Last week when I sent out a humongous email blast, I thought I was just trying to drum up some freelance editing work. I thought I was being professional. I thought the effort would most likely be ignored but was worth doing anyhow. Boy, was I wrong.One of my favorite things is learning how wrong I am. When that happens, my heart expands. I may get some work from the email effort, but the more important thing I got was a tidal wave of support, validation, and, yes, I’ll use the “L” word — Love.
Like a gunshot, the first response was from a guy who calls himself a “GratiDude.” Brad Morris (BradiDude), co-founder of Agents-of-Change – Global Movements, Inc., helps people “by guiding them to live their life to the fullest and on purpose while Manifesting Awesomeness!” But, even better, he teaches them to dance. I defy you not to feel happy doing Brad’s gratitude dance. (See below.)
Then artist Jerry Wennstrom decided to forward my email to his entire mailing list. Jerry and his wife, Marilyn Strong, aspire to nothing less than changing the world by leading workshops to help people get to know themselves in a bigger way. And the gesture of forwarding my email resulted in a bigger wave of stuff than I ever could have imagined. People wrote with curiosity, questions, and for no known reason except they felt drawn to say “hello, friend.”
And finally, I received the delightful “Favorite Things” picture (above) from children’s book legend, Eric Carle (The Very Hungry Caterpillar, etc.). Long before he became a children’s book author, Eric was “saving” children. He saved me just by existing. He was a friend of my father and, to this day, several scenes of his humanity and compassion are seared into my memory — resulting in a heart flood whenever I call them to mind. He did this picture as a gift for The House of Illustration, “the world’s first centre dedicated to the art of illustration in all its forms and to create a permanent home for an enduring art.” The House explains that “illustration touches our lives every day. It appears in books, magazines and newspapers, on advertising hoardings, in comics and graphic novels. It's art on a human scale . . .” (You can see a higher resolution version of the picture, read Eric's favorites — "napping" is his favorite activity — and even buy the picture, at the website.)
It’s a funny thing about gratitude and generosity and heart floods — they take up so much space, there is literally no room for anything else in your body. On the human scale, you are absolutely satiated.
I wish everybody who reads this a satiating Thanksgiving!