My son and I loved to fly kites when he was growing up in Virginia. The right kind of wind could propel his paper bird high and far, with us right on its tail giving it enough slack to keep it soaring in the air currents.

He’s a grown man now, but I remember a day twenty-five years ago when we were living in Athens, Greece. We were driving home from his friend Chris’ house. Chris lived on Penteli Mountain, one of my favorite haunts outside of Athens. From the crest of this hill on a clear day in winter you could see the whole bowl of Athens, with the smog hovering overhead, and even beyond. This was where the Brits came to celebrate Boxer Day every December 26. They hiked up more for the whiskey than the view, but that’s another story.

As we turned the corner, we saw the tail of a kite peeking out from under a pile of rubbish. We knew it was a kite tail because it had flags zigzagging down the string. Also, everyone came to fly kites on Penteli Mountain in December when the weather changed. This kite had lost its wind and lay abandoned in the field, its owners having no more use for it.

And so, our curiosity taking over, we stopped the car, got out, and went to investigate. Right away our curiosity turned into compassion and we wanted to breathe new life into this broken and tattered old kite. I never thought that something inanimate could come to life. But at this time in my life there was a dying in me that I knew I had to defeat or it would defeat me. My son was part of this tragedy, and somehow we knew that the road to healing could start with repairing this kite and watching it fly again. A dust-covered old TV pinning it down to the ground was holding the kite hostage. Its colorful tail saved it from certain death.

So we took the kite home and repaired it with glue and tape. We waited for a good day with just enough wind to try and fly it. The day finally came, a clear sunny day with a nice breeze. Together we took the kite back to the mountain and flew it. We watched it continue to rise and float in the air until all the string was used up. We ran with it as it leaped in the wind. It was flying like it was brand new – a miracle!

We didn’t let that kite go. We brought it down and carefully put it in the car. We knew we would probably never fly it again, but we couldn’t let go of something that had taught us such an eloquent lesson: I was sure from that day on that there are second chances for those who have the heart to reach for them.

Marilea is a retired teacher. Toward the end of her career, she earned her Master of Arts in Teaching. “This was a critical step on my life journey because it concentrated on reflective practice. Now I have time to reflect back on my life and put my stories down on paper. I look forward to sharing them with you.”

Don’t let your rearview mirror be bigger than your windshield.

Anyone attempting to navigate through the rough terrain of a serious or chronic illness will understand that quote in a second. It is so tempting to keep looking in that rearview mirror because the view back there very often is so much more pleasant than what seems to lie ahead. It’s like coming back from a vacation in some tropical resort where everything was sunny, you felt great, and any worries you had in your everyday life were forgotten for a time. You look at the photos of your trip and say, “What I wouldn’t give to be back there again!”

But that quote is right–we can’t let our rearview mirror be bigger than our windshield because that only leads us into a detour where we bump along complaining and pitying ourselves and failing to see some of the great sights that lie ahead and the possibilities that can open up if we focus on the future and stop whining about the life we left behind in that rearview mirror.

In my personal experience, I’ve found the cancer highway is filled with ruts and potholes and dark tunnels. But along the route I’ve also picked up some “hitchhikers” who have turned out to be really fun and inspiring friends. I’ve discovered “new” cousins who I never had the chance to get to know when I was busy speeding along in my life at 100 miles per hour. Now that I’ve slowed down, I see a lot of sights I never noticed.

If I pay attention to what lies ahead, I often discover new avenues for my writing and new opportunities to share my passion for World’s Fair history. I admit that it’s not easy to keep looking ahead and sometimes it’s scary to wonder where the road will end. But it’s still better to keep looking through the windshield than to live regretting what you can never go back to.

Cathy Scibelli is a writer who enjoys exploring new avenues where she can use her experiences of living with metastatic breast cancer to inspire others to continue to “look ahead” with anticipation and not fear.

The funniest picture I never took happened the moment I threw out some old tuna salad. Now, you ask, why would throwing out tuna salad be a funny picture. The answer is easy. We lived in the country, and I often “juiced” our breakfast meal. So I had left over pulp that I took outside for the critters that lived around our country home East of Norman, Oklahoma. I had selected an area covered with low bushes and grasses very near the corner of our stonewall. On a regular basis I would take the pulp, peelings, or other tasty morsels outside past the stone wall and toss them to critters that could hide under the bushes and eat them.

