brown girl dreaming

I loved the book Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson, a memoir in free verse. I wrote about it over on One Page to the Next.

I was recently in Washington DC where I left a copy of the book with the usual book plate …

If you'd like to hear an interview of Jacqueline Woodson on NPR click HERE. Or, read an excerpt.

Get this book for all the middle grade and young adult readers you know. It is also a wonderful gift for all the lovers of free verse and poetry you know.

Graffiti for Good

It's time to end animal slavery.

TILIKUM from MICHAEL BEERENS on Vimeo.

This isn't how the story ends

"At any given moment, you have the power to say: 

This is not how the story is going to end." 

-Christine Mason Miller

Are we, as people, this uncreative? Are we this oblivious to the needs of other creatures?

I don't think so.

This isn't how the story ends. This may just be how the story begins...

Human creativity and innovation... Human empathy and compassion… We have solved and are able to solve so many problems.

Through the choices that we make every day… we can be more conscious, we can be more humane. We can all make choices that have better consequences for animals.

When we know better, we do better.

What will you do? When will you speak against the dolphin slaughter in Taiji, Japan?

Will you sign a petition? Or speak with your money and never support the dolphin entertainment industry or any captive dolphin programs?

Would you contact the Prime Minister of Japan?
PRIME MINISTER OF JAPAN
Prime Minister Shinzo- Abe
Cabinet Office, Government of Japan
1-6-1 Nagata-cho
Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo. 100-8914 JAPAN
+81-3-5253-2111



Would you contact the U.S. Embassy in Japan?
US Embassy in Japan:
Caroline Kennedy – Ambassador of the United States to Japan
Telephone: 011-81-3-3224-5000
Fax: 011-81-3-3505-1862
Send E-mail to the U.S. Embassy in Japan
Please thank Caroline Kennedy for her defense of the dolphins


Would you contact the International Whaling Commission?

International Whaling Commission (IWC)
The Red House,
135 Station Road,
Impington,
Cambridge,
Cambridgeshire CB24 9NP, UK.
Tel: +44 (0) 1223 233 971
Fax: +44 (0) 1223 232 87
Email: secretariat@iwcoffice.org

Would you contact the United Nations?

United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) / Convention on Migratory Species (CMP)
UNEP/CMS Secretariat
Platz der Vereinten Nationen 1
53113 Bonn, Germany
Tel: (+49 228) 815 2401
Fax: (+49 228) 815 2449
Email: secretariat@cms.int


Be creative. Be innovative. Be empathetic. Be compassionate.

Appreciate dolphins… in their natural habitat.

at least

Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. 

And if you can't help them, at least don't hurt them.

- Dalai Lama

The dolphin hunt in Taiji, Japan has begun… again. 

September 15th was the first slaughter of the season.

And my heart breaks… again.

#taiji #Tweet4taiji

born to learn

#YouCanLearnAnything

feeling the beauty of life

Challenge your assumptions…

"when people see me they just see a runner"


Every Runner Has A Reason from Heist on Vimeo.

Is there something you do where, when you are doing it, you are not your label? 

Enjoy this moment, right here.

we pressers of on

I felt the need to repost…

Instructions For A Bad Day



"There will be bad days. Be calm. Loosen your grip, opening each palm slowly now. Let go. Be confident. Know that now is only a moment, and that if today is as bad as it gets, understand that by tomorrow, today will have ended. Be gracious. Accept each extended hand offered, to pull you back from the somewhere you cannot escape. Be diligent. Scrape the gray sky clean. Realize every dark cloud is a smoke screen meant to blind us from the truth, and the truth is whether we see them or not - the sun and moon are still there and always there is light. Be forthright. Despite your instinct to say "it's alright, I'm okay" - be honest. Say how you feel without fear or guilt, without remorse or complexity. Be lucid in your explanation, be sterling in your oppose. If you think for one second no one knows what you've been going through; be accepting of the fact that you are wrong, that the long drawn and heavy breaths of despair have at times been felt by everyone - that pain is part of the human condition and that alone makes you a legion. We hungry underdogs, we risers with dawn, we dissmisser's of odds, we presser's of on – we will station ourselves to the calm. We will hold ourselves to the steady, be ready player one. Life is going to come at you armed with hard times and tough choices, your voice is your weapon, your thoughts ammunition – there are no free extra men, be aware that as the instant now passes, it exists now as then. So be a mirror reflecting yourself back, and remembering the times when you thought all of this was too hard and you'd never make it through. Remember the times you could have pressed quit – but you hit continue. Be forgiving. Living with the burden of anger, is not living. Giving your focus to wrath will leave your entire self absent of what you need. Love and hate are beasts and the one that grows is the one you feed. Be persistent. Be the weed growing through the cracks in the cement, beautiful - because it doesn't know it's not supposed to grow there. Be resolute. Declare what you accept as true in a way that envisions the resolve with which you accept it. If you are having a good day, be considerate. A simple smile could be the first-aid kit that someone has been looking for. If you believe with absolute honesty that you are doing everything you can - do more. There will be bad days, Times when the world weighs on you for so long it leaves you looking for an easy way out. There will be moments when the drought of joy seems unending. Instances spent pretending that everything is alright when it clearly is not, check your blind spot. See that love is still there, be patient. Every nightmare has a beginning, but every bad day has an end. Ignore what others have called you. I am calling you friend. Make us comprehend the urgency of your crisis. Silence left to its own devices, breed's silence. So speak and be heard. One word after the next, express yourself and put your life in the context – if you find that no one is listening, be loud. Make noise. Stand in poise and be open. Hope in these situations is not enough and you will need someone to lean on. In the unlikely event that you have no one, look again. Everyone is blessed with the ability to listen. The deaf will hear you with their eyes. The blind will see you with their hands. Let your heart fill their news-stands, Let them read all about it. Admit to the bad days, the impossible nights. Listen to the insights of those who have been there, but come back. They will tell you; you can stack misery, you can pack disappear you can even wear your sorrow – but come tomorrow you must change your clothes. Everyone knows pain. We are not meant to carry it forever. We were never meant to hold it so closely, so be certain in the belief that what pain belongs to now will belong soon to then. That when someone asks you how was your day, realize that for some of us – it's the only way we know how to say, be calm. Loosen your grip, opening each palm, slowly now – let go."

next to the person you loved

“Wasn't that the point of life? To find someone to share it with?

And if you got that part right, how far wrong could you go? If you were standing next to the person you loved more than everything else, wasn't everything else just scenery?” 

― Rainbow Rowell, Landline

forgiveness

Archbishop Desmond Tutu and his daughter Mpho Tutu wrote The Book of Forgiving. And, earlier this year they launched a parallel initiative: the Tutu Global Forgiveness Challenge. During the initial three-month signup period, 20,000 people from every time zone in the world invited forgiveness into their lives, delivered via a daily email. 





Are you ready to find out why granting forgiveness is the greatest gift we can give to ourselves?