As I turned on the water to draw my bath, I glanced at the shelf by the tub lined with bottles of bath oils and lotions, reflecting various colors of the sky, the earth and flowering desert plants. Many of those bottles were given to me by friends at a birthday party who said, "Be kind to yourself, take a warm, long bath, relax, luxuriate and treat yourself like a baby." Hmmm... I began by dipping my elbow into the bath water to check the temperature. As I slowly stepped i

The cool, thin mountain air stabbed my lungs with each breath as I lumbered up the trail at over 10,000 feet elevation, carrying the weight of my day pack, loaded with lunch and snack provisions, water for the day plus a little extra, rain gear, binoculars, plus a slew of extras for "just in case", and, I was carrying a Pulaski, with which I would work all day, building a stretch of the Colorado Trail. The morning sun and the physical activity was beginning to warm me, and I

From the book "Twisted by the Wind" Ben used to go down to the park on Sundays with Frankie, his cousin. They were about nine or ten at the most. One particular summer, things got real interesting. Frankie had learned how to look out for himself by that time. He could about squeeze himself into anything interesting that was going on and make it work out for his own benefit. His momma spent a lot of time working, and, with no father to turn to, Frankie kind of grabbed on to B

The waters of change come sweeping over the shifting sands of life. If you can imagine, you can see the crystalline sandy particles rolling past in the movement of the waves as they come in and then move out, come in and move out, these "waves of change", bringing with them more sand to our lives, more debris, more "things" to deal with. And in your imagination you look closer, and you see that the sand grains gleam and sparkle through the water when the sunlight catches

One of the important steps to achieving a fulfilling, more rewarding life is to realize the ramifications of this simple observation: A PEARL is the only natural gemstone that can be made in a human lifetime. A tiny grain of sand or piece of dirt gets inside the shell of an oyster. That creature’s way of dealing with an irritation is to coat it over, over and over, until it becomes a smooth thing of deep beauty, the pearl. Much like the oyster, we too must manage life’s irrit