Mother & Child Reunion -It's Happening Here Right Now on Earth

There she sat her neck crooked, her head tucked into her feathered body. The mother duck slept at the water's edge on the rocks below our balcony where only weeks ago we had seen her with two babies.

She appears childless and although it may be time for her young ones to have left the nest, I wonder. In the weeks prior she lost several little ones, I've been told, to the snakes with whom she shares these waters.

This is not how I anticipated spending my time just before bed yet on this Friday night this mother duck reminds me of mothers in African countries half way around the world for whom loosing a child is just part of the package of life. Somali mothers even as I write are having to choose between leaving their most vulnerable on the roadside to die so she and other children can walk on to live. I think of Asian mothers who send their child daughters to the city to make money to bring back to the family not realizing these daughters will be used for sex trafficking and won't be coming back. And those who at times escape to come home, are so addicted to drugs intentionally by their owners that they return to life in the city. I think of American mothers who live on the streets homeless with their children. Then there is my grandmother long gone, Sarah who carried her first child for ten months after the doctor when called said it wasn't time when my grandmother knew it was past time. How was it for her to walk around in her life knowing she carried a child whose life passed inside her? I suspect something inside her passed too although she lived on.

I fell asleep last night holding in my heart feathered mothers and human and yes, many fathers who mother, their hearts broken and bruised.

Morning

The first thing upon waking I walk out to see which of my duck friends are still here. They eat, bathe and perch across the small river, the adults and yes, one young one still. It's grown. Three weeks ago, it would fit in my palm, now it would fill two hands.

Inside I am happy and sad. Two months ago there were five; four weeks ago three, at the week's end two and now one.

This one glides along by its mother reminiscent of pairs figure skaters. She turns. Her baby turns. She shakes. The baby shakes. This is how it's done.

I awoke this morning still mourning, not wanting to get out of bed. My insides detached and sad wondering how mothers do it. How do they go through their day?

Now my heart glimpses what may be a bit of the how in the sweetness of this moment. My emotions are soothed by the sight below me of this feathered mother and child floating past.

I did not grow up Catholic at least in this life, but this pair evokes a wonder regarding the Mother and Child known through history, the Mother Mary and Jesus and the many carvings I saw in France whose origins are unknown.

Some say he holds the earth. When gardening, I'm certain he holds a seed. This morning I suspect he holds the circle as a reminder of the cycling of sorrow turned into love when held in the heart's core.

On second thought, it's all of this and more. Kin to what Paul Simon sang in "Mother and Child Reunion" it is only a motion away and it is happening here, right now on this the Garden we call Mother Earth as we, her children, carry the transformative seeds.

-Dawn, The Good News Muse 27 August 2011
dawn@imaginetheshift.com

Which Will You Buy Into? Encouragement or Fear

(The following is one of my recent and rejected submissions to a contest the Tennessean sponsored. I decided to practice the Shift of which I write which for me is to not reject myself just because the paper did. :)

At a gathering earlier this summer, a woman I had just met shared that she had been wondering why we aren’t encouraged today the way people were encouraged during the Great Depression.

The evening concluded but this idea intrigued me. I contacted the person to further our exchange. She shared that not only did FDR’s speeches encourage people through dark times but that whether it was intentional or not, Hollywood seemed to partner with the government during that era as movies and music often held recurring themes of hope.

I found this curious. Why aren’t we similarly encouraged?

The next day I went to see the Frist’s Andy Warhol exhibit. I’ve never cared for Mr. Warhol’s work. I’ve never considered soup cans art yet I determined to be open to his work the way I would desire a person to be open to mine.

Standing before the famed paintings of soup, I realized the genius of Mr. Warhol’s work. The soup cans provided a commentary on the period into which we were rapidly moving from being the preparerers of our meals to consuming prepared foods. Soup was one of the first fast foods and heralded the beginning of being encouraged to make our lives easier and our diets more sodium filled.

The marketing of stuff to ease our lives while creating more dis-ease keeping up with what’s new and next has increased ten thousand fold since the 60’s. Ads bombard us suggesting what we need.

Andy Warhol also painted his era’s cultural icons like Marilyn Monroe and Elvis. Our celebrities are paired with the stuff marketers hope we’ll buy as we’re continually shopped to.

