Standing in front of unimaginable beauty. The ocean brings the morning breeze. The sand feels cold to a point that numbing sensations kick in. I stopped feeling my feet. My toes turn red. Should I turn back? The thought crossed my mind just for a second. Immediately my mind and body screams: No, not yet. I keep going. The morning air filled with eagles and seagulls flying. I hear the familiar roar of the water and the waves clashing on the sand. Making my way through rocks and sandy grass to the ocean. There is that moment of anticipation when you know what is coming. The beauty, the power, and the surrounding calmness of the water. It is truly amazing how something so powerful can create the most Zen and mystical moments.
Closing my eyes for a few minutes. I can sense the ocean’s power, feel the wet sand under my feet, feel the wind’s gentle touch on my hair and my body. It seems like I can see even that my eyes are closed. I can see a reddish color with particles merging together between air and water and create a beautiful harmony like a well-practiced symphony. It feels like synergy at it’s best. I can see with all my other senses and feel the energy surrounding me. I am thankful and grateful to be here, to enjoy this moment. Feeling the sand on my feet brings a grounding sensation and closeness to the earth that feels natural, it feels like home. Moments like these create true joy and belonging to nature, being a part of everything surrounding us. We are the water. We are the air. We are the wind. We are the fire. Broken sand dollars and shells under my feet, I keep walking. The morning sun shines its calming red rays on my face. It feels wonderful to be here. My feet warms up as I keep walking. The numbing sensation is gone. My toe colors return to normal. The sand shows multiple patterns in front of me. It is nature’s foot massage. The ground in front of me is a hard surface crossing between flat or wavy while in other places it is so soft that my feet sinks into the ground.
It’s time to turn back. I say goodbye to the ocean until the next time.
My grandmother loved baking and cooking for everyone in the family. I felt her love through food. She enjoyed cooking and enjoyed even more when we liked her cooking. She was an excellent cook, and her baking was also always magnificent. I have some recipes from her and one of my favorite one is challah bread what I call in Hungarian: Kalács. I called my grandma mama. Mama never measured anything she just felt what was right by experience. The only way to get the recipe is to watch her and measure things as she was putting them together. This is how the mama style kalács was born. I been using the base recipe for a long time and I been thinking about making it my own. I like to experiment with baking and sometimes succeed and sometimes not. This experiment happened to be a good one and I made an excellent kalács yesterday. I used my grandmother’s base recipe with some changes.
Kalács is a little complex. It needs to rise the total of three times. Mama’s base recipe uses 1 kg flour, 6 dl of warm milk, 1 egg plus one for the top of the kalács, 5 spoonful of sugar, 1 and ½ spoonful of yeast, 2 spoonful of butter. The first spoonful of butter used with the initial mix the second after the first rise with the second mix. Instructions: Mix yeast with sugar and some warm milk together and let it sit for about 5 minutes. When yeast is ready mix everything together. Let it raise until it doubles about 30 minutes. Rework the kalács dough again with the second teaspoonful of butter, let it double again. The next step is dividing the dough into 3 equal parts make a long strip of it then braid the 3 strips together. Fold the ends under. Let it rise one more time until doubles about 30 minutes in a warm place. Once it is done cover it with the egg and milk mix then bake for about 30 minutes in 350 F. The outcome is delicious kalács. You can add a sprinkle of poppy seed on top before baking it.
I been making the kalács thins way the last 20 years. Yesterday I felt adventurous. I created a new recipe. I used the base recipe with a twist. I used honey instead of sugar. I used ½ amount of milk and ½ amount of macadamia milk. I just started using macadamia milk for hot chocolate and I love it. I decided that I want each strip to be different and a little more fun. I created one with adding 1 teaspoon full of dark raw cocoa powder and one with a saffron soaked in about 2 tbsp of e=water and added about 1 teaspoon full of saffron oil. After the first mix I divided the dough to three equal parts. One I left the way it is. One I added the cocoa powder and worked it into the dough. The third I worked the soaked saffron and saffron oil into the dough. Everything else was the same except I did not have and eggs, so I used an egg replacement. I used a milk butter and honey mix to cover the kalács before baking. Baked in a pre-heated oven in 350 F for 30 minutes. I made 2 loafs instead of one from the 1 kg of flour. The outcome is a fun and very tasty kalács with a twist. As I was baking and then slicing the kalács I could hear what my mama would say. Good Job, this turned out great.