One day I found a young deer sitting there, as if it were waiting on a treat. I sat quietly at the wall and just watched in silence. It was a quiet moment that I reflect on often to still my heart, but then that is not the funny picture. One energetic morning I decided to clean out the refrigerator, and that’s when I found the stale tuna salad bowl in the back of the shelf. It only smelled slightly of aging fish, so why would I waste it, knowing that some raccoon or opossum would delight in the aroma and taste.

With the refrigerator cleaned, I stepped out passed our stonewall to the bushes and tossed the aromatic bowl of tuna. Usually, the food hit the leaves of the bushes and settle down to the ground. On that day, at that moment it hit a snake squarely in the face as the snake lay resting on the bush. The snake reared his head first, in shock I’m sure. I yelped in surprise and jumped back hitting the stonewall that stopped my retreat. The two of us then stared at each other in wonder until I absolutely broke into laughter. I must have been the only person in the world to have ever laughed at a snake face covered in smelly tuna. The snake sent his fangs out, as if licking the tuna, then shook its head much like a dog shaking off water. Silently he slithered away humiliated, leaving me laughing out loud as I sat on the wall alone with nature at my side.

We’ve moved to Kansas since then, I miss those moments of country life, but I have the memories, and they restore my soul.

Letty Watt is a retired librarian/teacher and now spend as much time outside in nature as possible by gardening, playing golf, walking the dog, and studying the stars from her hot tub. Winter months bring her inside and she writes daily collecting stories that mutter around in her head.

There is a saying that the reason we have children is for the grandchildren that follow. I could catalogue and index all that they have taught me. Recently I was tutored on a bitter Minnesota morning.  Snow piled under the dawn sky while we piled on the couch: Matthew, Jen, Amelia, Lulu, and I. A video was plugged in and Rapunzel cavorted with her pet frog. The hero Eugene sparred with a horse.

Lately I’ve begun to suspect that beginning my morning with a half hour of Disney might serve the same purpose as my meditations. What is more sacred than the magic of imagination, the miraculous presence of good even in the darkest moments? The presence of humor, of laughter, the colors and energy of creation– especially when the going gets tough?

I begin the day reading the newspaper because I want to know about the world around me–the wars, financial drama, neighborhood politics. However, I’ve begun to wonder if I lose the perspective of magic and the possibility of miracles this way. What would happen if I began my day with the conscious expectation that good can triumph, and the confidence that magic is always around the next corner? My grandchildren and Disney teach me that it could be so.

Later we piled into the car and drove to the Sound of Music. Actually, the only song was “Doe, a deer”–otherwise known as “My favorite things”. That track was the primary song of transportation. I don’t believe the car could have moved unless it was playing.  What would happen if the sound track to my life was recognition and gratitude of my favorite things? What would happen to a world where this was the truth?

Fast track to a week later as I was driving my five-year-old grandson to school. Out of the blue he says “I think the color of heaven is orange”.

It took me several days to digest that, and come up with the logical question, “Why orange?”

Jacob shrugged his shoulders in dismay. “Because red is for fire! And orange happens when day starts and  ends! Duh!”

A couple of days later, we were already late for school, and Jacob hung back–lost in the wonder of catching snowflakes on his tongue. I’d like to say that I found magic in that moment and sacrificed timeliness so I too could catch snowflakes. However, I’m perpetually a slow learner about the important things in life.

It does make me ponder how our lives might be different if we held on to the magic of Disney and went through life with a sound track of gratitude. And how would our lives change if we reflected on truly important things, like the color of heaven? But it’s snowing now. I think I’ll go out and catch a couple of snowflakes. More to be revealed!

Carol Ziel is a grandmother, gardener, social worker, goddess-centered woman who has been a member of Story Circle Network for 3 years. It’s one of her greatest joys and challenges, and she is grateful for the support she finds there.

This past weekend I read a poem at the funeral of my friend, Judi’s, sister. Though I did not know Barbara Ann, Judi and I have recently developed a sweet intimacy, though it was not always that way. Years ago we were colleagues who, in her words, “bumped heads, forcing us to each grow…and bonding us forever.” In our final year of working together, when first my mother, Margie, then my sister, Lois, and finally, my brother-in-law, Dave died, with blow after blow to my heart, her compassionate and kind presence stands out.

