A Spiritual Return to Work

Tags

calmness, clarity, compassion, contentment, courage, spirituality

It had been almost a year since I had the opportunity to walk some of my favorite nature trails close to my workplace. The work-from-home life-change had disrupted my almost daily visits to the rivers, bridges and forest spaces of renewal.

All of that changed in an instant this past week, as I took some time off to ‘return to work.’ The work of visiting with some of my ‘best friends’ and checking on their health. It was a wonderful return, a visit that reminded me of how much I had missed this essential part of my spiritual practice.

The trails are the type of friends who never ask you how long you’ve been gone – they just welcome you back with open arms. This felt true about the section of the river that was in spate after the recent rains, as also the section where a mother and her toddler were soaking their toes in its quiet flow under a bridge.

The welcome felt true about the narrow fisherman’s trail where the dense over-growth grabbed your ankles as you walked by, and the tall oaks invited you to hug them in the wide clearings. An hour and a half later, playing and visiting with the damp earth, waters and river beds, clouds in the sky, sunlight among trees, and the ‘ether’ that flows warmth from nature’s heart to mine, I felt while again.

I realized that this is the part of ‘coming to work’ that I had truly missed over the past year. I realized that the daily connection to nature plants seeds of contentment, which grow into branches of calmness and the leaves compassion. Courage and clarity are the flowers and fruits become the tree of spiritual work.

Our real work is perhaps to remember our nature. Connection with nature can remind us that we have the potential to be living, breathing, loving, ever-welcoming, radiant hearts full of joy, awareness and contentment. May we all include That connection in our ‘return to work’ plans.

Namaste,

Kumud

P.S. Join us for our weekly Twitter chat, Sunday June 13 at 9amET / 630om India in #SpiritChat. I look forward to connecting with all of you. – @AjmaniK

The ‘bike path’ through the forest…

The Spirit of Goodness

Tags

action, COVID-19, goodness, grief, healing, spirituality, suffering

It is the first of May. Over the last ten days of April, my mind has been all over the place with all that has been happening in India. If my social media feeds are any gauge, a lot of my friends and family are in the same situation. We are all witnessing the pain, the grief, the suffering – some are in the midst of it and others, who are at a distance, are doing whatever they can to offer help and support.

The anger and rage, despair and despondency, seemed to grow exponentially, as the situation deteriorated at a rapid rate. It seemed that almost everyone that I talked to knew someone who was affected in a big or small way by the virus’ spread in India. A lot of folks, including me, were asking – how could this (be allowed to) happen?

It isn’t unusual for us to ask this question when unprecedented pain, suffering, and death is brought upon humanity – how can a loving God (or higher power) allow so many to be subject to all this? How can this be a just outcome? Where is the goodness in all this?

I believe that these are all good questions to ask. I also believe that darkness and dark times can awaken us, remind our hearts of our empathetic nature, and inspire us to yet again focus on creating goodness and healing through our actions.

My belief in goodness is being re-affirmed every day by the same social media streams that are carrying pleas for help. For every individual plea, there seem to be dozens of people stepping up with ideas, resources, messages of hope and prayers. Non-government organizations, faith groups, corporations, and countries are taking action to provide all kinds of resources.

In the midst of the tragedy, when I refocused my mind, my heart began to see an awakening that led to an outpouring of goodness and goodwill towards India and her people. The questioning and blame setting and analysis of ‘what went wrong’ will continue for a while, and yet there is affirmation that goodness of human hearts is alive and well.

Hundreds of pop-up food kitchens. Folks lining up to donate plasma. NGOs creating makeshift hospitals. Doctors creating zoom networks to provide free consultation around the clock across the country. Teenagers creating “GoFundMe” campaigns to raise money for UNICEF India. Healthcare and frontline workers working untold hours at grave personal risk. The list of goodness and good people goes on and on…

What have I learnt? Darkness is an opportunity to create more goodness, or awaken the reservoir that already exists in our heart. We belong to goodness, because we have breathed it through the live of our parents, our caregivers, our well wishers, our friends and family, our spiritual guides and lights, and even the kindness of strangers.

If there is a winning or losing, then Goodness wins. Let us remember, and stay focused on helping the helpers who embody the hearts and hands of the divine.

