Spreading Sunshine
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Spreading Sunshine A monthly ezine to brighten your day and make you smile! Issue 6, September 29, 2007 Join Us! Welcome! By receiving this newsletter, you are part of a group of people making their dreams come true. If you like what you read, please forward this message to your friends and family, and invite them to join us too! Click here to subscribe to Spreading Sunshine now! The Perfect Camping Trip © 2007 Laurie Smith We were cuddled up in the tent—all three of us when I heard it. “Did you hear that?” I whispered through the dark night to my husband, not even sure if he was awake. “Mmmm…” I heard him stirring on the other side of my son. The pitter patter of the rain seemed especially loud as each drop hit the nylon tent. “Do you think we should stay?” Then it came, a rarity for this part of California. Thunder. The rumble echoed through the valley where we lay, sheltered (or so it felt) by Mount Tam. The towering redwoods surrounding our tent rustled loudly as the wind kicked up. We waited a moment in silence, Jim and I, listening as protective parents do, to see if we could predict the coming storm’s intentions. We had both spent enough nights in leaky tents and had (miraculously) lived through enough thunderstorms in the great outdoors to know that nature was not to be messed with. Especially not on a little three-year-old’s first camping experience. When lightning flashed in response to our silence followed by a clap overhead, we scooped up the little sleeping boy beside us and carried him through the dark night, down the long, steep incline to our car. What could have been a major bummer, however, we learned as his eyes opened wide, was the greatest of adventures. “Our campsite was 1-2,” he chatted happily in the backseat. “Those were thunder clouds!” Then, “Oooh! A deer!” as a large buck with antlers walked along the roadside through the wilderness. “Guess what, Mommy and Daddy?” I see sooo many stop signs!” chatting on and on about the row of red reflectors he had just spotted on the state park gate. Then it struck me. Although the night seemed cut short to us—to our son, it was perfect. We had all enjoyed the strumming of Jim’s guitar music, shared a meal in the great outdoors, and the joy of creating a home with little more than two sleeping bags, a tent, and a few air mattresses. Devin had experienced his first of many camping experiences, and it had been divine. Best of all, now we all got to go home to sleep in our beds. Sometimes nature, life or others sweep in causing us to change plans. Sometimes, for the sake of peace or solidarity or safety, we need to concede, altering our vision en route for the sake of unforeseen needs that reveal themselves along the way. When we open our minds to the idea of giving in, just a little, to something or someone else, new creations we may never have even considered as options become possible. The middle way may very well be better than that star we were shooting for. Sometimes compromise isn’t so bad. At least, that’s how we felt the next afternoon as we returned to the campsite to load up the drenched tents into our car, fond memories of the festivities of the night before reflected in our smiles. Best of all, there were no circles under our eyes telling the tale of sleeping in puddles. Miracles Happen! I am delighted to announce that my first book Soul Wisdom: A Guide to Miraculous Livingis now available for purchase on Amazon.com! Thank you to all who have supported me in making this dream come true. All proceeds will be donated to charities benefiting children. To learn more, click HERE! |
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More Good News! Here are some recent good news stories that made me smile this month. Happy reading! (Click on the headlines to link to the original news stories.) "Although great human tragedies like Iraq and Darfur dominate the news, the vast majority of the world is living in peace, conflicts actually decreased over the past decade," says a report published by the World Federation of UN associations, a global network of associations in more than 100 member states. The number of African conflicts fell from 16 in 2002 to five in 2005, the number of refugees around the world is falling, and poverty should be cut more than half between the years 2000 and 2015. The report also said that the HIV/AIDS crisis in Africa is leveling off and could begin to decrease in the next few years. So, while the world still faces many challenges, there is much reason for hope. The health value of being outdoors and having access to nature has been well-documented in research. A new study in the journal Biology Letters takes prior research one step further. Apparently, the psychological benefits of being outdoors increases with the diversity of life found. When comparing experiences of park-goers in Sheffield, England, researchers found that while bigger parks made people feel better, species-rich parks were even more beneficial to their sense of well-being. Park visitors were surprisingly able to perceive differences in species diversity—especially with plants. So, get outdoors, today! And make it somewhere biologically diverse, or at least, fun! Last December, after a fruitless six-week search for the baiji or white dolphin in its native Yangtze River habitat in China, authorities declared the white dolphin extinct. Now there is hope. A man recently shot a video of what appears to be a baiji swimming in the wild in central China's Anhui. Experts are hopeful that the finding may encourage the Chinese to begin cleaning up their waters to help the dolphins experience a revival. Until