It was a no-brainer, then, to offer my support when she responded to a Spirit of Resh Foundation update, telling me she was in the hospital sitting at the bedside of her husband, Michael–who she met and decided to marry in the fourth grade – after a cancer operation in which more than one organ had been removed. I’d quoted Dave’s words about cancer being the “blessing in disguise” that awakened him and Lois to “love greater that we’ve ever known.” Judi said that as she looked at her soul-mate, hooked up to tubes and monitors, with fears swirling, these words gave her courage–just when she needed it most.

After more trips to and from the hospital, Michael begins chemotherapy and the long journey toward healing, which looks an awful lot like illness as pounds fall off his body. Then, adding insult to injury, Judi’s sister dies in her bed, suddenly and unexpectedly. Blow after blow. Judi, the Rock of Gibraltar in her family of five (now four) sisters, plans the service and asks me if I know of some poetry that she might use. I share a few poems, then feel honored when she asks if I would read the one that she particularly likes at her sister’s funeral. It’s the one that Dave’s college friend (Page) read at his memorial (see below.)

Cancer, death, life-threatening illness. They are the great equalizers. They take us right smack dab into our humanity. Into our vulnerability. And into our relatedness as human beings – spirits encased in bodies which, one way or another, will ultimately fail us in this physical reality. In the face of loss and its attendant swirl of emotion–ranging from grief to remorse to anger to sorrow … and more … the emergent question of what matters most and what brings meaning to life arises from the center of our beings. This question inevitably connects us, one way or another, to our hearts.

As I stood to read the poem in the chapel, love, deeply felt among friends and strangers is what I felt among the assembled mourners. Sharing that moment in a room of people I mostly did not know, I felt a deep commonality and communion between us. Love and loss is universal. And to share it with others, well, that’s intimacy.

Lily Myers Kaplan, director of Spirit of Resh Foundation holds an MA in Culture and Spirituality, and BA’s in Transpersonal Psychology and Divinatory Studies. Her most valued credential, however, is her soul-path grounded in the everyday world, guiding people through love, loss, challenges and growth into an ever-evolving sense of self and place in the world.

The blinking red light on the answering machine was demanding to be listened to. “Aunt Pat, this is Matt. Call me as soon as possible.”

I knew there was yet another crisis in the life of my younger sister Elaine. In spite of being an American Airlines flight attendant, and LPN, and a Chiropractor she has battled with the demons of mental illness most of her life. In recent years the illness had won; thus leaving her without employment and living in subsidized housing.

As family members, we had each made our attempts to intervene when we feared she could possibly end her life. A semblance of health often restored for brief intervals.

I called Matt. “Aunt Pat, Mom was found dead in her shower today. I feel so guilty. I had taken a break from calling her daily recently.”

“And why might you have taken a break?” I asked. He knew the answer.

We all had taken breaks, for she heard TV’s that were not on, refrigerators running in the background, and breathing that hurt her ears.

My 99 year old mother was still sending her money. Believing and hoping that a cure could be found.

I knew this phone call was inevitable. I felt relief, sadness, and grief that a life so filled with promise and potential had ended so bereft and alone.

Flying to California was not an option.

My memorial was that of spending time with my 99 year old mother and older sister as we shared photos, stories, letters and the feelings of anger and love that her behaviours engendered in all of us.

I wrote her obituary for the local newspaper in Maryland; this is where she was Miss Francis Scott Key at her local high school.

Her children and former husband came together to clean out her apartment. Recalling numerous times when she “bolted” from their lives to unknown destinations and for unknown reasons, when her sense of humour had them rolling with laughter, when she slopped the hogs on the pig farm where they lived in Missouri, and when she climbed ladders to paint the farmhouse.

Last week her ashes were scattered in the Pacific Ocean where her mind, body and soul are free at last.

Patricia is a retired, after 23 years, Chaplain/Pastoral Counsellor/Licensed Clinical Professional Counsellor from Brook Lane Health Services. She married her high school heartthrob in 2010 after the death of both of their spouses. She loves books, playing piano, singing, cats, and nature. Patricia is “still a farm girl at heart.”