Namaste,

Kumud

P.S. Join us for our weekly conversation, Sunday May 2 at 9amET / 630pm India. India and I are grateful for your love and grace, and look forward to sharing tea and cookies with you again. – @AjmaniK

Sunrise on a morning walk. April 2021.

The Heart’s Fullness

Tags

celebration, easter, emptiness, fullness, spirituality

For most of the years that the weekly #SpiritChat has been around, we take a break from our Sunday morning Twitter gathering on Easter Sunday. It has become a bit of a tradition, if you will.

This Easter Sunday, we are going to ‘break with tradition’ because my heart has invited me to do so. Let me elaborate.

I usually wait until after my Saturday morning meditation hour to choose a topic for our Sunday chat. Clarity usually comes to the heart after meditation. As I sat for today’s hour, I didn’t even ‘ask for a topic’ because I wasn’t planning to do the chat anyway.

And yet, the universe had different plans. As my thoughts receded and the noise was replaced by a fullness of warmth and light that first came as a trickle, then a flood, and then a stillness that just sat there, my heart’s master said — “hold space for them like I am holding space for you.”

Who are these them, I asked? They are those who want someone to celebrate with, but can’t. Or they are those who want to simply share with someone about their week. Or they just want to see a friendly face, like your friend, the veteran who stands under a tree outside the local post office holding a “be kind” cardboard sign – the one you stop and chat with every single time you see him, inquire about his health issues, share some prepackaged food or a mask, and more. Yes him, who often reminds you of the fullness and richness of your life, as he says “God loves you” at the end of every one of your street conversations.

Yes. Hold space for them, because them includes you. Be the vessel that can be filled with potential. That was this morning’s invitation, and I accepted.

What is fullness or emptiness? It’s relative, isn’t it? To paraphrase Lao Tse, “we focus on the beauty of the vessel, but its usefulness, its potential is in its emptiness”. When the heart’s vessel is full, we feel led to empty it, to share what is held within, whether it be joy or sorrow. When the heart feels empty, we want to fill it up again.

Back and forth, the pendulum swings, and a time comes when our heart’s fullness is permanent. We are home again to love. We can all celebrate that, can’t we?

Kumud

P. S. Join us for our weekly chat, Sunday April 4 at 9amET / 630pm India in #SpiritChat. Bring some goodies to share, and we will celebrate fullness. Namaste – @AjmaniK

Flowers fill the heart… Happy Easter!

On Life’s Diverse Colors

Tags

celebration, colors, diversity, spirituality, unity

As I walk outside on to the deck just after sunrise, I am greeted by a symphony of sounds and colors that are unmistakably spring. The blue hues of the lake shimmering reflections of the sky remind me of the much more expansive palette of the skies and waters of the Caribbean at sunrise on any given morning.

The greens of new buds on plants and the tiniest of leaves on trees in the forest encourage the grasses that are meandering their way back to life. There aren’t many reds or oranges or yellows or such yet, but I am sure that that palette will appear later during the sunset hour. I muse over my cup of tea…

What would our lives look like without the existence of color, or our ability to discern the beauty that the myriad colors of people’s experiences add to our lives? If our true wealth is the sum total of our shared experiences, then would we not be paupers without having experienced a multitude of hues of faiths, beliefs, cultures and such? Why is it then that…

There are so many who continue to insist that it is their color, their truth, their experience, their waters, their way of life, their spiritual practices, their books, their philosophy, their mythology, their culture and such that is superior and deserving of domination — and that all else must go.

It is like me trying to color the world around me with “my favorite color”. Or, perhaps it is like a color-blind person (yes, that’s me in real life) saying that a particular color doesn’t exist or cannot possibly exist or has no value because I literally cannot see it. Imagine if the extent of our universe was limited to our senses and their perception – would we not be living in denial of a large part of our human experience? I perhaps digress…

On this full moon of March, a weekend that marks the “festival of colors” or Holi in India, my heart asks more questions. What is the color of the falling rain or the dew drop or the tear in a mother’s eye? What is the color of the breeze that awakens the buds in spring? What is the color of the heat that warms the earth and causes the roots to stir to life? What is the color of love or fear or hate or joy or awakening? I don’t really know…

I do know that it is perhaps in embracing all our transitions through the experiences of all the myriad colors of our life, that we can prepare ourselves for the experiences which are colorless, formless, infinite and permanent. It is a form of Yoga. If we were to deny or negate the diversity of color in our world, how would we ever arrive at unity, let alone experience Oneness in our heart?

