Focus on the Stars

 

 

Flowers at the market while "out and about".

  Recently I heard of Rebecca Solnit's book, Hope in the Dark – she notes that big disasters are times when people remember their inner strengths and create bonds with others that would seem impossible in "normal" reality.  "People who lose everything often speak of these times as "the most alive, most meaningful moments they've ever known".

"Hope in the Dark was written to counter the despair of radicals at a moment when they were focused on their losses and had turned their back to the victories behind them and the unimaginable changes soon to come. In it, she makes a radical case for hope as a commitment to act in a world whose future remains uncertain and unknowable. Drawing on her decades of activism and a wide reading of environmental, cultural, and political history, Solnit argued that radicals have a long, neglected history of transformative victories, that the positive consequences of our acts are not always immediately seen, directly knowable, or even measurable, and that pessimism and despair rest on an unwarranted confidence about what is going to happen next. Now, with a moving new introduction explaining how the book came about and a new afterword that helps teach us how to hope and act in our unnerving world, she brings a new illumination to the darkness of 2016 in an unforgettable new edition of this classic book."

 I have not read this book yet, but have ordered it because I am focusing this direction in the year of 2025.

Driving along the Willamette River not to far from my new home. Winter still resides there, but I have hope for Springtime to come again and show it's green color on those trees. Each season has it's own color and each season gives us hope that life moves along.
 

It is very much opposites such as fear and hope. I have heard how those that suffer great loss, such as the homes that burned in the recent fires in Los Angeles, still hold on to the glimmers of what they still have in their health and dear ones surrounding them.

 

Actually found in my house garden last week.

Leaving my garden to move into an apartment, how can I still notice the small glimmers of joy and hope by changing the way I think of my adventures each day? I would walk in my garden each morning to post a picture on social media from the garden. I miss that a lot, but now I am noticing what I see when I am "out and about". Still noticing the glimmers of light brings me joy. 

So in our despair and angst, let's continue to focus on the little things that bring us joy, supporting those around us, and looking for ways to make small differences.

Sending love,

Marilyn