Twitter and the Blue Bird of Happiness

You may be old enough (or not) to remember "the blue bird of happiness." Wikipedia, source of all interesting information says the blue bird (here the species as well as the symbol, I reckon) is "the most universally accepted symbol of cheerfulness, happiness, prosperity, hearth and home, good health, new births, the renewal of springtime."

I keep seeing Twitter ads with all those little blue birds cheeping and hopping and frankly, they make me smile. Even giggle. It's a good thing. I'm reminded of how easy it is to laugh at anything or even no-thing just because. And I'm reminded of how beautiful the birds are.

I was working in the yard snatching vines off of a bank today and found a dove egg. Now I've seen sparrow eggs and robin's eggs and eggs of all sorts--this is an egg of a different sort. It almost glows with pearlescence. I only know it's a dove egg because I know they nest in this particular cedar.

It's unfortunate that this dove egg fell, and miraculous that it landed intact. Perhaps there was a bluebird watching, or twittering in the cedar announcing the fall and stirring the wind to move branches in such as way as to soften the egg's fall. The beautiful soft glowing egg just sits, being beautiful.

It sits, glowing, on my kitchen windowsill. There's that Twitter commercial again...and all those blue birds

Finding Balance at the Edge of the Cliff

Went to yoga this morning. It was great. Thankfully my yoga teacher has a sense of humor, and looks on yoga as "playful"--a way to see what you body will do, and a shorter distance to the floor when you fall (provided you're practicing balance exercises from the floor!).

"You find your balance at the edge of the cliff," she said, "just when you're about to fall." Is this true or what?! I'd spent yesterday about to fall, even lost my footing a time or two, and gratefully friends helped pull me back to the safety of solid ground. I found my balance, and regained my footing.

Wish the world's leaders could do the same.

Risks Increase for Child Abuse: Self-Care Even More Critical

The ultimate customer for all of us: our children and the children in our communities. Yet with the economic difficulties, children in families that might otherwise be able to maintain their stability and health become more at risk for experiencing adverse childhood experiences, those ACEs that are so expensive for so long (www.acestudy.org).

Self-care, important all the time, is even more important when stress increases. A lot of times I think we are like coyotes gnawing on ourselves and then lashing out at the weaker simply because our level of self-care is inadequate for our stressors. If we are to protect our ultimate customers, and to reduce the risk of a crippled generation, we owe it to ourselves, each other and them to increase our self-care and, ahem, get a little happier.