So, bring on Holi, I say, with all of its vigor of color, joy and celebration of all of humanity. Let there be color everywhere through light, so that its source can infuse love for all in our hearts.

Kumud

P. S. Join us to celebrate and share the colors of your life in our weekly chat – Sunday, March 28 at 9amET in #SpiritChat on Twitter. Namaste – @AjmaniK

What colors can your eye see in Spring?

Messengers of Equity

Tags

equinox, equity, harmony, spirituality, spring

The onset of spring often means that I get an opportunity to align my annual “work break” with my daughters “spring break” at school. This rhythm was fortunately restored this week, after the disruption last year due to the pandemic.

The rhythm’s restoration was accompanied by the opportunity to spend a whole week filled with twelve-hour long days and nights as the equinox approached and allowed for day-dreaming and natural observation. What emerged from simple observation without agenda? It was how nature tends to do such a wonderful job of being a messenger of equity in so many of her daily rhythms.

One such messenger that I got closely acquainted with this week was the sun rise over deep blue Caribbean waters every morning. The acts of waking up early to complete my morning meditation, followed by watching the sunrises became my new natural rhythm. I could literally set my watch to the song of the bird that would start singing while the dawn was still dark. Her faith in the new light that was imminent, was as unwavering as it was uplifting.

The sunrises were far from perfect, though. On most mornings, clouds of various width, depth and height would hug the sea, obscuring a direct view of the sun. And yet, every sunrise viewing was spectacular because every one of them started out unpredictably different. However, the conclusion and the Sun’s message was always the same.

Just before 7am, silvery linings would form on the edges of the clouds. Shortly after, the sun’s orb would ascend high enough in the sky to subsume the clouds with its golden brilliance. It seemed as if the Sun, in its rising, was messaging equity to all beings, regardless of their size, status or situation in the natural order of life.

How was this daily message received by the world? One example was seen in the appearance of the pelicans, who had a predictable rhythm along the shoreline while the sunrise’s drama was unfolding. Their timing seemed to based on a synergy between the sun’s emergence and the state of the tide. They often seemed to arrive peacefully, in groups ranging from three to maybe a dozen. With grace and peace, they fearlessly and repeatedly plunged headfirst into the waters for their morning catch. Their morning ballet was a pleasant, soothing contrast to that of the raucous crows and blackbirds!

The response to the Sun’s message of peace, harmony, abundance and yes, equity, is often received and acted upon differently by many of us, isn’t it? Why is this so? Does the messaging need to be improved? Is nature using the wrong messenger?

I don’t have the answers. All I can do is relay to you the message of equity that was delivered loudly and clearly to me on this vernal equinox. Our future depends on our investment into working towards equity for all. Will we choose to listen to the messenger and act accordingly, or will we close our eyes to the light?

I hope we choose well in this new season of healing and wellness for all.

Kumud

P. S. Join us in our weekly chat, Sunday March 21 at 9am EDT / 730pm India as we celebrate the Sun’s passage through equity. I look forward to seeing you after my ‘break’. Namaste – @AjmaniK

Sunrise on the Caribbean…
March 20 2021, Vernal Equinox

P.P.S. My ‘break’ this year was made possible by being fully vaccinated relatively early (the 2nd dose was completed on Feb 6… ), and the invitation to a remote location #gratitude

On Creating Simplicity

Tags

awareness, freedom, simplicity, spirituality

Thirtieth January. It was on this day in 1948 that the simple life of Mahatma Gandhi was snuffed by an act of violence, as he walked to an outdoor prayer meeting in New Delhi. His final words as he breathed his last were, “hey ram” — a remembrance of the God Rama. Gandhi, the man who was instantly recognizable by his simplicity – a pair of glasses, a walking stick and a white cloth made of homespun cotton draped around his body, as he travelled all across India inspiring a nation to rise up in non-violence to shake off the chains of British rule.

It was Gandhi’s simplicity that made him relatable to India’s ordinary people who felt that they too could join him in his fight for freedom and justice. His mission was simple too — complete independence for India. Inspired by the Bhagavad Gita and the likes of Paine and Thoreau, he inspired many lovers of non-violence and freedom in his wake, including Martin Luther King, Jr.