Standing before those soup cans, I realized we are encouraged. We’re encouraged to buy things. We’re encouraged to be afraid. These two have gone hand in hand since 9/11 when we were told by former President Bush to “go shopping.”

We were encouraged to shop and fear while paying attention to rainbow colored security alerts. At one point we were told to buy duct tape and plastic to cover our windows and doors.

We had the opportunity to stimulate the economy of the heart, to offer care as happens so beautifully in this country when in crisis. Instead we were told to stimulate the economy, the same economy whose potential collapse is now suppose to be the focus of our fear.

Encouragement’s a personal lost art relegated to Dr. Phil, Oprah and ‘supportive’ reality shows. Some benefit from this, but we’ve opportunities daily to offer encouragement through a simple smile or nod to someone who for all we know may be wondering why he or she should keep on living.

Let’s not wait for our leaders to encourage us. Let’s not wait to be told not to be afraid. Let’s call up the courage of our ancestors who survived economic collapse prior and two World Wars. Let’s wake up to what we’re being told to buy into and get about the business of offering encouragement and stimulating the economy of good will.

*** and if you live around Nashville, get yourself to the Frist to experience the Andy Warhol exhibit on display through Labor Day.

-Dawn, The Good News Muse 26 August 2011

dawn@imaginetheshift.com

Hot Hands - Herbie Hancock & Me (Notes from Journals & Journey's Past)

(I love the synchronicity of opening an old journal not knowing the year or time of year it was filled and finding that it perfectly coincides with the same time a year or some prior. This morning, I pulled a journal from one of my many book bags and this is what I found written a year ago to the day.)

I don't know whose hands were hotter last night, mine or Herbie Hancock's. The winner of twelve Grammy awards played for two and a half hours on the Ryman Auditorium stage starting out slowly and eventually rocking folks to their feet in the Mother Church of country music.

Our hands were on fire, his with music, mine from mincing jalapenos, six to be exact for peach salsa. Being a rapid mincer (no relation to Mensa) I minced and chopped hastily with ungloved hands, not realizing what was getting into my skin. It wasn't until later while washing my hands, that the water somehow activated the pepper's sting which started again this morning after I showered.

I didn't start out wanting to make salsa. I felt compelled as if doing so was hardwired into my brain ensuring survival on a primitive level. Yet come to think of it, I was ensuring the survival of my creative, sensory self for as I chopped peaches, red pepper and onion prior to the jalapenos I noted the satisfaction experienced in the holding of food as well as the vibrant colors accumulating in the pot.

Just as I suspect Herbie Hancock cannot not make music, I cannot not create be it with words, images or food. I can attempt not to, but doing so leaves me grumpy and detached.

This is how I tend my plot in the Universal Garden of the Soul. What music does for Herbie Hancock, color, texture and pattern do for me.

What are your hands and heart on fire to do in the garden of your soul, in the greater garden of our world?

Imagine the Shift.

-Dawn, The Good News Muse, 22 August 2011
dawn@imaginetheshift.com

From Bugs to Books - Rescued by Small Wonders

I had just sat down in the glider when I heard a rustle in the leaves to my side. I turned hoping to see a black snake. This has been our first summer without seeing one. Instead I saw little legs waving in the air as a bug larger than my thumb tried to right itself to no avail.

In my book, a bug's no different from any other animal so I went into rescue mode, found a leaf suitable as a stretcher and carried the bug to the rocks nearby. Knowing in the cycle of life birds eat bugs, I was somewhat protective of this not-so-little creature unsure what bird was actually big enough to eat it, but also not wanting to give a bird the chance having just given this fellow his own chance.


The bug began crawling, crawling toward me with a look on its face reminding me of the childhood book "Are You My Mother?" in which a little bird having fallen from its nest inquired of numerous animals it met as to whether each was his mother.

It bumped along the pea gravel toward me its movement reminiscent of a wagon in olden days rolling over mountain trails. While placing twigs in the rocks hoping they would be more suitable for climbing instead of my leg, I realized I had rescued a recently hatched cicada whose wings had just begun to dry. This cicada was ten times the size of the ones causing all the commotion earlier this summer in Nashville.

Maybe I was its mother since I love the much maligned cicadas, terror to some, beauty to me. The little guy seemed to truly smile yet the feeling was mutual as he posed for photo ops.

Perched on a twig I placed it next to a tree and he or she crawled a few feet up the bark, found a slight crack where the tree divided and tucked itself inside to continuing drying.

