"Hey," I Exclaimed, "That Was My Idea!"

 I read an author on Substack who said she was tired of publishers not paying her, and she was going to begin writing a series of small books.

 "Hey," I exclaimed, "that was my idea!"

Writing small books, I mean.

Well, there is room for both of us, but isn't it odd when an idea is floating around and more than one person gets it? I heard that when Albert Lamorisse wrote The Red Balloon, to his dismay, another author was also presenting a book by the same title for publication. Both were published. (A title is one thing not copyrightable.) Lamorisse's book, made into a movie, won an Academy Award. (His young son plays the protagonist.)

Lamorisse was a filmmaker and was praised for his photography, yet while filming another movie, his helicopter crashed, killing all aboard. His grown-up son and wife completed the movie and released it posthumously. (I keep finding dead authors, darn it.)

I love novels, and I usually have one running all the time, but reading them takes time, and time is a precious commodity. You can read a short story in one sitting, and it is more fun than a bunch of real-life How-tos. Besides, I want to get to the questions and answers quickly.  People have asked these same questions for eons, and will continue to do so for eons to come, however, they are fun to ask, and the answers are as different as the person asking them. "What’s my purpose? Why am I here? Where do we go from here? What sort of spirituality rings true for me?"

I reach out tentatively and touch the questions, throw a few crumbs their way, drop a little magic, and run away.

Here are the first two books in my "WHERE" series,

10,000 words or less—fiction.

 

Two so far:

Number 1: Where Tiger's Belch, 8,791  words.

Number two: Where the Frogs Sing Café, 6,766 words.

Remember Edward Abby's quote? He gives an invocation better than I can:

"May your rivers flow without end, meandering through pastoral valleys tinkling with bells, past temples and castles and poets' towers into a dark primeval forest where tigers belch and monkeys howl, where something strange and more beautiful and more full of wonder than your deepest dreams wait for you — beyond that next turning of the canyon walls." –Edward Abby

As we go through life, not only have our bodies been bruised, but our spirits have often been as well. Yet, a few words can shine light into a dark hole, tickle our funny bone, or motivate us.

This series is my try.

"Don't try, do."—Yoda

Carry on. Do good work,

P.S. In searching for other books of this genre, (I don’t know what their genre is called) I found two authors who have written books the sort I aspire to. I’ve read two books from each. One author is John Strelecky, The Café at the End of the World, A Story About the Meaning of Life. “Over 4 million sold,” so says the cover. See, I know there are people who like these sorts of books. The other is Michael V. Ivanov. The Traveler’s Secret, Ancient Proverbs for Better Living. (Five stars.)

Yea, live authors.

Here we go with Number Two:

 Excerpt from Where The Frogs Sing Cafe: 

 

 

Copyright © 2025

ISBN: 979-8-9906076-2-0

Published by The Frog’s Song Publishing Junction City, OR 97448

 

Cover design by Joyce Davis

 

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the author's prior permission.

 

Chapters

 

Chapter 1 Voted the Best Café by My Mother

Chapter 2 The Green Flash

Chapter 3 Who Created This System Anyway?

Chapter 4 Underground Railroad

Chapter 5 Where is That Person?

Chapter 6 Life Beyond the Horizon

Chapter 7 I Vote for That

 

"May your rivers flow without end, meandering through pastoral valleys tinkling with bells, past temples and castles, and poet's towers into dark primeval forest where tigers belch, and monkeys howl…beyond that next turning of the canyon walls."

–Edward Abbey  

 

“Frogs sing the eternal call to life and happiness.”

 

 1

"Voted the Best Café by My Mother"

 

 Carolyn, Freda, and I were barreling down a lava-based road in our rented Jeep while cane grass as high as the Jeep's hood slapped us on both sides. We thought a Jeep suited us, but by the end of this day, we felt beaten up from the constant wind in our hair and sun on our cheeks. And why in the heck were we on this road?

We had seen a sign tucked in alongside the highway, barely visible if you were going any speed at all: "Voted the Best Café by My Mother," it read. We laughed but kept on going until we saw the second sign: "Where the Frog's Sing Café" with an arrow pointing to the road we were now on.

The road didn't look like one that would lead to a café, but after our day of snorkeling in the ocean, sunning on the beach, and being wind-whipped to pieces in an open-air jeep, we were exhausted and starving.

And so, when the sign indicated a café ahead, we aimed toward it.