We all have had experiences with simplicity, or at least the occasional and intermittent desire for it in our lives. We often marvel and reminisce about the joy and lightness that we felt in those stages of our lives when ‘life was so simple’. One reason that our heart may even ache for a rerun to simplicity, to create it again in our lives, is that it is our natural state.

The ease of flow that we experience in simplicity is what attracts us to create it again. Simplicity, and the allowance that it creates in our lives – the idea of living a simple life of observation instead of a life of a desire to control people’s behavior and the tendency to jump to conclusions and judgement. Simplicity engenders a life of peace, tranquility, lightness and creativity rather than a life living the death spiral of the ‘outrage of the hour’ brought to us by our hyper engagement with (social) media.

How do we begin to create simplicity (again)? One area we can examine is our daily habits and practices. What habits can we simplify, or even eliminate, without much effort? What (spiritual) practices are portable and sustainable? In what ways are we introducing more complex thoughts into our daily life? Some questions I often ask at the end of the day. For how long did I sit still today? What did I consume and how did it affect me? Did I engage with nature today? What was my greatest moment of Joy today?

As we ask these simple questions and watch the answers emerge, our awareness will create more simplicity in our lives. The more that simplicity grows within, the more we will be attracted to it because of its rewards and its ability to return us to our natural, holistic state. Simplicity creates sustainability and warmth for the heart, like the rising of the Sun. A sunrise is simple, and yet, is there any single act more effective and essential for the health of the planet?

Kumud

Join us for our weekly Twitter chat, Sunday Jan 31 at 9amET in #SpiritChat – we will ask some simple questions and create some simplicity. Namaste – @AjmaniK

The simplicity encouraged by Nature…

On Truth and Reconciliation

Tags

healing, light, reconciliation, spirituality, truth

It’s a mid-winter Saturday morning as I wait for the sun to rise and break the logjam of cloud cover that has been hanging in the sky like a spider hanging on for dear life, precariously at the end of its thread. I am reflecting on today’s morning meditation and the sunlit energy state that it created for my heart — a state that I hope to remember to carry with me through the rest of the day, and evoke when the cloud cover returns within or without.

The events of the week, particularly of Inauguration Day last Wednesday, have flung open the door to a state where speaking the truth is not the exception any more. The calls to ‘end the uncivil war’ and to ‘be brave enough to see the light’ are like balm to the wounds of millions of hearts who are looking for relief from the weight of pain, even grief, that they have been carrying like muse on an uphill mountain trail.

I have told the story before, and yet, in the context of truth and reconciliation bears repeating. It took me the better part of twenty years to tell my mother the truth of how much it hurt that I, the middle child, didn’t grow up with the rest of the family. It took a moment of inspired courage, standing on the balcony of a small apartment watching the sun set, holding our cups of tea, that I opened the door to speak my truth. And, to my pleasant surprise, she spoke hers. It I didn’t take me long to realize that her decision to ask her sister to raise me as a seven year old was the toughest thing she had done at her young age of twenty nine. The two of us speaking our truths to each other that evening, led to many more truthful conversations during the rest of her visit to the USA. By the time she left, I was well on the path to forgiveness and reconciliation.

That conversation was almost thirty years ago. It wasn’t that we didn’t have strong disagreements or great challenges in our relationship in the years since, but we never forgot that speaking and living our own truths, and walking in each other’s shoes with compassion, was our way back to respect, reconciliation and healing. By the time she suddenly passed away a few years back, she had become one of my best friends, confidants and advisors. Even though I continued to question some of her truths, and we had many long phone conversations about them, I never questioned her capacity to love.

What did I learn from my experience? I learnt that we are all capable of truth and reconciliation, and that our heart’s light stands ready to show us the way if we can muster enough courage to heal our wounds and let go of our pain. Is it ever too late to discard shame and blame in favor of civility, candid conversation and co-creation?

The spider doesn’t need to hang by its thread any more. The clouds have parted, the sun has risen, and it’s time to resume weaving the web of love with threads of truth, reconciliation and healing.

Bring your light. We need your courage to heal.