Mama 2011 Jasszentlaszlo , Hungary
Thank you, mama, for making all those wonderful meals and baked goods for us when I was growing up. Thank you for the joy of baking. Thank you for teaching me to cook and bake.
Celebrate anyone who cooks or bakes for you today😊
Death is hard to face. It can be a sudden and unexpected visitor leaving shock, disbelief and sorrow behind.
The week started as any other normal week. People had enjoyed the weekend. There were wonderful conversations on Monday morning who did what during the last few days. Monday was great. Nobody knew yet that there was something wrong. Nobody at work and in the community anyway. The family knew that they were missing someone. By the next morning we all knew. He was not at work. He enjoyed the weekend, and something had happened. He did not return home. He did not come in to see his patients. He was missing. There was hope in the beginning. He was a survivor, people were hoping. I was hoping. There was hope for a little while, then this feeling sets in. He is not coming back. It has been too long. There is a moment when if you concentrate on a person you can feel their presence. I had stopped feeling that presence after a few days.
Then we heard the news. They had found his body and he is really not coming back. Even though everyone knew that this was a possibility. Now it was real. He is certainly not coming back. Death spoke his final words. There is no hope, there is nothing. He died. There is shock, disbelief, anger, and a multitude of emotions sit in. How and why, this had happened? He was such a wonderful man. Why did he had to die? He took care of so many others. He was an established pillar in his community. He died so sudden. Sadness sits in. Grief hits hard. Yet, life still goes on. One thing for sure in the middle of the storm everyone faces the loss and also face the fact that this could have been me. I could have died that day. Life is fragile and precious. If he died who was so full of life and charisma anyone can die at any moment.
Death is not something we think about every day. Yet in the past year there had been a lot of conversations about death. We are in the middle of a pandemic after all. More than 524,000 people had died just in the United States alone. A lot of souls to grieve. A lot of families left behind. There are so many deaths every day. This is different. All losses are hard, yet sudden unexpected loss seem to be the hardest. In the pandemic we know that deaths are a possibility. Someone leaving for the weekend to have fun and not coming back leaves deeper wounds. There is no time to prepare. There is no moments to hold a hand or to say goodbye. There is no chance to say the last words of love, caring or wisdom. It can be hard to face death. There is no bargaining, there is no way out. He is really gone. He will be missed greatly by his family, friends, co-workers, patients, and his community.
I am grateful for all the wonderful work he had done in addictions, family practice and pain management. I hope he did not suffer. He will be missed by many.
Thank you, Dr. Cockcroft, for all you have done for so many.
