Listening … Loving … Accepting … Understanding … Courage … Love demands ongoing practice and desire. Not always easy, but always rewarding. Watch how Mengwen Cao comes out to her parents and how they respond. She's a photographer, videographer, and multimedia producer. Born in Hangzhou, China, she came to the United States in 2012. https://vimeo.com/194744989… Continue reading Love is Everything + Video by Mengwen Cao→
Dutch blogger Patty first wrote this great post for us about what it's like to own a dog in Germany. Here she discusses why it is imperative that we all respect each other ... These days violence, intolerance, racism, discrimination seems to increase again. More and more people need to flee their homes and/or their countries, in… Continue reading Guest Blog Post: “Universal Human Rights – Do you know them?” in Patty’s exact words→
Role models can be great. They provide wisdom for how to get where we’d like to be.
Take care, though.
In our eagerness, we risk blindness and deafness to how sometimes they’re better examples of what not to do. Of the ones we love, those who are closest to us, their familiarity can feel like normalcy.
The amazing poem posted by afroliz of Zimbabwe that follows illustrates what I’m trying to say.
I believe we must all continually work to be our own best role models. Let us be lighthearted in working toward that goal. Let us be as serious as happiness when it comes to understanding which role models we might already have unwittingly chosen.
The first of the monarchs (Danaus plexippus) I have been fostering on my kitchen counter this past month hatched today and it’s a female. Like any proud parent, I think she is perfect and beautiful! I feel hopeful for her future, but it will be a long road for her, fraught with obstacles. After fattening up on coneflower, Joe Pye weed, zinnias and other favorite flower nectars, she sails 2,500 miles to the Michoacan Mountains in Mexico.
Overcoming human activity such as speeding autos, loss of nectar feeding habitats, as well as excessive cold, drought and predation will be daunting. If she reaches her winter roost site in the few remaining acres of oyamel pine trees (which are cut for their valuable timber by the local people), she must safely survive possible severe cold or snowstorms, predatory birds and mice that take advantage of the bounty of millions of clustered…
What’s it like to foster parent butterflies? Eliza Waters fills us in colorfully …
The first of the monarchs (Danaus plexippus) I have been fostering on my kitchen counter this past month hatched today and it’s a female. Like any proud parent, I think she is perfect and beautiful! I feel hopeful for her future, but it will be a long road for her, fraught with obstacles. After fattening up on coneflower, Joe Pye weed, zinnias and other favorite flower nectars, she sails 2,500 miles to the Michoacan Mountains in Mexico.