Kumud

P.S. Join us for our weekly conversation, Sunday Jan 24 at 9amET / 730pm India as we discuss some truths. The sun will be rising, I will be pouring tea, and we will walk the light. Namaste – @AjmaniK

Sunrise on the lake – Wednesday, January 20 2021

On Revisiting Joy

Tags

celebration, healing, journey, joy, spirituality

As late as last Tuesday, it appeared that we were drifting towards “skipping Christmas” this year. For whatever reason, and I can probably rattle off a lot of them, the family, including me, just didn’t seem to have caught the spirit of the season. We all seemed to be in silent agreement about the skipping and sleep-walking towards 2021. Some things are not meant to be, I thought.

And then came the snow on Wednesday evening. It wasn’t the violent snowstorm that had come a couple of weeks ago and dumped more than a foot of snow on us in the span of twenty four hours. No. This was the gentle, quiet, languid snow where every flake takes its own sewer time drifting towards the earth. There is a haze that sets up at sunset and it’s almost as if the overcast sky holds the last light of the day in its arms such that the radiance makes the night as bright as the day. The lights around the neighborhood come to life and their reflection against the water and the falling and fallen snow creates a sort of magic that extends the silent invitation.

Come play, it says. Come revisit. Come and remember. Find a single reason for Joy. You look at the new puppy sitting by the patio door with wide eyed pleading, waiting for you to open the door to the deck so she can go out and roll around in the fluffy white, even feast on it. Silently, the tide turns and my daughter announces that mid-Thursday that she is done with all her finals. My wife decides that enough is enough. She goes to the basement, and while I am on a work telecon, single-handledly digs out the eight-foot high tree that has been wondering if it will get to see the lights this year.

I am still wondering about reason, but the snow falling and the water swirling around me has other ideas. My daughter has decided that she is going to play with the gingerbread cookie kit sitting in the box. With that, the tide has fully turned. Cookies, my friends!

I am transported to a time where the heart feels like it is bobbing for waves in the ocean, where you have waded in just far enough and deep enough that your feet can still feel the earth. As you hold ground with the tips of your toes, every so often, a wave comes and lifts you clean off of the ocean floor into moments of joy and exhilaration. Every time you think you’ve had enough of the waves and try and return to the shore, the slightest of undercurrents invites you to stay a bit longer.

Revisiting Joy doesn’t happen like a flash of lightning during the middle of a late summer thunderstorm. It happens with the slow drift and soft lullaby of the peacefulness of every snow flake that is grateful that their falling has been cradled by grace and give brilliance to a single heart on some of the darkest nights of the year.

My hope is that you get to revisit too. We can only resist the invitation of nature for so long. We can resist our intrinsic nature even less, and our intrinsic nature is Joy. That is what we were built for. To remember, experience and share it.

Joy to our world. Let us revisit and soar again.

Kumud

P.S. The house keeps filling up. Lettered stockings have now appeared on the fireplace. Santa is getting his delivery ‘truck’ ready… Come join us and share your story of Joy. I hope you can find a reason. Namaste – @AjmaniK

Learning to fly by revisiting Joy

Towards Betterment – with @JonMertz

Tags

betterment, self-care, self-improvement, self-knowledge, spirituality

What is the primary goal of spiritual practice and a spiritual mind-set and heart-set towards life? We all may have different answers to this question. From personal experience, I can say that the answers to this question often change with time, with our station in life, and as our definition of life-purpose changes.

One thread that runs common through all our answers to the question of “why spirituality” is perhaps to find an answer to the question – “Who am I”? It is with this self-inquiry that our search for self-knowledge often begins. It is when we begin the journey to look within that we can begin to see the aspects of ourselves that may need “improvement”. This often leads us down the path of seeking “self-improvement”, which often brings us to the path of “self-care”, and then “spiritual care”. 

Hold that thought for a minute while I introduce you to my friend Jon Mertz. I met Jon in my early days of twitter, and we quickly became friends because he had a clarity of purpose and a transparency that was refreshing. He was very supportive of #SpiritChat during the early years, and remains so to this day. The opportunity came to meet him in Dallas, TX in January 2013, and we got together for lunch when I was visiting there for an Aerospace conference. 

Let’s bring back the thought of “self-improvement” and “spiritual care”. Over the past few weeks on twitter, Jon introduced me to his  concept of “betterment”. I was drawn to the concept because “betterment” seems to be the logical outcome of “self-knowledge” and “self-care”. It is when our spiritual practices “better” our state of awareness, “better” our state of Joy, “better” our state of Truth, that  we know that spiritual growth is happening. 