We were on summer break from college, and although it might seem that a trip to Hawaii is a luxurious holiday, our families got together to give us three girls this trip. My Aunt Mable gave us her Condo share for a week, our folks paid for our airline tickets, and we scraped together enough money to live for seven days.

We were all juniors in college and had been friends since high school, but there we were, exhausted after our junior year and worried about what to do after graduation. Our folks decided we needed a break, and so they gave us this gift, like the Twelve Days of Christmas minus eleven.

Eventually, the lava-encrusted, lumpy road through the cane grass ended at a strip of golden/white sand. And there on that beautiful sand sat a Robinson Crusoe-style shack with a sign under its thatched roof, Where the Frogs Sing Café.

When I (the designated driver) cut the motor, we heard the surf pounding off in the distance.

"Jo," Carolyn attentively asked from the passenger seat, "do you think this is safe?"

"We have only met friendly people," I said. "This looks like the sort of place poor college students would frequent, a Barefoot pub on the beach. Besides, do you think that fellow we met while snorkeling would steer us wrong? He said there was a shortcut to our condo beside a café titled Where the Frogs Sing? He seemed nice."

"Well, you were flirting with him, no wonder he was nice."

"All the more reason to trust him. He was flirting back." I opened the car door and swung my legs out. 

end of excerpt 

 

Where The Frogs Sing Cafe will be available on Kindle in a day or two. In the meantime, since you are my blog readers, and if you want to read the rest of the story, or don't have Kindle, I will send you a PDf file for Free to your email. You can be my first readers. See what you think.  This offer will only be available this week. Thanks for reading.

Oh, I need your email address to send it. No worries, I never let emails creep out of my box. My dog guards it.

Go to joshappytrails at gmail.com/ You know what at means. Type it in. Whohoo! Sing with the frogs. Say YES.

Oh Crap, She's Up

 

 

Old Charles Dickens had it right:

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,”

“It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness,

“It was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair,”

“We had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way–

“In short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only. –A Tale of Two Cities (published in 1859)

 

“Almost everything will work again if you unplug if for a few minutes—including you."

—Anne Lamott

 

 We need time to clear out the enormous amount of mental and emotional clutter that is clogging our minds and hearts.

 

In 1859, Dickens described a condition that sounds similar to ours. We could say, "Man alive, this just keeps coming around. I guess we're not all that much different", or we could say. "We can create a life worth living."

Right now, let's unplug.

 

I often speak of creativity, for I believe everyone has a creative spark. Every kid has one; why should we lose it after we've grown a big body?

 

Speaking of big bodies, I have to tell you, a few days ago, while I was waiting at a red light, I saw a pencil person wearing a T-shirt and slim pants walking toward me. This person was one of the thinnest and tallest individuals I had ever seen. They walked straight and tall, gracefully down the street. There before me was a skinny, four-legged creature (with two arms and two legs) balancing on two little feet, one of which was off the ground half the time, waiting for the other foot to set down and support its weight. I said aloud to myself, "That is a physical impossibility."

 

"They" turned out to be a female, and she walked tall with grace and fluidity.

 

It's a good thing most of us learn to walk before we have the thought that it is impossible.

My husband’s uncle, (Does that make him my uncle?) had a double leg amputation and said he thought that learning to walk on two artificial legs was impossible, yet he did it. (The prosthesis makers shortened him, though, he said.)

 

Does a toddler stop walking the first time they plop on their butt? Nope. They laugh, get up, and try again. How many tries do we give our child before we say, "They will never learn to walk?"

No, they keep trying until they walk.

It's a miracle.

 

Don't give up, folks. We learned to walk, we can do about anything.

(If you can't walk, there are mechanical devices to do it for you, or someone will carry you. See, we are caring, ingenious people.)

Read

 

Don't you sometimes want to read something that packs a punch and gets to the point quickly?

I love reading novels. We can take our time reading them or stay up until 2 a.m., savoring every line. Let's face it though, we don't have all the time in the world, and we are thirsty for answers.

This is my idea; to write a series of short books, under ten thousand words. Not  a How- to- Book, but fiction where I can investigate those questions we ask ourselves in the dark of night. "Why am I here? What's my purpose? Do I have a purpose?" 

Where Tigers Belch--it's been out for awhile and I have mentioned it before, so please indulge me so I can offer it for those who don't know about it. 

Where Tigers Belch is 8,801 words, and now that I am well into a second book, I am offering an excerpt from the Tiger book so you can get a taste of the sort I’m talking about.