It was a Friday afternoon I believe when I got my first notification that I am eligible to receive the COVID -19 Moderna vaccine. Even before that notification at work I had to fill out a questionnaire if I am willing to get the vaccine and how close I am to patients and providing patient care throughout the day. Once I received the notification I had to go to an app and pick a date and a time available for vaccination. Before the vaccination event I received 2 or 3 reminders about the vaccination time and place. I was very excited to receive the vaccine. Part of me was also scared. Not because we do not have enough information, I knew that the studies been valid, I done my research. I was scared that it is not going to be done in time to save the people who are most vulnerable. There had been too many deaths and we are far from over in the battle for life in this Pandemic. When I got to work Monday, I realized that the vaccination clinic was also looking for more help and I signed up to be the part of the clinic for both days. The day I received the vaccine my role was to be one of the observers after people received the vaccine and day two was to vaccinate people. Both roles were very interesting. We did the clinic in our conference rooms. People checked in outside in the hall, went through all necessary paperwork then came into the conference rooms to be vaccinated. We had three vaccination stations both days and the second half of the room was set up for post vaccination observation. The vaccinators double checked the questionnaire filled out and asked questions about allergies, allergic reactions, immunocompromised conditions, and blood disorders. People who had any type of allergic reactions before vaccinations had to get a consultations with their primary care provider to discuss the benefits and possible reactions to the vaccine. In the post vaccination area, we provided follow up information about next steps, monitoring adverse effects, and recommending registration to the CDC ’s vaccine safe site. We monitored people between 15-30 minutes. One wonderful, unexpected effect in the post observation area was observing the connection between people. While some people were eager to get out when the 15 minutes was over, others were happy to stay and had engaging conversations with other staff members. Sometimes people forgot about the time and ended up talking to others and staying much longer than required. While I was in the observation role, we did not have anyone with any reaction to the vaccine. I received my vaccine at 15:10 at my scheduled time than went back to continue my observation of others. The vaccine itself did not hurt. I did develop some pain and local reaction by the next day. I registered to the CDC ’s v-safe site and received check ins for about a week every day after receiving the vaccination. The next day I was excited to participate in vaccine administration. Adding people in the ALERT vaccination system was also happening in real time. When I set up my station and got my first bag of vaccine, I felt like I am handling gold. Most people were very eager to receive the vaccine. Some people were nervous or anxious and asked some questions before receiving the vaccine. Most people did not even felt the vaccine administration. Many people did pictures and videos to create a memory of the vaccination. I made some pictures of vaccines, my vaccine station and posted some pictures that other people took of my while vaccinating. Overall receiving a vaccine and participating in the vaccination clinic had been a wonderful experience and I am hoping to be able to help out in other vaccination clinics in the future. Vaccines are still only part of the solution especially as we do not know how long the effectiveness will last. Preventing the spread by avoiding crowds, wearing a mask and hand hygiene are essential to help decrease the spread of the coronavirus.
It is been over a year now since the first COVID-19 case emerged in China, Hubei province (Jeanna Bryner, 2020). Nobody knew this back then of course. I was trying to think back what I was doing last November around that time. I finished writing a book and I been looking for a job. I went to the store when I wanted, I met with my friends and family freely. I had no second thoughts on how many times I was going to the store or a restaurant. I was preparing for my children to come home in January. There was no thought of a pandemic. Life was just going on as usual. Day to day living. Getting together with family was just as easy to pick up a phone or text and set a meeting time and place. Seems so far away now. This past year felt very long. It has been much longer than any other years before. I know this is true with every trauma in our lives. This situation that the pandemic created is very different. The trauma from the pandemic and its effects hit close to too many to count. Closer connections cannot happen now except with family members who we live with and people at work. At least we can see them through social media platforms and outlets. I believe that the pandemic has been taking a huge toll and trauma on a lot of people’s mental health and emotional wellbeing.
Nothing to this scale had been here to change the way we live in our lifetime before. While in war and certain diseases where we know that casualties happen the deaths and sickness during the current pandemic are on an unimaginable scale and the numbers are still keep growing. It is good to know that there are a lot of people out there who are working hard to stop the pandemic. A vaccine is been produced, and that brings hope to many. Multiple companies, organizations and individuals been working very hard to come up with solutions to help save more people. I sincerely thank you. A vaccine will unfortunately not reach everyone in time. Now people still get sick, now people still die every day. Our current numbers are not looking very promising. Coronavirus cases today reached 66,823,450 people with the death toll of 1,533,662 people and recovery of 46,214,372 people worldwide (Worldometer, 2020). Cases are still increasing. Lot of people are still sick at home or in the hospitals. Many hospitals are working too close to capacity.