Jon Mertz has written a wonderful post to introduce the concept of Betterment as a “New Leadership Calling”. From a spiritual perspective, the “calling” is what first awakens us to the notion that we need to change something within. Regardless of our initial goal or motivation to change, it is when our efforts and practices produce tangible betterment in our lives that we are inspired to keep walking our path. 

Betterment is simple. How do our actions and interactions make others better? How do our actions and interactions make ourselves better? – Jon Mertz

The simpler an idea is, the easier it is to implement, integrate into and sustain in our daily practice of living. Betterment meets that criteria. 

Betterment is evolutionary and, sometimes, transformational. – Jon Mertz

The outcome of our spiritual practice is often transformational. Transformation of the heart, mind and spirit is the knowing that answers the question —  Who am I? How am I making myself and the world better?

Simple and Transformational. Betterment is the calling.

Will we step up and answer the calling?

Kumud 

Jon Mertz’ Bio : Jon Mertz founded Santa Fe Innovates, a social entrepreneur accelerator program and community. He also is an interdisciplinary leadership doctoral candidate at Creighton University. @JonMertz on twitter and founder of the Thin Difference community. 

Kumud’s note : I am grateful that Jon has introduced me to the concept of #betterment. I am excited that I will be hosting him in our weekly #SpiritChat  on Sunday, October 25 at 9amET / 630pm India. Come meet Jon and stay for some tea and cookies with us as we talk about #Betterment for all. Namaste – @AjmaniK

Meet Jon Mertz – author of “Betterment – A New Leadership Calling“

Rediscovering Joy and Wonder by @AwakeningTrue

Tags

discovery, joy, spirituality, wonder

Rediscovering Joy and Wonder

I was about 5 years old, staring into a bassinet where a newborn baby was sound asleep.  She was lying on her back and I was as mesmerized by her stillness as I was by her tiny hands.  Soon, I became aware of someone standing behind me.  It was not my Mom or one of my aunts because I knew that if it were, I would feel a hand on my shoulder or hear a familiar voice speaking to me.  I continued to stare at the sleeping baby, and then she made a small sound and she smiled.  I was totally amazed,  but not by the baby.  It was these words, “She is talking with the angels,” that amazed me.  The woman standing behind me spoke these words so softly – not to me but to herself.  Even at 5, I understood when someone was speaking to me and when she was not.  It was not the woman’s words that amazed me – they seemed true enough to me – it was the way she spoke them.  It was, I realized many years later, a tone that was full of wonder.

Joy and wonder!  I link these two words because there seems to be something magical when we experience joy and wonder in the same moment.  So, how do we rediscover joy and wonder when we are not watching a newborn talk with the angels?  Times when you have experienced joy and wonder may have just immediately come to mind.  When we are prompted, that often happens.  We think about a gorgeous sunrise after a storm, or the first fireflies of summer, or splashing in the ocean, or some moment when we felt sheer, unbridled joy AND a sense of awe and wonder.  A more important question is this – how do we rediscover joy and wonder in our day-to-day lives even as we live in these very challenging times?  How do we experience joy and wonder every day?  Every day.

I believe in the magic of everyday life, and believe we can choose to notice the magic within us and around us.  We can pause for a few moments to notice the glistening dew on the grass, the way the light seemed to flash just as our eyes rested on those sparkles.  We can drink in the beauty of the light reflected in the dew, knowing that it will shift and disappear in a few moments, and realizing that if we had not glanced in this direction in this exact moment, we would have missed this light entirely.  Joy in the beauty, wonder in the timing, gratitude for the magic of the moment.

I hope you will join the #SpiritChat conversation this Sunday, and share your insights about rediscovering joy and wonder in our daily lives.  Has this ever seemed more important to us than it is now?

Sharon Kathryn D’Agostino — @SharonDAgostino, @AwakeningTrue and @SayItForwardNow 

Author’s bio: I believe in the power of love, compassion, kindness, forgiveness, and gratitude. And I believe that each of us has an important role in shaping a kinder, gentler, more compassionate world for all. 

Kumud’s note: I am delighted that Sharon will be hosting #SpiritChat for all of us on Sunday, October 4 at 9amET on twitter. I am so looking forward to “Joy and Wonder”, and all that emerge from our rediscovering them. Thank you, Sharon!

Fireflies evoke joy and wonder – photo by Dave Burwell