Using Edward Abbey's lyrical poem as my inspiration, I am incorporating 'where' into the titles.

"May your rivers flow without end, meandering through pastoral valleys tinkling with bells, past temples and castles, and poets' towers into dark primeval forest where tigers belch, and monkeys howl…beyond that next turning of the canyon walls."–Edward Abbey 

The second book is Where the Frogs Sing Café. (An excerpt will come.)

Upon searching for books of this sort, I found two authors who write in this category: John Strelecky’s story about the meaning of life sold over 4 million copies." (In my dreams.)  I’ve read two of his books.

And Michael V. Ivanov. (About Pursuing Dreams) I love his speech title: "Stay Alive All Your Life." Oh my gosh, I just saw he lives in Portland, OR, right up the 1-5 Freeway from us.

I’ve read two of his books.

 

Here is an excerpt from

 

Where Tigers Belch

By

Jo Davis

  

An Introduction plus ten chapters are included in the book.

 

Introduction

 

Tomorrow I will take my backpack, I will add a few bottles of water and a couple of sandwiches and set off to find my destiny.

We aren’t on safari here, although I wish we were. We're here to find the spot that lights our fire. That's where the tiger belches. I could say sleep, lies down, or roars, but I like Abby's lyrical poem, so I'm saying, "Where it belches."

Paulo Coelho, wrote The Alchemist, in which a shepherd boy begins a quest to find a treasure—he calls that treasure  his "Personal legend."

Since human beings first became aware that they were thinking, they have asked questions such as Coelho is asking. “Why am I here? Do I have a purpose? Can I trust a Higher Power to look out for me? Is life simply working to supply our basic needs, shelter, food, water, and reproducing?”

While in Africa, Martha Beck found herself in an awkward and dangerous place. She was between a Momma rhinoceros and her baby. Standing there looking at an animal the size of a Volkswagen bus, she experienced a strange phenomenon. She was frightened, yes, but she also felt elated. She was at a place she had dreamed of since childhood, and at that moment, that rhinoceros represented her one true nature. She felt that, somehow, she had come face to face with her destiny. (Between a rhino and a hard place?)

Perhaps that rhino was a talisman for her, a representation of what she could become: big, strong, able to overcome obstacles, that thing that both scares us and elates us. We hope we live to tell of it when we find ourselves in that place.

Being at a spot where a tiger belch has a gentler ring than coming face-to-face with a rhino. The purpose is the same. However, which would you rather face, a wild tiger or a wild rhino?

I don't think we can take credit for all we have produced, for I believe in muses and divine intervention.  However, we can take credit for searching. I search for my figurative or literal spot where the tiger belches.

 

 

Chapter 1

You might think I spent the night quivering in my debris hut, listening for the footfalls of wild animals.

I did.

I'm joking. I slept like a relaxed dog lying on his back with all four paws in the air.

I was on a mission and wouldn't let a minor inconvenience stop me.

Ahead was the goal of my life.

I spent yesterday walking, but when a washed-out area of the path sent me sliding into an avalanche of mud, I slid downhill, screaming and grasping at the vegetation.

My careening stopped short of a stream, thank heavens. I had scraped my hands on the way down, and made my throat raw from the screaming, but I survived to the tune of birds screeching and wing flapping as they fled from the treetops, painting a smear of colors across the sky.

I washed my hands in the stream and ate one of the tuna fish sandwiches I had placed in a plastic container to keep them from getting mushed. I drank my bottled water and gathered sticks and debris for an enclosure where I spent the night.  

Now you might be waiting for me to fall on my face, and I may—I slid down the muddy slope, didn't I? But what if we travel through life knowing it will turn out well for us?

I crawled out of my enclosure, stripped off my clothes, and bathed in the stream.

Figuring that the stream—which flowed at a pretty good clip—was pure, I filled my empty water bottles.

I put the bottles into my backpack, and found a surprise. (Did I tell you I had lost my backpack on the way down that embankment and had to climb, holding onto vegetation for support, back up to get it? I slipped back down again—but I saved my backpack.) I had used this pack before and had left a pen and a paper pad in its zipped-up compartment. I searched to see if I had anything else tucked away.

I found three sticks of gum, old and dried up, a chocolate mint from a restaurant long ago, melted, flattened, and reset, but still in its foil wrapper. There were a few crumbs of leftover peanuts and salt at the bottom of the pack. I dipped a wet finger in the salt and licked it. It gave me the taste of having potato chips – a good aftertaste for my tuna fish sandwich.