I checked on it periodically throughout the morning before driving into town to the nearest big box store to buy things I often dread because they come from China. I've nothing against the Chinese, I just like buying what I need from folks who are local or at least more local than a 'Mart store.

Fortunately we detoured by the local hardware store where most items although still made in China are tightly packed on shelves creating a different feel. Wandering through the aisles of the True Value store, I was mesmerized by the odds and ends. Rather than feeling overwhelmed and wanting to run screaming out the front door as I do in most big box stores, I felt comforted cocooned by the narrow aisles filled with rows of stuff from the stove top drip pans I was in search of to paints, pots and even machines for freezing vegetables to ensure one gets all the air out. There were no bright lights overhead or music piped in with lyrics covertly telling me to buy.

The sense of intimacy I felt reminded me of the experience at the former Sunshine grocery on Belmont Blvd that its successor Whole Foods does not have. This experience can still be found in Hillsboro Village at Davis-Cookware, Pangaea, Bookman and the Belcourt and in Parnassus Bookstore .

Wandering the aisles of the hardware store reminds me of being a kid immersed in rummaging through my grandmother's tiny three by four bedroom closet looking for the perfect outfit and heels to play dress up in or seeking gems in my other grandmother's button box, a tin can to most, a treasure chest to me.

In the hardware store, I found my personal equivalent of a treasure chest near the entrance. I had overlooked it initially as I entered intent on hunting drip pans. My treasure chest was a table filled with gardening, landscaping and cook books most through which I looked, noting colors and ideas.

We eventually checked out with a small bottle of biodegradable spot remover and a William-Sonoma cookbook on hors d'oeuvres. I may or may or may not actually cook from it, but the experience of perusing its pages has already been worth two dollars.

I was an explorer as a kid and I am an explorer now happiest when walking life's aisles tuned in to simple wonders. As I explored in the store, the cicada will explore our yard, it's portion of the world for a few days or if it's lucky weeks.

We are surrounded by small wonders. For me closets and tin cans then, bugs and books now rescue me everyday. Small things offer us the chance to awaken from sleepwalking through life. When engaging with small things, the hors d'oeuvres of daily life, we experience wonder and the true value of being alive 

What small things awaken you? In what do you find wonder?

Imagine the Shift.

-Dawn, The Good News Muse, 20 August 2011
dawn@imaginetheshift.com

Memory of Maples

Maple trees are uncommon on my busy, hackberry-dotted city street. Yet here on the edge of my asphalt driveway, the soil holds memory of maples in a strip of lavender and black-eyed susan filled Earth. In this narrow patch of seldom tended soil there has sprouted this summer not one but two maples inches high one waving five leaves when I walk by.

These two little trees remind me if Earth can hold and tend the seed and memory of maples as evidenced here, then the hardest of hearts hold the memory of love and compassion. If the sun's warmth can coax these treasures from soil, our love can call forth healing and hope from soul's seeming so hard and loveless.

-Dawn, The Good News Muse, 17 August 2011

Just Being A Possum - Just Be You

My friend Ernie stopped in last evening to share stories and vegetables. The last story he shared involved saying to a friend perturbed by a possum that the possum was 'just being a possum.' This was revelatory to the friend who had said he would shoot the possum. I totally got this, not the shooting part, but the 'being' part since this weekend a raccoon just being a raccoon got into my little garden.

Ernie's comment got me to thinking how my perspective might shift if I thought this way toward people to whom I react whether it's the driver in front of me throwing a cigarette butt out the window or women and men campaigning for president using strategic sound bites to appeal to the angry, anxious masses.

How might I shift by thinking 'He's just being Rick Perry or Rick Scott' or 'She's just being Michelle Bachman or Sarah Palin'? I suspect I'd be less reactive realizing 'they're just being themselves.'

This might free up my personal energy to get on with the more important challenge and questions: Am I 'just being' Dawn Kirk? What does truly being Dawn feel like inside and how does it look in my day to day life?

This is as good as it gets, which if you really think about it is pretty amazing. We're each here to 'just be' who we really are. No one has ever existed who's just like you, nor will they ever exist. If I be who I am, not who others want me to be, expect me to be or how I think I'm suppose to be, that's well in my opinion miraculously freeing and grand.

