When people are born they are gentle and soft.
At death they are hard and stiff.
When plants are alive they are soft and delicate.
When they die, they wither and dry up.
Therefore the hard and stiff are followers of death.
The gentle and soft are the followers of life.

Thus, if you are aggressive and stiff, you can't win.
When a tree is hard enough, it is cut. Therefore
The hard and big are lesser,
The gentle and soft are greater.

     - Yi-Ping Ong, from the introduction, Tao Te Ching

Yesterday was our final session for the Exploring Rainbows course. As with many of my courses, the workshop was set up alphabetically to prompt me to think more creatively. We went through the alphabet for each color, as well as the rainbow. The letter U  for each color represented something  "unexpected". This was the Unexpected reference in the blue section. 
​And yes, it's ok to be smart!

It's unsettling that there are such contrasting perceptions about Baltimore, a city I've grown to love. Yesterday I read a disturbing article detailing the police corruption through the Gun Trace Task Force (GTTF). The article ended by saying "Baltimore can't run a school, a  police department or even a zoo". 

Admittedly, there is truth in that statement, and yet it disturbs me to see only one side of multifaceted city, so rich with warm and wonderful people, history, inventions, gardens and parks music and the arts . . . . It reminds me of a fable I read years ago. 
​

It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all six of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind.

The First approached the Elephant, 
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
God bless me, but the Elephant
Is very like a wall.

The Second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried, "Ho! What have we here?
​

Winter storms remind me of my beloved Beethoven. 
It was autumn when we found our 1820s farm house in Hunters Valley in south central Pennsylvania. We had the illusion of owning half a hemisphere. We were surrounded by forests, streams, fields, and state games lands and at the time, couldn't see another house from horizon to horizon.  One Christmas, a friend who owned a similar property, convinced me that we needed a little more activity on the vacant acreage.
So on Christmas morning, I prepared two large golden packages. They were wrapped so the lids could be removed immediately for the comfort of the temporary guests inside. The backs of the boxes were completely open to prevent the tails from being crushed, and the girls positioned them so all the feathers were hidden beneath the Christmas tree. Mike’s face lit up when he opened the boxes to discover two peacocks!
​Fast forward.
It was mid-April when I heard Mike on the phone with Ruth Buck, a reporter for the local newspaper. “Well, we have at least three hundred birds,” Mike stated casually. I stopped and turned. Stunned.
I knew the collection had grown - iridescent white peacocks joined the blues, there were Bourbon Reds, Bronze and Royal Palm turkeys, Golden Pheasants, rheas, Dia Rhea and Gonna Rhea (another story- these two made NPR news!).

This morning I posted this on my facebook and now sharing it here. Processing. So many lessons, thoughts, insights . . . bittersweet. 

Recently I read an exert from a book on values, listing significance as a value we all have.  I review my values annually at the very least - they include health, relationships, gratitude, giving, creativity, nature, etc. It hadn't occurred to me to include 'significance'. - what makes us feel important. 

Many  feel important through love, sharing, humor . . . but unfortunately, violence and destruction are what give others a feeling of significance. Either way, there are always lessons.