Okay, dry, dressed, fed, and invigorated after that cold bath, I began skipping down the new path destiny had chosen for me.

Besides, I knew that following a stream usually led somewhere. Water goes downhill, not in circles, as I am apt to do.

What if I get lost? I think as I walk along—a moment of doubt. What if I run out of food or get eaten by a tiger?  Well, I'd be dead. I don't know where I am now anyway. I might as well proceed. I'm determined.

I take off my tee shirt, dip it in the stream, and put it back on to cool my steaming body. I sit beside the stream, gather some reeds, and weave them into a ratty-looking hat. It protects my head, and the wet grass helps keep me at a tolerable temperature.

I keep walking; the sun beats down hot, and it is humid and muggy under the forest's canopy.

Occasionally, a monkey screams at me, sometimes they sing in a full-on chorus of screeching, but I keep on.

Another night in the jungle? What did I get myself into?

Suddenly, I hear someone humming.

Am I coming upon an encampment?

I stop and hold my breath as I peer through the jungle thicket. I see only one hut.

Standing there where I am, hidden in the trees, I see an old woman come out of a shelter. Her white hair frizzes out in a tangle, flowing down her back. She is wearing a turquoise sarong tied above her bosom. Her shoulders are bare. She ambles, carrying a jug to the stream where she dips it into the water. She hefts the filled jug out of the water and settles it on her hip.

As she is walking back to her hut, she calls out to me.

"Why are you standing there, gawking? Come in out of the heat. I've been expecting you."

more

 

 

 

 

When Donkey's Fly!

 

 

                                                                   Patch Adams

 

People like the man in the picture above, ones who crop up every so often, ones who make a difference, give me new hope.

The past 100+ days have tested my faith in people.

"I didn't see this coming," said Kamala Harris on the Steven Colbert show.

What was it she didn't see?

“Ca·pit·u·la·tion,” she said.

•      The action of surrendering or ceasing to resist an opponent or demand: "A capitulation to wage demands"

The people caved in.

I didn't see it either. I thought the people would be outraged to see someone they trusted tear down human rights and freedom we have enjoyed and is the framework of our country.  I believed in the greatness of the American people, still do, but there are a significant number of those who oppose the things for which we have held in high regard. (Or else, because our system hasn't been perfect, they are willing to see it fall.)

 I said I would pull back on discussing politics. Now I wonder, if we don't express our distaste for what is happening, is that letting the liar, cheat, rapist, demagogue, narcissist, and general sociopath get a free pass? He blames his opponents and threatens citizens who dare criticize him. Folks, does that sound like someone we want as President?

He de-funds Universities, for heaven's sake—are we going to allow the end of academic freedom?

That would signal a dying civilization.

Now he is after the Olympics. And he makes numerous assaults on his opponents, saying they have a low IQ. I don't care how high your IQ is; if you don't feed that beautiful brain of yours with good stuff, you will come out one evil smart-alecky creep.

I am repeating myself here, but I learned a lot about democracy from Barbara Kingsolver's book The Poisonwood Bible, particularly when she wrote about the governments' attempts (In the 1950's and 1960's) to introduce democracy into the Congo.

The Congolese people got the idea that it was a government by the people and that people voted for whom or whatever they wanted. The trouble was they rushed to a vote before any discussion or consensus, as is expected of a jury.

The wise elder of the village said, "When a country is divided 49-51, half the country is mad all the time." 

Their democracy didn't work.

De-funding Public Broadcasting? Forcing companies to fire comedians?  Deporting Immigrants? Threatening to take citizenship away from citizens born in this country? And then expect me to play nice and not talk about politics?

When donkeys fly.

My lesson was this: go ahead and comment, have your ideas, share, but keep a glad heart. Don't let yourself jump off the deep end. Once a friend and I went to see Patch Adams in Eugene, OR. He was the doctor who formed the "Gesundheit Institute." Robin Williams played him in the movie Patch Adams. 

It was a small gathering, and Adams told my friend Betty she could sit on his lap. I asked him how he managed to maintain joy in the face of misery. He said, "That's when I need it the most."

He didn't tell me how, but I understood his TRY. 

I went to the Chiropractor today because I sprained my back. As he gently relieved my muscles, he told me he had taken a trip to London and Paris since our last visit. He said when he first stepped onto a street in France, a moped raced past. The driver had a white scarf waving in the wind, and on the back of the bike, there was a bag with a baguette poking out. Picture perfect. He couldn't believe it.