In Oregon, Washington, and California there are new travel advisories recommending for people not to travel outside of the state unless it is related to people’s job and if someone travel to any of these states self-quarantine for 14 days is recommended to help cutting down the spread of COVID -19 (OHA, 2020). I know many other states and countries also have similar recommendations. The CDC alerts people on the increasing cases and recommends not to travel if possible, stay 6 feet apart, wear a mask, stay away from crowds, and wash your hands frequently (CDC, 2020). Nothing new, nothing we all have not heard before. It gets strenuous. It is tiring of just sitting at home and not being able to resume normal daily activity. Based on other pandemics before this one they do take a while before things can be normal again. While there were pandemics before that lasted about a year like plague of Justinian, yet it killed over 30-50 million people, the Asian flu H2 N2, H1 N1 and the Hong Kong flu were other examples, some of them lasted at least 2 years or more (Medical News Today, 2020 & History, 2020). The black death for example lasted four years between 1346-1350 caused the loss of 200 million lives and the sixth cholera pandemic lasted 24 years between 1899 -1923 (Medical News Today, 2020 & History, 2020). They did not have the technology we have today to help save people. Hopefully, we are about at least halfway in this pandemic depending on vaccine effectiveness and distribution to the public. Some of the diseases before like the flu today kept coming back and did not fully disappear for along time. The great plague of London for example kept coming back every 10 years killing about 20% of the population between 1348-1645 (History, 2020).
What can we do to stop the spread? We can learn from previous diseases when they did the same thing we are doing now. Staying away, quarantine and lockdowns. Vaccinations like in smallpox. We can follow exactly what is recommended by the CDC and local health authorities. It is not easy. Especially for people who feel well. It is still important to keep in touch with people even if it is just through phone calls and screens. Many people are getting creative how to stay connected. When looking at history 1.5 million people and their death might not seem that much. Those examples were from many hundreds of years ago. I have hope that with technology, quick vaccine development and precautions we can stop this pandemic. One COVID swab, one vaccine and one quarantine at a time. In the meantime, I live my modified life just like everyone else. Mine entails working as a nurse, coming home after work, and maybe going to the grocery store.
It was a Friday afternoon when I drove down to Gearhart from Astoria. It was a gorgeous sunny day after a whole week of rain and gloomy gray skies. Rain happens here often. I was enjoying the drive and the flush green surroundings. The sun was just hitting the trees and the Columbia river in the perfect angle. The views throughout my drive were amazing. The drive took me about 35 minutes. The anticipation to see my friend and enjoy the beach after being mostly just going to work and spending time at home because of the pandemic was high. I could not wait to get there. Even though it was the last weekend in October the temperature was nice and comfortable. The lights liked me that day and I got all greens on my way to the coast. Finally, I arrived to meet my friend by the golf course, and we walked down to the to the beach. With every step I was looking forward with curiosity: How will the water look today? Will it be calm? Will it be angry? Every time I see the ocean, all I have is amazement for its power. The water was beautiful. The awe never stops. For a moment all I could do was to just stand in front of this amazing view, and simply try to take in the constant change, the sounds of the water, the birds, and the wind. The smell of the ocean, there is simply just nothing like it. I feel like it is hard to find the words to capture the serenity, beauty, and power of the coastline. I am thankful for the moments of joy that I feel when I am by the ocean, walking the beaches or visiting the trails and enjoying the trees in our forests.
Seaside Oregon October 2020
A few weeks ago, a wonderful friend of mine visited me and in three days we went around and explored three Oregon coast beaches and some of the surrounding shops in Cannon Beach, Seaside and Gearhart. We also walked around Astoria and its Columbia river front. We visited the Eagle Sanctuary just outside of Astoria. We had some wonderful meals at local restaurants. I am grateful that we had that time as now those restaurants are closed again or provide take out only because of the pandemic. I been living in the coastal area now for over 6 years, yet its beauty and power leaves me with amazement every time. There is always something new to find and discover. Although the rural coastal living can have its own challenges, I am filled with gratefulness to have the option to live here and enjoy its serenity.
