Healing Spaces: Follow-up

It seems so ironic, maybe not :-), that the two people to first comment on my recent post about healing places have given me a 'virtual' healing place on each of their own blogs. I am pretty sure that I have mentioned these blogs before in some of my previous posts (or maybe only in the comment sections) but I want to mention, indeed highlight!, them again.

I stumbled onto these blogs accidentally and now have two new friends. I am fortunate to have met Kateri who blogs at DandelionHaven, and I am still waiting to get to Vancouver, BC to meet Elaine who shares her world at the Berries, the Preserves, and the Greens blogs.

I do not have time to visit each of these blogs on a daily basis anymore (or even read any other blogs I used to follow regularly). Having said that though, the blogs by Kateri and Elaine are the ones that I 'go to' when I need to enter some restorative space late at night, usually when it is long past a reasonable time to be in bed, when I realize I need to find a way to make a transition from working or worrying too hard about something to hoping I can sleep easily that night.

So every couple of weeks, I pop in to see what is new for each of them, what beautiful words (sometimes none at all) and/or beautiful photographs they have posted up on their respective blogs. These blogs never fail me, I mean it. Visiting these two friends, seeing the world through their eyes and hearts makes total sense to me and always evokes some words of my own on their comment sections (usually a grateful 'thank you'), sending me off to bed with a renewed 'peaceful, easy feeling'.

That's where I'm off to now.

Tomorrow we need to switch the focus from marketing our garlic to planting the 2012 crop, which will begin this coming Saturday (the fields need prep work first - they are finally dry enough!). I need to begin serious planning for the crowd of dietetic and nutrition students coming to help us on Saturday. I will function that day as 'volunteer coordinator' rather than preceptor or 'fellow planter/weeder/garlic cleaner/stone & stick remover/etc/etc'. I love working one-on-one with students so we can talk at the same time. Regretfully, that will not be possible on Saturday, so I hope a few of them will be inspired enough to look for opportunities to come back when we'll have more time to actually work together.

Why? I learn just as much from my students as I hope they learn from me. In addition, I enjoy thinking about the questions they ask me and then wondering just where each of them will end up working in our field of food, nutrition, and health in the future. How will each of them 'save the world' in their own little corner of it? I love focusing on hope (in fact I need to focus on hope - another 'lesson learned'), and there is no more enjoyable way to focus on hope than thinking about all the ways that young people are leading the charge and leading the changes needed for our collective future.

Repeating, 'That's where I'm off to now.' (i.e., bed - yes, bed! - go Diana!) :-)

"Cultivate your life - you are what you grow - inch by inch, row by row"

Diana Dyer, MS, RD