to get restless in our states of quarantine, our frustrations with schools, or our distaste of politics, remember we have family and friends who need us to show they are not forgotten. My friend shared with me how her community each February raise money for the Doernbecker Children's Hospital. It's a town effort near Tillamook, Oregon. Together their small community raised $197,151 in ten days by hosting a variety of events like jello wrestling, donkey basketball, head polishing, swallowing goldfish, delicious dinners, auctions, car/truck washes, cinnamon roles, and many more. This small community refuses a simple handout. It's quality events only in exchange for some coin. They've been hosting this tradition since its founding in 1954. The total funds raised equals $3.5 million. This community and others dotted across the states of Oregon and California need their American family. Be on the look out for ways to impact and make a difference. Find a way to insert yourself into the bigger picture and ease a tiny bit of the devastation beyond comprehension. This fire cannot be bigger than us. We are a people richly steeped in the traditions of what it means to rise up and stand. Before the chill of winter sets in and while there's still small businesses first hit by Covid 19 and now this fire, let's reach out a hand. When we do, when we begin to make a difference, our reality will burn with a passion of what it means to be alive. What it means to truly matter. We will find that deeper burn from within that reminds us we are not alone!

Since I have been going into work after six months of quarantine, my cat has been finding new ways to get my attention. She learned quickly that no one can resist her plush, fluffy belly. Her go to method has always been to throw herself on her back when I walk by. Lately life has been heavier than usual, or at least I feel the pull more intently upon my thoughts. Sensing the need for a new strategy, Bonnie has discovered the belly is not enough. She has resorted to quietly lying on her back, belly exposed, examining the room upside down. Her quiet perspective shift succeeds in capturing my attention. I can't help but wonder what she's thinking. Her meditative contemplation of life upside down intrigues me. Maybe it's because I walk through the halls of a loud scene of social media. Maybe the brash noise of the news becoming a platform for a few shouters makes me long for the voice of silence. Whatever the catalyst, Bonnie Rose beckons me to stop and sit with her by quietly looking at our surroundings from a different angle. There are those, tired and pushed, who fight back and lash out with angry words and loaded opinions carrying more hurt than truth. Their words attack and create chaos that bombards the air making it appear that strife is the new norm. But that is not the majority. That can't be the new voice of humanity. I look to the silent, goodness surrounding my footsteps. They are so hard to see through the smoke and mirrors. But I can find them when I stop, when I listen. Their voice speaks of gratitude. Their actions and choices of kindness create a force that pushes me to share their gift of kindness and generosity with another. It is the silent majority who makes this life move and thrive in a healing and guiding manner. Whether the act of a student standing in the rain to get reception for my class, or a student who takes time to ask how I am in an email before pursuing their request, a parent who says thank you, or a friend who knows me well telling me they admire and appreciate me, the silence is broken and I can hear and see grace all around. These small gentle attributes of goodness offer healing that lifts my chin from off my weighted chest with a true breath I find most refreshing. My morning readings of Bishop Barron brought me to these words of contemplation. "When grace invades us, we are enticed into far deeper waters." Grace gives courage. Grace is so attractive and provocative not because it is in short supply, but simply because we have to strive to find it. Grace is contagious spreading the goodness we recognize has been shared with us. Grace is powerful stemming from the heart of all that is good and just. Looking at my world upside down, I wonder if the silent majority understands the power they hold. I wonder if those who let their actions of love and kindness define them really comprehend how valuable they are to our society. If we are not to drown in the deep waters of strife, if we are to rise and find the courage to heal as a people, we will need to let our silence shout spreading grace's hope for a new day. Only then will our upside down world aright itself. Only when grace is given will more be generated. Only God's grace can set us free.