Eagle Sanctuary Astoria Oregon October 2020
Enjoying nature is one thing we can still do during the pandemic. I believe it helps healing and providing some moments of calmness in our lives. Try to get out to nature and see your surroundings: parks, trees, rivers, seas and oceans when you can with social distancing of course.
In our environment everything moves and changes continuously. Even things that we wish it wouldn’t like viruses and bacteria. Trees and plants grow and die, the water and air elements around us move constantly. We live in harmony with most of the things around us including viruses and bacteria. We have millions of them in our bodies. We need them to be able to function properly. When our bacteria are out of balance in our bodies, we get sick. There is some ignorance to think that the coronavirus will stop mutating just because we want it to stop. There are thousands of different strains of coronavirus exists. They been around for a very long time. Now that it made the jump between animals and humans again it will be harder to stop the strains that harm us. After all it just wants to survive.
Viruses, Bacteria and Fungi been around for a long time. Their “goal” or programing is to replicate and survive. They do not have a brain or can not control their actions. Yet, they seem to be smarter than us. They find their way into our lives. The question is: can we be smarter than them? I was talking to my mom yesterday and she alerted me to a new COVID – 19 mutation in Mink in Europe. I know it was just a matter of time before it happened. Mink apparently – as it is reported by the BBC and WHO – is susceptible to coronaviruses. It has been known by governments in Europe that there was a mutation in the “cluster 5“in COVID -19 and the relevant information was just released a few days ago. The worry is that this could compromise the vaccines that are being developed now. The WHO released a report 6 days ago about the variant strain of SARS-CoV-2 that was identified in Denmark in September and reported in the beginning of this month. In the 12 cases that have been identified in humans in Denmark there is a combination of mutations that are concerning (WHO, 2020).
As of this moment we had 52,612,545 coronavirus infections and 1,292,258 deaths around the world (Worldometer, 2020). The infection rates are spiking. Questions in my mind are: What have we learned in the past year about the coronavirus? What have we done to prevent it harming us? Have our measures been effective? What have learned from the way we live? Currently there is a lot of efforts and billions of dollars spent on vaccines against the coronavirus strain that we now know as COVID -19. Vaccines are not perfect, and they do not always work. Also, there are many people who are not ready to take the vaccine if when it will become available. We are also having to do our part as humanity to outsmart the viruses and bacteria that wants to harm us. We can develop as many vaccines as we want against the coronavirus that might or might nor work just like the yearly available flu vaccines. We have to change our thinking and the way of our current living, the way we treat our environment including plants and animals if we would like to survive. The question is are we as humans willing to make those sacrifices?
Everything is interconnected around us. The way we live, the way we treat our environment backfires on humanity. What is it that we can do? The Dalai Lama offered a warning yesterday to all of us on NPR to save our environment and one thing we can do to help is stop eating animals (NPR, 2020). Maybe if we can treat animals and our environment better viruses would stay where they belong. In the wild.
The only thing that I can see around me are hazy trees and roads. The air quality has been getting worse and worse the last few days. Normally, I would be able to see between the Oregon to Washington state line. I would be able to watch the rolling hills and mountains in Washington state and the ships passing by on the Columbia River. None of those things can be seen now. One could imagine a thick fog, but it is not. I would be able to breathe through fog. Even the naturally vibrant evergreen trees seem to be blurred and out of focus. Stepping outside the front porch and driving to work yesterday morning I felt this overwhelming doom. The environment looked very sad. I could not see the sun, there was just a dim light through the smoke and a faint circle of light instead of the glorious glowing rays. I was wondering if our Earth is trying to tell us something. It feels like a fight for our existence. We are dealing with an uncontrolled pandemic, raging fires, unhealthy and hazardous air.