Yet in our cookie cutter world, women are still suppose to look like celebrities and men are to act like tough, cowboy types and athletes. (Thus George Bush's appeal to so many women who thought his cowboy look sexy and men who admired him. Oh, that troubles me to write, but he was considered sexy by many women, women into the cowboy archetype and what that represents....and probably some men were into him too. I can't believe I just wrote that. But that's 'just being me.')

Just being oneself is simple yet growing up makes it hard. We come into the world being ourselves yet by adulthood we've lost or forgotten who we really are. The education system and society on the whole values competition and making good grades not creativity and uniqueness. Our public education system has been good at turning out (like a factory assembly line) individuals who follow directions rather than those who think critically, live creatively and are in tune with their emotional, sensory self . Most of us are educated to stay inside the box.

People who become themselves get comfortable living outside the box (or get comfortable with the discomfort) which often means being ridiculed or made fun of and not fitting into prescribed molds and models. They listen deeply within, notice their patterns and don't follow the leader just because he or she is charismatic.

When I remember, like the possum and the song lyrics go: "I've just gotta be me" then I stay focused and internally at peace.

What about you? Who are you...really?

-Dawn, The Good News Muse 11 August 2011
reposted 2 July 2012
dawn@imaginetheshift.com

Stamps, Cows and Vegetables-The Personal Touch

During lunch break while running errands that never got checked off the list before leaving town, I stopped in the Hillsboro Village post office yesterday to get stamps and mail a card. (Yes, some of us still use stamps and the post office.)

Jan, the postal clerk, asked if I wanted pretty stamps and shared how she loves selling folks beautiful stamps. I totally get that. I find joy in placing beautiful stamps on letters and bills. (Yes, we also still pay bills by mail.)

Before leaving, I noticed the post office now sells cloth bags for a dollar and two which led us to talk about the benefits of reusable cloth over plastic.

As I turned to leave, Jan said, "I love my customers." I was so taken by her comment that all I did was smile, but I really wanted to say, "Jan, I love you too."

I walked out reminded of the beauty of the personal touch, how much I find joy exchanging a greeting and brief conversation with another human being especially someone who's receptive and willing to converse.

I then made my way to the 12th Avenue South farmer's market to buy beef from Triple L a local farm that cares for their cows in pastures rather than in concrete feeding barns and doesn't fill them with antibiotics and hormones. (And yes, I'm aware I'm passing judgment on corporate America suggesting they don't love their cattle because how beef is 'manufactured'. Consider watching Food Inc if you haven't. It's available on dvd.)

I arrived home just in time to get back to work and find three bags of squash, beans, potatoes, tomatoes and peppers from my friend Bernie in Fly, TN. These are greatly appreciated since the raccoons got into my squash and beans and ate everything down to the nub.

Stamps, cows that have been lovingly tended, vegetables lovingly grown and the people involved in providing them, these are things of beauty to me. Oh and I must add the raccoons since they too are a part of the web of life and were here long before my little raised beds.

Our divides may be many in these times, but the personal touch is easily lost in our hectic lives. Technology and science has gifted us with cures, communication and entertainment devices and much of what we use everyday, yet nothing can take the place of the personal "Hello, how are you?, the smile or comments like Jan's "I love my customers."

How do you experience the personal touch in your own life?

-Dawn, The Good News Muse, 10 August 2011
dawn@imaginetheshift.com

The Wedge

He who works with his hands is a laborer.
He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman.
He who works with his hands, his head and his heart in an artist.

-St. Francis of Assisi

This week while passing through Asheville, I went to the Wedge, one of the town's many brew
pubs as Asheville vies with Portland, Oregon in becoming America's brew capital.

Personally I liked the bean bag toss (at which I sucked) and the decor, metal parts welded together to create art.

But words painted in various sections across the outdoor wall caught my attention. The words were those above of St. Francis.

Later it occurred to me that the powers that be have tried to convince most people that they're laborers when really we're all artists. We all have hands, hearts and minds yet what was once factory owners and now corporate America needs our hands to do their labor and thus make them millions rather than realize we are artists.


If we're going through the motions of living without really engaging in life life becomes labor and we are more likely to be divided, to have a wedge driven between us.

With presence and heart, labor is art. With presence and heart, living is art. I imagine a world in which each person realizes he or she is an artist! Imagine that shift.