“Do you dream in color?” Katy, a colleague, friend, and art teacher asked.

While we had been talking about dreams, I was taken aback by her question. I had to think before I answered. “I don’t really know,”  I said. “I only know I dream in stories.”

We both felt we had discovered something interesting. Her dreams were vivid, colored images that often told a story or expressed a dominant emotion, but sometimes her dreams were just scenery. My dreams were stories in which the scenery was vague. My dreams had characters, action, and dialogue. Her dreams had beautiful or scary scenes, images. Her medium was paint, mine words.

I’m not sure how we left that conversation since it took place some time ago. But I do know that I began to notice how I learn, how I know things. Story is how I learn, how I remember, how I recall events, how I know people. It is the mode of which I am confident, certain. To me, a life is a story. While neither words nor paint can capture the essence of that life, we try because it is important to know who we are as humans.

Not so long ago, I recounted a dream to my brother about how I was trying to get home from work to our childhood residence. My bus wasn’t running; I started to walk but some stranger was chasing me; running away, I got lost. At every turn, there were obstacles. He said he had dreamed a very similar dream; only he was trying to get home from college. My brother and I are aging siblings who had both dreamed these dreams recurrently.

A psychologist might tell us our dreams meant that we were trying to recapture our innocence, our youth, a time of unconditional love and security. I think we were longing for a place, a time, a moment in our mutual history, a story that is past, a story that can’t be relived but can be told. I see those dreams as a warning not to forget. For me, it was a warning to write it down before the memories are gone. Interestingly, when the old homestead was demolished to make way for condos, our dreams about getting home stopped.

But I did forget to ask him: Do you dream in color?

Janice is a retired technical writer, trainer, and adjunct professor, who has time to read more, to write what she wants, and to reflect on a life and a time. Her passion is golf but she also loves living close to family, residing in Kentucky, owning Golden Retrievers, and cooking.

“It’s surprising how much memory is built around things unnoticed at the time.” — Barbara Kingsolver

Today, I hung all memories from the past on my wall.

The year was 1978 when I found myself single with two of my five children still left to support. It wasn’t an easy time, especially that first month when I had to borrow money to pay rent. Although there have been many difficult times since that day, as there are for all who occupy this planet, my life from this point forward only got better and better.

I spent the next 26 years finishing up a 37-year career in journalism, following it–and twice where my heart led me to go.

My career took me to the Star-Telegram in Fort Worth, Texas, for three years, then to Ogden, Utah, as features editor for the Standard-Examiner. I stayed for three years here before love took me to Las Vegas for eight months that included a stint working for the Las Vegas Sun.

When love betrayed me, I took myself away from the neon lights to Twin Falls, Idaho, where I stayed for two years as regional editor for the Times-News. It was then back to Ogden, where my former newspaper offered me a job as assistant city editor.

In 1987, I answered my heart once again and moved to Erda, Utah, and undertook a daily 56-mile commute to my job in Ogden. But in 1989, I moved back to Ogden alone, and happily stayed there until 2004, at which time I sold my home and bought my RV, Gypsy Lee.

With few exceptions, everything I owned was either packed into my 22-foot home on the road, sold or given away. The exceptions, mostly books, were eventually stored at my youngest daughter’s home here in Tucson, where I recently moved into a small apartment after almost nine years spent living on the road exploring America from sea to shining sea.

Sunday, my daughter brought me a few of those bins. And this morning, I hung the only remaining possession that remained from 1978 on the wall of my apartment.

As I stood back and looked at this simple sketch of a cardinal, which belonged to my grandmother, whom I adored and whom died when I was only ten years old, tears came into my eyes

The colored-pencil drawing, which even for a while accompanied me in my RV travels, held a lifetime of memories. It is the only thing I own that connects me to my past. As a person who prefers to look forward not backward, I have no regrets that there is nothing else.

But my heart tells me that this red bird may be the most precious thing I own today.

Pat Bean, who thinks of herself as a wondering-wanderer, is a former journalist who lived in an RV for almost nine years and recently moved into a third-floor apartment in Tucson. Her passions are writing, reading, hiking, birds, art, family and her canine companion, Pepper.

