Imagine the Shift to Joy

I've not given birth to children of the two-legged kind, but I feel like it at times.  Today for example as I awaited Jerry's arrival, I moved chairs into the yard so we could watch sunset.  As I did, I saw the first nubs of crocus green emerging through the nearby pebbles.

I exclaimed, "Hi" then got down on my knees to get a closer look and also tell them to not rush.  "It's cold out here" I added.

Yesterday it was hyacinth crowns I found pushing through Mother Earth's brown body. 

Green and growing things open up deep joy in me.  It may sound strange but as Jerry neared I thought, 'I can't wait to tell him the kids are here.'  My children are heart children, they touch my heart, they have opened my heart which is why so often life here on Earth breaks my heart. 

If I could change something in our world, it would be for everyone to find and feel joy in seeing green shoots breaking through brown, hearing the red-belly woodpecker call from high in the tree or smelling the earthy scent of grass even in winter.

I want to believe that if the masses remembered joy, the pure joy of being alive in Nature, we would have so much less violence in our world.

This may be one of the deeper issues overlooked in the gun debate.  With all due respect to those who have lost loved ones especially recently in Connecticut,but doesn't joylessness kill so many and they don't even know they're dying?
 

I imagine the Shift to Joy.

-Dawn, The Good News Muse  4 January 2013

dawn@imaginetheshift.com