What will be next? Is Earth trying to kick us out? We can’t breathe the air, we can’t socialize, there is not enough clean water, our lands are being destroyed and people have to be evacuated. Wildfires are everywhere including the Arctic Circle called “zombie fire”. The Smithsonian reported a few days ago that the emissions from this fire is about 244 megaton carbon this year so far compared to 181 megatons in 2019 (Fox, 2020). There is no way to control it. Fires are record high this year and currently there are 133 fires across the United States with 48 of those fires are not contained at this time (ARCGIS, 2020). I have friends and colleagues who are getting calls from family to see if they could be a part of their evacuation plan. I am getting calls from my family and friends checking on us making sure things are not burning where I am.
The Air and the Sun in Astoria, Oregon 9/11/2020
Is this how it is going to be? More and more natural disasters? I had a conversation with a friend yesterday who mentioned that she was surprised that there are not even more fires with all the people who are throwing out cigarette buds from their cars. I did observe one of those fires on the side of the road while traveling along I-5 last week. Today, I feel that my eyes are dry and itchy, my sinuses and head are hurting, my throat is scratchy, I can feel that my lungs are not happy, and I am coughing up phlegm occasionally. My voice is raspy. My mucus membranes are irritated and dry because of the smoke. I feel like I continuously have to drink fluids to soothe my throat. It does not seem to be helping. It just hurts.
Looking at the fire maps of Oregon in our area the air is declared unhealthy now. There are areas where the fire is so bad that the air is hazardous. Not breathable. The public health recommendation is to stay indoors, close doors and windows and use a filtration system. Well, the smoke creeps indoors and not everyone has a filtration system. People with any disadvantages, lower socioeconomic status and battling with any immunological or lung disease will be more effected by the smoke. It does not help that we are already in a middle of a pandemic with raging COVID -19 everywhere. Sheltering is more difficult in this situation.
Stores are sold out of air purifiers. People are being upset. Hurt. Confused. I am hoping for rain. I hope that it will come soon and bring some relief in these fires. It is a weird cycle for sure. We need trees to produce oxygen, yet now they are burning and cannot help us, other times we cut them down disrupting the natural water cycle. Trees evaporate water that goes into our atmosphere and comes back down as rain. Every year we have millions of acres of forests lost by fire. Every year we destroy more of our forests by cutting down more trees. We literally stopping our oxygen and water supply.
How long humanity can survive like this? Maybe we could plant a tree as often as we can and stop creating more damage to our Earth and surrounding environments. Maybe there is some hope for our future generations to survive on this planet. There are a lot of good people and organizations that are trying to help and make things better by recycling, reusing products, decreasing waste. Creating rain drops by one good action at a time.
I hope you will be one of those people.
I am thankful our planet, our existence and I am grateful for each and every person.
Life and events are continuously changing around us. Now, many people are stuck at home with a virus sweeping across all countries in the world. Our life events are like an everlasting swirl of colors, imagine a swirl in a lollipop where bright colors represent good things, and dark colors represent everything else that might not be so good in someone’s life. It is not all bright or dark it is a continuous mixture of events. Not all bright might be good and not all dark is bad. It depends what each person decide to do with those events in their lives. I had a conversation with a friend a few days ago. She is a nurse and she is working as a nurse during the week. She just also decided to take a part time job to work in a bakery on the weekend. She asked me if I thought she was making a bad decision taking a minimal wage job. I told her no. She is following her heart. She loves to cook. She loves anything related to cooking. I think she is doing a wonderful thing following her dream. I have heard from many people before who started one profession and ended up doing something different because of financial reasons, life events or family obligations. Sometimes our dreams are placed on hold. I like to write. She likes to cook. My sister being home during the pandemic helped her realize that she likes to paint, and she is good at it, she enjoys it. Many people had bought her paintings in the past few months. This was not something she planned on, it just happened. She was stuck at home and started to paint. When my friend was talking about taking a cooking job, and when she tells me about what she baked this weekend, a new cooking experiment or when my sister talks about her paintings and the process of painting for both of them their body changes, their eyes lit up. It is pure joy, excitement, and happiness that I see in their eyes and in their demeanor. Following their hearts and dreams. I feel the same when I write, make something from wood, spend time with family and friends and help others, complete a project, plant trees, and play in our garden. I look at these events as small pearls. My friend and my sister just placed a pearl in their life. A pearl that is bright and shiny and helps light the way. They both believed that they could do something, they were not afraid to try it and went for it. It might have taken them some time to get there. The question is how someone gets there. How can anyone believe in themselves enough to try something new and productive that makes them happy? It is not easy. Many times, there are obstacles. Time. Money. Circumstances of life. A pandemic that locks people in their homes.