then, scientists plan to try to capture any wild baiji that are found and move them to a reserve where they would try to get them to breed. The baiji dates back 20 million years. The finding is ''a big surprise'' and ''incredibly fantastic news,'' said August Pfluger, a Swiss economist turned naturalist who helped put together last year's expedition. Isn’t nature filled with wonderful surprises? A six-year-old girl in Fort Gratiot Township, Michigan told her teacher she had seen a deer fall into a hole at the teacher’s home, located next to Lighthouse Christian Academy's playground, where the children were playing. At first, the teacher thought the child was kidding, but when she began to cry, the school sent staff members to the teacher’s house to check out the claim. When they arrived, they found a 80- to 100-pound buck down a 6-foot-deep window well. An officer with the state Department of Natural Resources helped organize a rescue. After hoisting the deer to safety, it was re-released to the wild, and thanks the little girl, its life was saved. Moral of the story? Trust your kids! Some people have a greater ability to fight cancer than others, research shows, and a new study is being done to determine if it is possible to transfer the ability to fight off cancer between people. The U. S. Food and Drug Administration has just given researcher Zheng Cui from Wake Forest University in N.C. the go-ahead to conduct a study in which he will obtain cancer-fighting cells from people resistant to the disease, and inject them into patients with matching blood types. Cui's research also uncovered that the summer is better for fighting cancer than the winter. How wonderful that hope is constantly being offered for whatever ails us! When it comes to conflict resolution, you and I may be just as qualified to try to determine the outcome as the experts. And, if you are highly confident that you are right about something, it may be more likely that you are wrong! These were just some of the surprising findings from a study by researchers at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and Monash University in Australia. When presented with actual crises, such as a disguised version of a 1970s border dispute between Iraq and Syria, experts were able to forecast the decisions the parties made in only 32% of the cases, not much better than the 29% scored by undergraduate students, and 28% predicted for chance guesses. When asked how likely it was that they would have changed their forecasts had they spent more time on the task, the 68 high-confidence forecasts were less accurate (28%) than the 35 low-confidence forecasts (41%). Here’s my take—if you’re not feeling qualified to do something you really want to do --go for it! You just may be more qualified than you think! Yummy Quotes -Sarah Ban Breathnach “We all have the extraordinary coded within us, waiting to be released.” -Jean Houston “If we are to remain mission focused, as we must be if we are to be relevant in an uncertain age, then abandoning those things that do not further the mission is a leadership imperative.” -Frances Hesselbein (former CEO of Girl Scouts) And, from a true guru: “You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.” -Dr. Seuss What is Your Worldwide Dream? Programs like the popular book and DVD “The Secret” tout the importance of holding a vision for what we want in our life, and setting a strong intention. I have found that focusing our energy on what we really want is incredibly powerful, and have been blessed with many positive miracles in my life as a result. Something often overlooked is the reality that the same principals that work for our individual lives can also work for the world. What would you love to see happen in the world—specifically? If your ideal vision for the earth and world came true, what would it look like? Even if it seems impossible in this moment, let yourself dream. Try writing down your worldwide dream, visualizing it as true, and talking about it to others. The more of us who are doing this, the more energy we will send out into the world to help our worldwide dreams happen! It all starts with intention! Happy Harvest Moon! As I send this out, we have just experienced a special full moon—the harvest moon. The brightness used to allow farmers to work through the night, harvesting all those delicious vegetables ready to be picked. In celebration of this special time of year, I wish you lots of dreams-come-true and special moments of harvest. When you look up at the sky, may you remember what miracles this world has to offer. What an incredible universe we live in! I love to hear from readers. Please email me at www.lauriesmith@comcast.net with your feedback and comments. For more inspiration, check out the new articles on my website www.lauriesmith.com. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to share my soul! Wishing you warm sunshine and miracles, Laurie Smith Visit me at: http://www.lauriesmith.com Subscription Information Spreading Sunshine is brought to you courtesy of: Laurie Smith P.O. Box 692 Tiburon, CA 94920 If you like what you read, please forward this newsletter to a friend! To receive this monthly newsletter, click here to subscribe to Spreading Sunshine now! I am extremely committed to privacy and simplifying life. You received this newsletter only because you have subscribed or someone close to you thought you might enjoy it. If you would like to be removed from our subscription list, click here to unsubscribe to Spreading Sunshine. Have a happy day! All information in this email is copyrighted © 2007 Laurie Smith. All rights reserved.
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