He was surprised at how friendly the French people were; someone would come up to him, gently ask a question, and end by saying: "You are not that much different from us."  That young man was being a goodwill ambassador for the U.S.

Way to go. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My Daughter Says I'm too Involved In Politics

 

My Daughter Says I'm too Involved In Politics

 

My daughter says I am too involved in politics, and she’s right, it’s driving me nuts.

So, for the past week I am deep breathing life into a sequel of Wish on White Horses.

 I want a positive place to fall. A place to force me into a more positive mind set, plus it’s a celebration, one that is more Google friendly and has more capabilities, so here we go.

 www.wishonwhitehorses2.com 

 

I have never been a very political person. In college I had to read an entire damn book on political science because we were required—not to take a class on Political science—but to pass a test on the U.S. Governmental policies and guidelines before we could graduate. I had reached that time and age without knowing much about the workings of the government, and I didn't care. I had more things on my mind, like school and maintaining a house and life for two college students. Thus, I read the book, and passed the test.

Could our President pass that test?

These many years later, I couldn't pass it either, but then I’m not the President, and

I recognize a mess when I see one.

 It appears that people are going on with their lives, oh, some are talking about the mess, and many want to throw a towel over it so we don’t have to see it, hear about it, smell it, or clean it up.

I know the mess is still there, but the stench is making me sick.

If you’re sick, take a break.

And with the loss of the lady I mentioned in my last two blogs, Terry Cole-Whittiker, I feel a disturbance in the force.

So, I go to her site and read this:

 

“Success avoids people whose minds are clouded by doubts.”

 

I invite you to visit my new website

www.wishonwhitehorses2.com/

(Don’t forget the 2)

And don’t forget this one, https://www.wishonwhitehorses.com/ I will still post on it.

 

Terry Cole-Whittiker

 

 Terry at home at Mt. Shasta.

 

One day in San Diego, California, I stood in our front yard and called out to the Great Spirit: "I want this to stop and I want it now."

I had privacy as our yard faced a canyon, and from my cry, you might surmise that my life was in turmoil.

The following Sunday, I went to Terry Cole-Whittiker's church, and I've been on a spiritual roll ever since.

Yesterday, July 27, I mentioned Terry on my blog, and after that, I checked to see if she had posted anything recently. She hadn't. And then, I found that she had passed away peacefully in her sleep on October 22, 2024.

At first, I didn't believe it, for when you look up people on the internet, many times they will say they have died. But I kept searching, and I guess it's true.

I had spoken with her, I thought, within the year. I had emailed her and thanked her once again for the workshop I took with her at Mt Shasta in 2023. She said she would call, and we could catch up. We spoke on the phone, and I found that she was living in a Tiny House in Washington State, I think in Olympia.

This powerhouse of a woman once began a ministry for Science of the Mind in La Jolla, CA. She moved to San Diego and started Terry Cole-Whittiker's ministry, where she grew her congregation from 50 in La Jolla to over 5,000 in a Sunday service in San Diego. She also spread her message further through a television program.

I was a Sunday regular. That was home, and from that I branched out into other teachings.

During one of Terry's classes, she asked all of us to stand up, grasp the back of the chair in front of us, and grip it. Hold on. Hold on," she kept telling us.

Finally, some of us let go.

"Why did you let go?' she asked.

A voice piped up, "Because we were tired of holding on."

"That's the reason we let go of things," she said.

One day, I volunteered at their offices to take telephone calls, listen to questions, and say a prayer for the person.

When I walked into the room, I told the person in charge that I didn't know what I was doing."

"You'll learn it by doing," she said, pointed to the phone, and turned me loose with no monitoring.

I was impressed with her attitude and happy that I didn't have someone looking over my shoulder. I took the calls and had a blast.

Finally, Terry said that the ministry was running her, not the other way around, so she stopped. She moved on, being her own person, writing books, setting up workshops in Hawaii, traveling to India, and ultimately moving into nature.

She settled in Mt. Shasta, Oregon.

A few years ago, I decided to drive from our town outside Eugene, Oregon, to Mt. Shasta for a weekend retreat with Terry.  It was over a July 4 weekend, and the workshop consisted of one other person besides me.

Terry cooked Vegetarian for us, and on the second day, drove us to an alpine Meadow on Mt Shasta. I had never visited an Alpine meadow, and I was awe stricken. Water prickled through the meadow, flowers were in blossom, it was open and green, and astoundingly beautiful. We walked into the forest and followed a trail to a lake where we could dip our feet in mountain water, and throughout the walk and the day, Terry taught the principles for which she has become known.