“I ring the bell
So we can tell
The story of her passage”.

The incantation began.

Leelee was a thirteen year old young lady who had just started her “first blood”. Night was unfolding around us and our circle of women stood in the shadows of a cold Saturday evening. We had come to honor this passage. We were eleven women. Some of us had already passed into being crones. Others were still of childbearing age. She stood in our midst and we asked her: “Are you ready? Are you really ready?”

We wanted her to know in the cells of her being that monthly bleeding wasn’t just about cramps and tampons and the need for protected sex. It was about being fertile for all of life–it was about possiblities. One by one we reminded her who she was:

“Leelee, you are creative. Leelee, you are spunky. Leelee, you are helpful and kind and caring. You paint and dance with abandon.”

We wanted her to be firmly rooted in the splendid reality of who she is so that she can blossom into all that she can be.

l rang the bell again and asked her if she was ready to move into maidenhood. She said “yes” and her grandmother walked her out to prepare her for the passage.

Later, one by one, we asked her to remember: “Your body is an altar. Remember that it is sacred. How you live your life is an act of worship. Your words have power. Bring light into a world that sometimes seems dark. Be the light in your own world.”

We then made an arc for her to pass through. Our arms stretched across her and we joined hands, remembering pieces of our own journey into maidenhood, into womanhood, into cronehood.

Later that evening we pondered the importance of having community, of being community. It’s so easy to get lost in the demands of the day and to become isolated with life’s expectations. What Leelee helped us learn that night was not only that we need to honor our passages, but that we needed to continue to extend to each other the hand of remembering. We need to hold each other in the light and remember to be the light in our own lives. We need to remind ourselves that our own lives are sacred and to find a way to renew that awareness day by day.

Caroline has been a delighted member of SCN for three years, and a member of Writing Circle 6 for all of that time. She is a gardener, grandmother, and goddess centered woman who is grateful to have the support of this circle.

I try not to cry as I sit close to my son while he shivers and cries on the floor – he won’t let me hold him. In the room across the hall, my daughters continue with the archery class that he has been asked to leave. My heart hurts watching him feel so deeply about something he is incapable of at this point.

Braden wanted to try archery and I thought it would be a good way to add some balance to his computer time. Everyone is required to do an introductory class before enrolling – the coach said the class would be easy, as long as the kids can listen and focus. So, I figured, Braden is super at listening and focusing. No problem.

“Pick your bow, grab your arrows, pin up your target, put on your safety glove, find a finger grip, stand behind the blue line on two whistles, shoot your arrows on one whistle, pick up your arrows on three whistles,” says the coach. “If you cross the red line before you have heard three whistles, I will yell and pull you back by your shirt because this is a dangerous sport.”

We all listen. I watch Braden out of the corner of my eye. I see the signs. Covering his eyes with his hair, looking down, shifting around, complaining about the fit of his glove, not being able to put on his finger grip. I repeat the directions to him, slowly and calmly. He listens to me, but the coach says, “No mom – you can’t help him. He has to do it by himself. He needs to pay attention, stop being silly.”

He’s never silly, I think to myself.

“How old is he – isn’t he eight? An eight year old can do this,” the coach says.

“Watch what I’m doing and copy me,” I whisper to him. I know how much he wants this.

He says, “I can’t do it. The glove hurts. Where do I go. I don’t know what to do.”

I’m getting worried, his voice is getting higher – do I just quit now or do I let him keep trying? Will I be giving up on him if I suggest we just sit and watch the girls? I know he will freak out if I say we need to quit now. Sometimes there’s very little time between happily focused and overwhelm.

His body melts onto the archery room floor and the teacher barks that he is no longer welcome in the class.

He has Asperger’s Syndrome and I’m learning more each day about how to help him. He’s smart and capable of so many things that I’m often caught off guard by the things he has trouble with. By getting away from the computer, I was hoping for more balance in his life, but I realize we’re not out of balance because he loves to play computer games – we’re out of balance because other things are so hard for him.

Margaret is a mom to three wonderful kids in Austin, TX. They have been unschooling for six years and find it still so interesting and exciting that she has decided to to put her passion for alternative education together with her love of writing in a blog that she hopes “people will learn from and enjoy.”