The weekend of the big reveal, which cover will lay hold of Iceman Awakens? The voting was incredibly close and so a discussion had to be held. The blue cover depicts cold like the icy glacier from which Ötzi's mummy emerged. A mystery was cloaked within the fog. It fleshed out a character waiting to be introduced. The cover that won, told a different story, a story firmly anchored in the mystery around the man. Taking into consideration the iconic image of Ötzi's mummy, along with the red markings designed by his actual tattoos, the winning cover breaks through the ice to reveal the story of the actual man, known to the world as Iceman. The design, seeped with primitive emblems, delves into the original reasoning behind the big why. My desire and purpose in telling Iceman Awakens is to restore dignity to a people long thought to be ignorant, beneath the achievements of our modern understandings, to explore a culture extinct and yet coursing through the veins of every human to walk this earth, and to wonder what led him to his murderous demise on that mountain pass 5000 years ago. This story is not based on a character. The story is based on a man, who lived, loved, fought, and died. He was real. While the events in the story are fictional, the culture established in the pages was created from five years of research. Iceman Awakens journeys into a distant land in the hopes that as a reader, we will see traces of ourselves. No matter the time period, humanity has struggled with the daily task of being human. Our greatest conflicts are within and the greatest rock that chisels our character is carved from our own personal reckoning with our purpose in this life. This is what the chosen cover connects to. This primitive call to challenge ourselves to be so much more than what we have allowed society or others to deem us. Go ahead and judge this book by its cover, but then take a moment to see what it is really trying to say.

Back to school after six months of leaving the brick and mortar of what I think of as school comes with a whole new learning curve. All the prepositions: at school, in school, to school have changed in proximity and distance, yet as teachers we must find a way to bridge that gap and bring learning into diverse homes across our county. This week I plunged into online platforms to help make learning more interactive. The options are completely overwhelming. My choices are so vast, which can undermine confidence and allow for self-doubt. So, I have to stop and ask myself what does having a cartoon hand doodling my messages really tell my students and parents? This online tool is designed to make me have a more polished product, but there’s nothing that can be finished and flawless going live for the first time Monday morning. Instead of having my act together, I hope the message of being “extra” communicates the fact that I care. This year more than ever, teachers are being challenged to demonstrate what we do best - care for our students that many of us affectionately call our kids. The disadvantages we all face are the disability of students not having proper technology or us not completely understanding what we are doing with the technology we have. It comes down to the realities that once again to properly teach, we need to embrace humility, humble ourselves, and offer ourselves as the conduit of learning through failure. Everything in life tells us that failure is the best teacher. We learn better when we fall or make mistakes. As a professional, this is in direct conflict with the desire to present a good, strong product for delivery. But our students, my students, are going to see me and on some levels that vulnerability can be very scary. As the camera zooms in, pride is going to have to be shelved. A humble heart is the fastest way to connect with another human and that is what this school year is going to require. I bought the little grey man in the picture, to keep me company in my physical classroom. I am naming him Wilbur in honor of one of my favorite professors at IWU, Wilbur Williams. He made the Old Testament very real. His knowledge wasn’t just a textbook, it was lived. Learning with him was more of a conversation than a lecture. Each year he took students on an archaeological dig in Israel. I always wanted to go on a dig with him. It wouldn’t have mattered if I didn’t find a single thing. That trip for me didn't happen, but the inspiration he gave in one semester has lasted a lifetime. Wilbur Williams was a great teacher, not because he espoused failure, but because he was humble. An iconic example of how we learn through failure is if we touch a hot stove once, we won’t repeat it. Honestly as an adult, I still do that thinking I can clean that messy burner and beat the heat; if I can go fast enough I won’t get burned. For me, personally, that lesson is cliche and trite. I do fully support and believe that failure is an amazing learning curve, but I wouldn’t say it is the best teacher. It’s the transformation that happens inside when we fail that makes us learn and grow. It’s the knocking down of our pride that gives us the grace to forgive ourselves and once again stand. It is a humble heart that allows us to learn and hear the true lessons around us in our mistakes. Monday is Day 1 of a new type of virtual school year. I have to connect, earn trust, and inspire 95 unique individuals that are all at different places in their learning journeys. God, give me grace! Wilbur, are you ready? Show me the way! Let's do this!

