Three Years

Today, September 25, 2012 is the three year anniversary for Healing Morning blog! I almost overlooked it, as today was a typically busy day.  I happened to scroll down and see the widget that tracks my blog-i-versary and sure enough, today was the big day!

Three years seems such a short time.  In some ways, I've lived many lifetimes in that short span.  I've met incredibly gifted blog writers and formed beautiful friendships.  The blogging world is vast, and I'm thrilled when I look at my blog stats and see that I have a truly global readership.  That phenomenon never ceases to  fascinate and amaze me, that people the world round follow my writing and look forward to my articles.

Writers write, just as musicians create music, artists create art, athletes achieve physical feats.  Each of us seek to express ourselves in our unique manner.  Secretly, we hope others will find our work pleasing and worthy of attention, yet many of us tend to squirm and wrestle with any large amount of recognition.

It's a curious thing, embracing a level of transparency with my writing.  I've said it over and over in these past three years, that when I write something that really exposes my true self, when I write something that pushes the envelope on a spiritual level and uncovers sides of me that up until that point had remained safely hidden and protected....those are the articles that always receive the strongest and most positive responses.  In becoming a blogger, I've learned to trust my gut instincts and bravely rip away layers of protection, walls that used to be high and thick.  I have grown in friendship and in self-knowledge and I expect that both of these will continue to flourish.

I find a sense of personal joy with my writing here.  Healing Morning is where I come to express random thoughts and concepts that don't fit into my business writing.  It is here that I give free rein to whimsy, to laughter, to tears, to strength, to weakness and every emotion that exists.  You who visit and take time to read my thoughts, and then go that extra step to leave wonderful comments - I wish I could find words to express how much I appreciate each of you.  You add to the experience of my writing, adding your unique strokes of color and brightness to the canvas that I paint with my words.

To each of you:

Namaste'....meaning,

"I honor the place within you where the entire Universe resides; I honor the place within you of love, of light, of truth, of peace; I honor the place within you, where, when you are in that place in you, and I am in that place in me, there is only one of us."

Thank you for visiting.  I look forward to celebrating many more years of writing, blogging and fellowship.

- Dawn

Grasshopper Thoughts, Vol. VI September 2012

It's been ages since I last grasshoppered, so it's definitely time to embrace the concept again!  Grasshoppering is cathartic, after all, so here I go....

• The great debate of ketchup vs mustard on French fries exists in my world.  Mustard, you say?  Yes, I do!  Ketchup is usually a bit too sugary for my taste.  So I usually have a puddle of each on my plate when I indulge in French fries. There is also the odd occasion where I have either sour cream or mayonnaise with French fries, but that's a whole other debate.
• Whomever invented the little plastic prison to capture shavings on pencil sharpeners, you're my official Hero. And whomever finally incorporated that concept into sharpeners for cosmetic eye and lip liner pencils, Bravo!  I applaud your brilliance.  
• I was looking at river rocks the other day.  What is it about their smoothly tumbled, pleasing to the touch surface that makes me so happy?  Perhaps it's just that.  They're simple and beautiful.  Dreamy in variations of colors, usually.  I have a silver bowl full on my desk that I've collected over a lifetime.  The newest one is a pale, gentle peachy shade and is blobby in shape.  It fits beautifully into the palm of my hand.
• I have a weakness for dimples.  There, I said it.  If you're a man with dimples, and you smile at me, I'm going to get a wee bit giddy.  There's not a whit of logic to it.  Dimples just flutter me, and with one person in particular, they tend to short circuit my brain for a microsecond or two. This is not a bad thing, btw. :)
• Vinegar is awesome!  Apple cider vinegar, rice wine vinegar, balsamic vinegar, plain old white kitchen vinegar....I love them all.  Wonderful for toxin-free cleaning, but even more so for cooking.  The more tart, sour, tangy, the better, in my opinion.  As I mentioned with ketchup, I'm not a big fan of things overly sweet.  
• And vinegar gives us pickles!  So, obviously, it follows that I'm a pickle person.  Sour, tart, crunchy, savory.  Just the scent of pickling liquid makes my mouth water.  Being southern, I have to give a special nod to that delightful treat of pickled okra.  If you haven't tried it, don't knock it!  I promise you, it's delicious!!!  :)
• Snort-larfing.  You know you do it occasionally!  I did it recently over a random comment at my family reunion.  It wasn't a quiet one, either.  No, it was a full fledged, less-than-feminine full out snort-larf.  Sometimes life is just that funny.
• We're moving into the fall months here in East Tennessee, and cooler mornings, milder temps during the day, lower humidity and promise of fall color in the Smoky Mountains are upon us.  I love this time of year!

Ahhh....much better.  Now my noggin is a bit more clear of clutter.  If only I could incorporate this into housecleaning!  Alas, it will never happen.  Grasshoppering is relegated to my mental faculties.  The writing process of grasshoppering is fun, though.  The recent summer months have been challenging for many of us, myself included, so there is merit in the occasional post that addresses a moment of whimsy.  

Quiet Tribute

*I wrote this article in 2012, and feel that it still speaks my heart and my perspective on the day this tragedy struck my country.  It is my way of paying tribute and remembering those who fell that day.  - S. Dawn Sievers*

I was taking a shower that morning, and heard the phone ringing.  I didn't think much of it, as I had plans to meet a girlfriend for lunch later that day.  I finished showering, decided to dry my hair before listening to the answering machine message.  But the phone rang again, and yet again, encouraging me to stop everything and answer the call. It was my girlfriend telling me the USA had been attacked, that a plane had hit one of the Towers of the World Trade Center and another one had gone down in a field somewhere in Pennsylvania, and equally nightmarish - a living nightmare - was the news that our Pentagon had also suffered an attack....all of this happening within a very short span of time on the clock of that September morning.

This was difficult to even picture or fathom, because this type of thing just doesn't happen to America.  Or, it didn't.  Up until that day, our country had lived in a unique bubble, safe and never assailed by outside forces in this modern age.  The bubble was broken that day.

I turned the TV on and watched, horrified.  The second plane hit the second of the World Trade Center Towers before my eyes and the eyes of the whole world.  Comprehension and terrible understanding sank in.  As I left my house to drive over to my girlfriend's house, I noticed the absolute hush over the day.  Some of this hush was due to all airplanes except for military being grounded, but it was more than that.

There was a hush in nature.  

No birds were singing.  I remember that very clearly, and I stood outside listening for a good 15 minutes, looking around me, but the sounds of nature were silent.  My home at the time was surrounded by heavy tracts of woods, so there were always the sounds of birds chirping.  But not that day.  It was silent outside.  There was no breeze.  Just a still hush over the world that was palpable.  I will never forget how it felt, as though the world was holding its breath for the people who perished that day.

I spent the day getting in touch with everyone I love the most, making sure they were safe.  There was an intrinsic need to connect with them, and I learned I was not alone in that need.  Phone lines and computer servers were overloaded with extremely high levels of activity that day.  I grieved at what a great loss we had incurred and struggled to make sense of it.  There is no sense to be garnered, obviously.  The only positive thing I can take from it is that we survived it.  Our country survived, but thousands of innocent people died.  This many years later, the memories are still vivid and fresh, and for many....still raw.

I've read other people's thoughts of where they were that day. I was in Knoxville, Tennessee, living my very ordinary life, safe and far from harm's way.  That prompted me to share my memories and what still stands out so strongly in my memory was how quiet the day became.  For those who believe this planet is inanimate, without reaction to tragic events, I would hold that memory out as an example of the exact opposite.

I felt the earth react and give quiet tribute to the ones who left us.