-Dawn, The Good News Muse, 5 August 2011
dawn@imaginetheshift.com

Thank You, Mothers, Everywhere

Thank you, Mother. I don't know how you did it

My day ends more peacefully than it began. This morning across the river from my little 8 by 6 balcony, I awoke to find kids of varying ages throwing rocks in the river. Now the throwing of rocks didn't bother me although I did find myself wondering why they didn't just get in and get wet. The river is more stream-like and not that deep. But instead of getting in they proceeded boys and girls alike to see who could pick up the largest rocks and throw them in at the river's edge in hopes of wetting their shore-bound peers with a splash.

I was grateful the ducks weren't around, the ducks that have been here all week, two parents and two babies that follow their folks wherever they go.

Tuesday night there were three babies. I went inside with the ducks visible down river on a rock. On a rock away from the bank were nestled three furry young ones surrounded by their parents protecting them from harm that might come from the shore.

In the span of one morning, there were suddenly only two babies following their mother. I hoped even into today that number three would show up having hidden in a crevice along the bank, but he or she didn't.

Instead children and campers galore arrived this morning before nine. I found it satisfying to see children outdoors instead of inside until one of the boys in the group threw a huge rock at a duck that appeared.

I suddenly heard myself shout, a shout that surprised even myself, "Stop it. Do not throw rocks at the ducks."

He stopped as did his friends, their heads all hanging down to which I added, "Have fun in the water but don't throw things at the animals. Pick on someone your own size." I could have left that last sentence off but I said it.

The last time I recall saying this was actually in relation to ducks. Over ten years ago I was swimming in a lake at an Arkansas State park when a guy three times my size threw a small boulder into a group of ducks.

I was in waist deep water as was he. I watched him reach down fearing I knew what he was about to do and unfortunately I did as he lobbed a large rock at the ducks. Without thinking, I yelled, "Hey, pick on someone your own size."

He began to walk toward me only slowed by the water and stopped by the verbal prodding of two friends on the shore shouting, "Hey man, it's only a woman."

Being 'only a woman' probably kept me from being beaten up or at least verbally threatened and abused, but it is not okay with me for people to act violently toward animals. I do not like bullies.

In today's situation I wondered why the adults were putting up the tents without the help of the children in the group. (Yes, feet from the river adults put up three tents as this interaction occurred.)

I rationalized that at least two or three of the rock throwers probably felt inferior to another or at least picked on somewhere in life thus to deal with this he threw rocks hoping to wet someone 'lesser' than himself.

I wondered if these were the children who would become wolf stalkers in Sarah Palin's Alaska. It's called hunting, but true hunting involves meeting the animal on its turf and not in the air, chasing them for miles in a helicopter as was legalized by once Gov. Palin.

All day I've quietly dreaded returning to my room and balcony. This is not how vacation is suppose to be spent. So before going 'home' for the evening, we drove through the camp ground across the river. Seeing how the campers are packed in, made me feel a bit of empathy.

We stopped by the skateboard pack across the way and watched local bikers and boarders take to the ramps and fly through the air and something about seeing young people active and outside made things more okay.

We sat on the balcony watching a man fly fish and another family knee deep in water collect rocks. The ducks were nowhere to be seen until I spied the mother and her two young ones, growing larger every day, swimming along the shoreline.

Finally to my relief, she swam and they followed from across the river to the bank nearest me where she ensured her two young ones were cleaned and tucked in for the night .

I watched and thought, 'I don't know how mother's do it, watch over, protect and gradually let their children go.' All I know is I viscerally felt at ease seeing these dear animals tucked in peace for the night, tucked in at peace.

As I turn in I say a prayer of blessing. Bless Mothers, human mothers and animal mothers alike, who instinctively protect their young and guide them along the river of life.

-Dawn, The Good News Muse 5 August 2011

Suns Along the Roadside - Benevolence in America

Suns of the floral kind along the Blue Ridge Parkway and Smoky Mountain byways remind me Earth carries Sun energy as do we. Every time we savor a plant from Earth we partake in the Sun as Sun so willingly shares her energy with us.

All of Nature shares. How is it we don't do likewise? How did we forget reciprocity?

How is it we're taught to share as children yet we've arrived at such an unsharing time in history?

Sharing is still taught I suspect in the majority of families, yet poor people actually donate a greater percentage of their income to causes than do middle and upper income folk. I'm certain my parents shared more monetarily than I do.

