The Community Associations’ Winter Carnival 2016

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awareness, Cheryle. Lightwalker's Blog, children, comfort zone., communication, creativity, friendship, harmony, In light and love, inspiration, reflections, relationships

Sometimes, Cheryle, experiences outside of our ‘comfort zone’ can be the most inspiring experiences. It’s taken me many years to learn this as I’m shy, reserved, quiet and a little bit unsociable :))), but I find when I make the effort to do something which is unsettling, I derive great pleasure and a sense of achievement which (sometimes) spurs me on to get involved in other uncomfortable places. Thank you for sharing.

Lightwalkers Blog

Today was a day filled with children and activities definitely outside my comfort zone.  Today the Community Association held its Winter Carnival.  Today I played with children of all ages. Some were three and some were eleven and the others were all the ages in-between.

Yes, I helped out at the colouring contest table sponsored by the Ogden Seniors 50+ Activity Club.  We had a multitude of Christmas pictures to colour, crayons, and prizes to be won.  The kids lined up at our table excited to spend a few minutes shading stockings, wreaths, and Christmas trees with the waxy crayons. A chance to win a five dollar McDonalds gift card was an easy enticement for many of the young people tagging along behind their Mom or Dad as they wandered from booth to booth.  Alone in their zone, they chatted quietly about their schools, their ages, their siblings and in some…

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On going soft in the head

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Esme Upon the Cloud, feelings, Hariod Brawn, head, humanity, inspiration, life, love, Lovingkindness, Metta, Mickie, Oxford, reflections, relationships, soft, thoughts

Esme Upon the Cloud said this:
“I love how this starts, you set the scene so well that the reader is right there on that road in Oxford with you and Mickie; but moreso how it suddenly blooms into joy with a sudden awareness of love. Of metta”

And because I couldn’t have put it any better, Hariod, I have used her words to introduce your excellent post on ‘metta’. I am so pleased that in some small way I was able to inspire you to write this – thank you. Metta.

contentedness.net

Jessica. By Thomas Hawk, San Francisco — The homeless girl with love in her eyes.

It was during a balmy mid-afternoon in Central Oxford that I and my friend of some 20 years’ standing gingerly negotiated a crossing of the busy street that had first been lain a millennia ago during Saxon times — then a loosely set cobbled carriageway running northwards up from the ford of the oxen at Grandpont, some half mile or so distant along adjoining St. Aldates. The year was 1992 and a palpably self-satisfied, Thatcher-hewn metropolitan hum of affluence pervaded the air in equal measure to the oppressive diesel fumes belching from the buses and taxis that laboured and lurched their way along Cornmarket Street towards Carfax, twixt which our body’s wove, breathing in unnatural rhythms, yet mysteriously embracing the effluvium with bare arms and wide open hearts, unburdened neither by concerns nor the otherwise ubiquitously lugged, logo-laden…

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What if?

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chance, changes, Chevvy8, coincidence, dreams, fate, FGM, journey, path, reflections, relationships, serendipity, soul, travel

FGM may I introduce you to Chevvy8? I’m not sure if this is a coincidence …
What if it isn’t a coincidence? What if …?

WORDS IN THE LIGHT

What if
I close my eyes?

What if
you cross the Sea?

What if
I hold my breath?

What if
you make the wind chime sing?

What if
I let the breeze carry me?

What if
you let me see?

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What ifs

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alternatives, chance, changes, Chevvy8, choices, coincidence, destiny, fate, freedom, journey, prison walls, reasons, reflections, relationships, stars, travel

Thank you Chevvy. This is lovely and relevant on so many levels for me and especially the 4th line of the second verse. I hope ‘What If’s’ resonates with others too …

Chevvy's Studio

These questions that gnaw at me,

nibbling at the joy that life brings,

feeding me with cheesy excuses,

muddling doubts, impotent fears,

stealing glitter off golden moments,

when I should have been totally here,

not wondering on my own out there –

an exile behind my own prison walls.

What if this is what was meant for me

all along, complete with every crack,

every blemish that prizes the antique,

aspired by most but afforded to a few.

What if I had made an irrevocable error–

taking the bus and not boarding the train,

believing that life had to ride the highway

instead of pausing at each station en route?

What if there were no what ifs to choose–

where automation usurped my controls,

clipped my wings so that I could not fly?

Would I be the me that has reason to be?

What if I told you that this…

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The Flowering Vine: A Letter to Our White Great-Grandfather

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ancestry, black, colour, family, granddaughter, great grandfather, impact, inspiration, legacy of slavery, letter, life, mixed-race, offspring, reflections, relationships, white, Writing

Wow Lady G! What an amazing letter to your white grandfather. I don’t know if I could have worded this as well to my own white great, great grandfather, so can I say I echo your sentiments?
Thank you for sharing, this is so bitter-sweet…

seekthebestblog

Dear Robert,

My name is Gwin and I am one of your great-grandchildren.  Today, I am writing to you in hopes that your soul has ascended to an elevated level of understanding and empathy-having left your dark and dense material world many years ago.

As you can see, I am not exactly what you might have expected.

I am not Caucasian.

I am a strong and beautiful brown-skinned girl.

I am Black.

We are Black.

You see, I am one of many.

We are the grandchildren of your son, Leroy.

From what I have been told, our grandfather spent quite a bit of time at your home with you and your other children.

In fact, he once showed me a knee injury that he sustained while playing on your farm.

So there’s no doubt in my mind that you knew him and he knew you.

But, do you know us?

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Every Picture Tells a Story

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autobiograhy, blogging, journey, joy, pain, picture, poem, poetry, reflections, story, travel

Every picture tells a story

Pain and Joy
Planes and boats
Stormy seas
Strange food
Strange people

Pain and Joy
Bumpy landings
Dark rooms
Dark thoughts
Darkness

Pain and Joy
Acceptance and denial
Love and hate
Big and small
Shrinking
Growing

Pain and Joy
Every picture tells
A Story

~ Marie E. Williams