Spa Day + JoAnna of the Forest on Love and Dogs + Podcast

https://open.spotify.com/episode/1bKmdGi98yHTSe70pLcbyf?si=d487f9604ee64cb5

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The weather’s sublime and it’s predicted to continue. We’re lucky in this blue state of ours, more precisely Southern California, which I feel like should be its own substate — a breakaway from the top half of the U.S.’s western border, because the weather down here is so wonderful that it’s hard to stay focused on finding an agent for my novels (more about that here).

Fingers crossed lest I jinx the bliss, this entire year has been perfection. Winter is easing in with sunny skies breezing into cool nights.

A recent day trip with girlfriends to local hot springs ‘gilded the lily,’ as chef Jacques Pepin loves to say. The various types of pools were lovely… as were the mud baths…

In between, we donned fluffy robes to break for lunch outdoors…

Today’s guest, writer/artist JoAnna of the Forest, blogs from North Carolina, where she resides with her husband, dog, and cat.

Want good news? Each Tuesday, she posts exactly that on her blog, Anything is Possible! | With Love, Hope, and Perseverance.

She’s published two books. Trust the Timing, a Memoir of Finding Love Again, recounts how, after 39 years apart, she and her high school sweetheart reconnected. Her poem offers a taste… 

Must Love Dogs by JoAnna of the Forest

Human Love had failed me,

Not parental love

Taken for granted,

Or the love of children

Needing my care,

It was romantic love,

Twisted around egos

Of baggage and expectations,

That drove me from myself

Again and again, until

It almost drove me mad.

Still, Divine love

waiting in the wings

Offered the love that kept me alive:

It was Dog Love that saved me,

Dog love is Divine Love

Reflected In a living being,

Loyal, honest, and true,

to walk with me on the earth

To get me outside

 To see the big sky

And the tall trees,

Strong, protective, deep,

Helping me find myself again.

When I finally learned

To love myself well,

A human knowing Dog Love

Found me.

This man with three dogs

Carried his oldest dog

Upstairs to bed every night.

My heart fluttered.

I took a chance.

We became one pack

Filled with Dog Love, Divine Love, Human Love

Loyal, honest, and true,

Strong, protective, deep.

How’s the weather where you’re at?