These shrimp chips are really good, a true find at Costco. I was hesitant to try them at first because I never really thought of adding shrimp to my chips, but on a moment of feeling adventurous decided why not. The serving size is equivalent to 40 chips, which is more than enough. The taste is delicate with hints of garlic and just a bit of the seafood flavor of the namesake. My family loves them. This is not a paid endorsement for the product. The real moral comes in that I only bought one bag. Upon returning to the store, I found the bin empty and the sign removed as if they never existed for sale there before. The search was on. Two months, four Costco stores in two states later, I found them once again back on the shelf in my very own store. After the hoarding frenzy of March, I resisted the urge to stock up and only purchased two bags instead of one. I had learned my lesson by just buying one. The lesson, however, was not in self preservation by stocking shrimp chips. I found the challenge of the wait to be intriguing. The more I scouted and came up empty handed, the more the desire to succeed grew. A sense of conquering the elusive goal provided the stimulation I needed to persevere. That’s the nature of failure. Each time I failed in finding my goal, I had a choice. I could give up and call the shrimp chips unworthy of my pursuit, or I could dig a little deeper, grow my resolve a little stronger, and begin to develop a plan of action. Shopping can be viewed as a burdensome necessity or a strategy game of wits in pursuit of the best bargain. No one, however, should ever consider life as burdensome, but to see life as a strategy game that requires a perspective shift. Choices, based on beliefs that what we value is worth pursuing and that we are worth being the ones to pursue, determine our actions. Actions lead to failures and more choices with the ultimate goal of success kept in sight. Maybe the hardest part of that equation to success is keeping the end goal in sight as distractions present themselves along the way. Maybe the hardest part is the perseverance necessary to keep going when life knocks us down. No matter the hardest part, believing we have enough value to own our dream, was for me the most difficult lesson of all to learn. While I do highly recommend trying these shrimp chips, I also have learned to keep checking back to home base, remember what I set out to achieve, and taking on the challenges to go and do just that – find the value in who I am.

I love birds! I spend a lot of time feeding and coaxing a variety to stop by my yard. They repay me in song, beautiful colors, and reseeding sunflowers throughout the yard. Typically I will find morning glories in quite random places. Our pond is now filled with water lilies from the neighbor’s pond all brought by birds. Yet the all-time best job the birds have done with seeds is found in the ditch at the edge of our property. There I found a little mimosa. One bird carried this seed from the mimosa tree Kathleen grew from a seed. She was an amazing woman. Nothing ever stopped her until her body gave out two years ago. Kathleen was my domestic goddess with a green thumb and power tools. She found me two months after my mother passed away. She took me under her wing. No matter where in the world I went, she remembered me with care packages and magazine articles. When I had children, she sent them each a card with $10 every birthday and Christmas. She earned the title Grandma Kathleen. Every summer I loaded the car, drove six hours across state lines, and introduced my children to the creative bustle always happening in her yard. She would send me home with a seedling, or craft and a head buzzing with ideas. When she died, the world lost someone larger than life. At 5'2" she was fearless in renovation and an sculptor with pruning shears. She balanced her innovation with an enormous heart and compassion. Many strays found a second chance at her door. There was always room for one more. She respected people as individuals, artists as professionals, nature as a gift. People like her are rare. They walk the earth, quietly leaving behind a much better place. It is important to hear what her life had to say. I am only glad that I had been close enough to listen. One of the seedlings she gave me was a mimosa sapling from the giant mimosa in her driveway. I brought it home, planted it and for years enjoyed the pink fragrant feathers each summer. Last year, we lost many trees from heavy rains. Virginia clay isn’t ideal for protecting roots from saturation. I watched my mimosa struggle to hang on. Last year was the first anniversary of Kathleen’s passing. Only a few blossoms bloomed. This year the branches never managed a leaf. Instead of cutting down the mimosa, our family chose to knitbomb instead. We knit or crochet rectangles and put them on the branches. While we stitch we think of those we love in our lives. The tree has become our Mimosa Memory Tree. On Facebook I made the offer for anyone to contribute. People make their own tribute in memory of or honoring someone very special in their lives. This legacy of Kathleen is beautiful like her. The mimosa memory tree reminds me to give comfort to the strays, who show up in my life, bring courage to the weary and confused, take time to show thoughtfulness, and always remember to encourage ideas and possibilities in myself and others. When we live a life committed to passion, then we will inspire and transform our little piece of the world. These are the lessons found from her life lived powerfully, simply, honestly.