In the bigger picture of un-sharing times politically, programs that once benefited the environment and created our National Parks as well as those serving children, the elderly and the impoverished continue to be on the chopping block having been placed there during the Bush era. The vulnerable seem to lack the priority that oil, gas, coal, banking and the defense industry have.

Someone in the Facebook world of sharing recently commented that he once worked in a program in which a female client had over a dozen children by several different men implying she had all these children because of the money she could rake in. The man seemed to be blaming his client, not the men who impregnated her. Nor did he seem to be connecting the dots and holding the possibilities in the bigger picture.

I may have misunderstood his comment but I found myself wondering, 'Could the woman afford birth control or what story had the men told about being unable to use condoms. Who had abused her in her young life, leaving her vulnerable to using herself as a sexual object to get love or needs met?'

The day after reading this man's post, I was on the Blue Ridge parkway. The yellow flowers weren't the only things catching our eye. An odd marker a few miles outside Cherokee caught our attention. We passed it on several drives before finally making the turn to seek the marker at Black Camp Gap. Off the beaten path, was this amazing monument made of stones sent from Masonic groups around the world and dedicated to Universal Benevolence and signifying the ideals of equality, morality, charity and the brotherhood of humanity.

This marker was dedicated in 1938, 100 hundred years after the "Trail of Tears" and during the time of America's Great Depression. Then as today, the economy was on many minds. Then I sense something else was also on everyone's mind, that being 'How can I help my neighbor or fellow man?' It feels like people back then were more in this together while we're pitted against one another.

What has happened to benevolence in these times? Nationally celebrating "Let's Make a Difference Day" once a year doesn't cut it.

Doing good things and being kind is part of the fabric of who we are. Fortunately and sadly, crisis seems to best bring out our benevolent side.

I don't have all the answers but I do know that if we came to truly experience our connection with Earth and practiced the sharing she models, we would stop our hoarding, greeding and blaming and wake up to the beauty of this Earthen world. We would wake up to a world in which fire held in earth births the fire of roadside flowers, a world in which the fire of heart births deep acts of benevolence and compassionate understanding.

This is the world I imagine and envision. This is the world we're here to create.

-Dawn, The Good News Muse, 8 August 2011
dawn@imaginetheshift.com

The Dung Beetle - Turning Shit into Sustenance

Hiking the Deep Creek trail in the Smoky's yesterday I came upon a first. No, not just a pile of shit, but a little dung beetle who in his world had found a pile of gold.

He'll use the shit he's been gifted turning it into sustenance for feeding and breeding. I watched him and thought can we do likewise? Can we find the gold in the shit handed to us whether it's a result of betrayal by situations, strangers, friends or family or by those in power, politicians in all parties who have sold out to corporations?

In the seconds it took to get my camera out of its case, the little beetle had rolled his gold over a yard away from the horse manure on the trail. (He's in the far left corner of the photo to the left rolling away.) He didn't call a committee meeting or press conference to outsource or contract his job to someone else. He was deliberate, focused and fast.

Since this encounter I've learned they can roll up to fifty times their weight. How many of us carry that much weight metaphorically when it comes to societal challenges? We're more likely to fight and argue over who's not carrying their fair share of the weight of living. Some folks categorize and complain about welfare mothers while I'm personally more prone to complain about millionaires not paying an equitable share of taxes.

It seems human beings tend to resort to certain locked in responses when given shit. Some folks immediately cast blame, something increasingly popular that was unheard of or less heard during my grandparents generation. These people have one mode, complaining and blaming which becomes more rigid in times of stress, doom, gloom and fear (which according to most media sources we're suppose to be living in the midst of.)

Other folks ask what can be done with what they've been given. They see possibilities in problems. These are the make-lemonade-from-your-lemons folks. They look for the gold, the opportunities buried in the context like the beetle who finds opportunity in shit.

Some of us may disagree politically but these are potentially shit filled times to most all regular folk regardless of one's socioeconomic or political leanings. As individuals we get to choose our response to the times.

As I'm hiking life's trail, I want to be like the beetle, taking what I'm given or find and seeing within it the sustenance, the opportunity for gold. In turn I hope to make the world, a richer place.

How will you respond to the shit in your life?

=Dawn, The Good News Muse, 3 August 2011
dawn@imaginetheshift.com