What would be the first step to believe in yourself? I think this is not a straight path. It is different journey for everyone. I do think that every single person can help support and encourage others to believe in themselves. When I started to work on a big project before like doing a PhD dissertation or writing a book, creating, or organizing a new service or an event, collaborating with others and talking to people seemed to be extremely helpful. Putting ideas out to my family and friends and like minded people in my community and my school helped to start to roll the small pieces that build up a pearl. A pearl starts from nothing. Starts from waste and becomes this beautiful, amazing piece of art. I think to believe in yourself it is a continuous building process just like making a pearl, building a deck, or working on any project. There is the first step, the foundation that needs to be poured, but before everything starts the soil needs to be evened out and all the materials collected, and the perfect place need to be decided upon. It can be easy or difficult. Each person is different. Each circumstance is different.
The first step is to talk about it. Talk about your dreams, talk about your hopes. Talk to your family, talk to your friends. Talk to a teacher, a co-worker, a social worker. Just talk to someone in your life. Start to build the pearl. Some pearls are just as easy to start like picking up a paint brush, others need more groundwork. Sounding yourself with people who believe in you will also help you believe in yourself. Do not give up. There is no failure just a roadblock. I worked on a project that took about 2 years to launch. It finally happened. It is working wonderfully in my community. There were many times when I was not sure it was actually happening. Especially when the pandemic hit. I had people and organizations around me that still believed it was possible. I could have not done it on my own. It was my dream, well one of my dreams to make a clubhouse for mental health support in our community. There was no way I could have done it without the support of my family, friends, and many other people in my community. Now it is running beautifully. It is all started by talking to people. Then I found people who believed in the project and helped to make it happen. I am forever grateful. I have a shining pearl in my life because of it.
Ways to believe in yourself also start with opening the road and believe in others. Supporting others achieving their dreams can help you realize your dreams. Let’s take the first step.
I opened my eyes today and I knew what I needed to write about. I can see it. Is it really possible? I see a rain drop. Not even a full force of a rain drop. In the beginning it is more like particles of mist. Imagine a misty morning. Stepping outside and feeling the gentle fresh water on your face. Small particles. Small wishes and hopes. That is how it starts. Small. A small part in each and every one of us.
Could we do this? Is this something people want? Is this something you want? I do believe so. I do believe that most people want peace. Peace in our hearts, our souls, and our neighborhoods. Peace for our families, friends and loved ones. Currently, we have over 7.8 billion people living on this planet we call earth. 7.8 billion people. A lot of power lives in numbers. If for example 7.7 billion people want peace, equity, love, caring, support, appreciation, and kindness in this world why 0.1 billion can stop this from happening? Why we have wars? Why we have fights over power and money? Why a few in power can decide how the rest of the people live and die?
Could 7.7 billion misty particles wake up and demand a better world? Not with tear gas and guns but with love, kindness, and appreciation for each other and what we have in this earth? Could you wish the best for your neighbor and support them when they need support? How about the person struggling down the street? How about someone you don’t know? Could we show that we can all be better? Could we look and treat each other as humans without judgement? Can we grow from a misty small particle to a full blown raindrop? A raindrop that has a peaceful force that sweeps away the few that want the distraction of peace? Is it possible? How many raindrops will it take to fill our dried out rivers again, to bring bounty to places where forests were cut down? How many trees could we plant if we all just plant one? At least 7.7 billion. What you think? Will you be one of those rain drops? Will you be part of a river bringing hope and peace for the future?