 And I have never felt more loved.

After we closed for the weekend, Hanna, my fellow participant, had taken this retreat before and was thus relatively quiet during the discussions, wanting me to have the experience, escorted me to the town of Mt. Shasta to see the "Headwaters" of Mt. Shasta.

At the City Park, there is a pond where 50-year-old, hand-numbingly cold-water rushes from the ground through moss-covered rocks into a clear pool called "Big Springs."

Every day, people come with jugs to collect the water.  According to a 2009 study commissioned by California Trout, water bubbling from Big Springs – from an aquifer of the same name – fell high on the slopes of Mt. Shasta more than 50 years ago.

This is the same aquifer that Crystal Geyser taps for its water from a manufacturing facility on Ski Village Drive. The company has private wells and water rights to water from Mt. Shasta.

Terry’s home was a farm house in an open countryside in a beautiful setting, surrounded by lush green pastures, and no houses close by. She ran around ran around barefoot, connected to the ground she adores, and took people on spiritual excursions.

From high stakes in San Diego, a darling of Hollywood, and once wearing designer suits and high heels, she bought clothing from the local Thrift store, walked barefoot through a mountain meadow, preaching as she had always done.

Terry was home.

"Thank you for Loving Me," a video of Terry Cole-Whittiker.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20VJdlMKG6g/

Love you girl.

Blessings on your journey. 

 

 Terry in her meadow.

Something is Stirring

For a long time, I've been interested in self-help books, seminars, workshops, Tony Robbins, Abraham, and bodywork. I've taken two six-month trainings in—now, so many years later, I don't know what to call those two full days a week for a year. They included rebirthing, spirituality, a sharing of feelings, and a process that leaders called a Breakthrough. From what to what? I used to think that if it wasn't painful, it wasn't working.

Well, that's a bunch of crap.

After all that, I'm glad I did it, now I am at a crossroads. Perhaps you feel that way too, feeling confused, angry, and physically tired in a way that lying down doesn't alleviate. We are seeing the collapse of many things we hold dear; things we thought would last forever.

Yet something is stirring. Do you feel it?

Something is happening.

Not the deportation of people, the threats of losing citizenship, the firing of comedians, the silencing of voices, of public media threatened, not all that.

It’s a rising up of people.

  

A new day is coming, a day filled with hope and joy, where we care for each other, the earth, the animals, plants, water, and even things we don't consider living.  

Consider this: even gangs and mobsters are loyal to their families. They have a shared belief, not necessarily a good one, but with it comes a need to belong—to love and be loved.

In moments of crisis, we rise to the occasion. We are good people. Some people would jump into ice-cold water to save a stranger or an animal in need. We talk people off bridges so they don't jump off. We care at a level we don't even know we have.

I hear voices crying in the wilderness. They are calling forth a new day. They are the hope of the future.

Can you hear them?

Can you feel them?

Notice how it feels when you walk into a room full of people.

Part of that feeling comes from your own anxiety, but you know when you feel safe and when you don't. You know when you are welcome and when you aren't.

 

I used to attend a Church in San Diego, California, whose minister was Terry Cole-Whitticker. The day I walked into that church, I felt at home. 

Terry's church rang, it sang, it danced. It was positive.  it sang, it danced. It was positive. Terry spoke while looking at the audience, she spoke of good things not bad. She told the choir to memorize their songs so they sang directly to the people. 

One day, at a service, a man gave me a flower, and that simple flower meant so much. How can we make it better? You give it to someone else. How much love can a single flower give? 

One day Terry said that if we brought a hurting person into that room all the love that was stirring would heal them. This energy level takes more than one person. 

But Terry was one person with a dream and determination, she brought people together, motivated them, and they synergistically raised the collective consciousness.

When you leave this blog my hope is, my determination is, that you will feel uplifted.

 

 

"We're the ones to make a brighter day, so let's start giving."

                         --written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie

"We're The Ones to Make A Brighter Day" is the largest-selling Charity single record In 1985 it raised more than $80 million (equivalent to $229 million in 2024) for the people of Africa impacted by the 1985 famine.

 

"It's in every one of us to be wise…"

—song by David Pomeranze

I'm singing that song today.

 

Forgive me but this made me laugh so hard I have to post it.

From Scotland: