Finding your pearl of great value

  

Some might think that the title of this romance came from the Bible. Well, it could be thought that way, but there is way more to the meaning of pearls than from Scripture.

“As a pearl is formed and its layers grow, a rich iridescence begins to glow. The oyster has taken what was at first an irritation and intrusion and uses it to enrich its value. How can you coat or frame the changes in your life to harvest beauty, brilliance, and wisdom?” – Susan C. Young 

. “Life is made up of a few moments all strung together like pearls. Each moment is a pearl, and it is up to us to pick the ones with the highest luster.” – Joyce Hilfer

“Some give up under pressure, while others rise up and undergo life-transforming experiences. Oyster responds beautifully to external pressure, giving birth to a priceless pearl.” – Mukhtar Aziz 

“A pearl is worthless as long as it’s in its shell.” – Native American Proverb 

These quotes, along with many others, especially the one on the Gospels, speak to what a hidden pearl can mean as well as its value. It also is why it was right for a title in this book. People can seem whole and strong and yet have fought against opening up the hidden part inside themselves. Does that fit romances? I think it very much does as the closest relationships make us face ourselves in ways we won't when not faced with challenges.

 So how does that work with this book? By the way, that sculpture is one of mine. 

 When architect/builder S.T. Taggert returns from a morning run, he finds a call waiting from his Navajo mother. She is concerned that his sister, Shonna, is missing. She asks him to find out if she is okay. This represents a part of his mixed heritage, drunken, white father, and a mother who deserted them to return to her land. Reluctantly, he agrees to see what he can find out about his sister.

Going to his office, S.T. finds something else unwanted. A photojournalist, Christine Talbot, is waiting to do photos of hm, for a series of up and coming young men in Oregon. He doesn't like the idea but finally agrees only because she appeals to the respect he has for those who work.

Christine has another shoot for the series lined up in Roseburg of another man who is making a splash, evangelist, Peter Soul, who has a growing group called Servants of Grace. 

Hence the book begins with conflicts and connections. All will come together, along with S.T.'s search for his missing sister, who had been in the Servants of Grace, with her admiration for Peter Soul, who also wants S.T. to design a larger facility for his growing congregation.

Besides the mystery, the romance, the beauty of Oregon, there is more to explore in this story. One, of course, is what is spiritual truth, how does one find it, is it sometimes corrupted, and if so, how to be aware of that corruption, especially when it might be emotionally very pleasing?

Then there is the question of ancestral heritage. Even if we never lived like modern family members, do we still carry in our DNA their truths? How will that impact our lives if we are living in a very different culture? Is, as this hero believes, there  prejudice against those who carry dual heritages?

It's not like the book presents these questions as some kind of class instruction, but more that the questions are entwined in a heated romance between two very different people, but who find out they have more in common than they thought. Romances can be a lot more than just the basic love story at its heart. How and where do people work out the rest of their lives? More critically, in this book, if there is danger out there, how do they survive it?

To read the blurb, free sample, or buy the book:

Hidden Pearl 

 

 

  

using a quote for today

 by Rain Trueax

This week, we finished reading aloud from Edward Abbey's One Life at a Time, Please every morning and now afternoon (at 115ºF too hot to do things outside). One essay was on Ralph Waldo Emerson, and he chose some quotes from Emerson to share. The ones that resonated most with me were chosen from his essay Self-Reliance and there were several.

"It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude."

 That is so powerful for our time. It is so much easier to find a bubble and settle into it to express only views that suit the bubble. Do bubble fans think when they are alone that maybe some of what the group wants is not really what they want? All I know is that when I express my viewpoint in a group that sees things differently, it can turn nasty fast. The ability to discuss issues is gone when only one side can be right and good (and believe me both sides see it that way today). To compromise is evil.

Recently an ideology group (I prefer not using names to avoid trolls showing up) went into where diners were eating outside due to the virus. They demanded that the diners raise their arms in a closed fist to assure agreement with their ideology. If they didn't do it, they would take their pictures and put them up on social media to shame them. Silence was defined as racism. 

From what I have seen, many have become fearful of this accusation and must agree that racism is everywhere, that every white person is a racist. I don't think they demand that all colored people must be one. It's all about white privilege, which is apparently being taught in our schools.

Shouldn't it be up to each of us to look into our hearts and decide if we operate with racism? If we have spent a lifetime seeing people by their actions and not judging them by their skin color, does that make us a racist? 

I can't remember if I wrote here about cognitive bias. The first time I heard about it, the word bias went beyond what we are against but also what we are for. What experiences have led us to interpret events certain ways? If someone walks toward you, do you automatically see them as one way or another for a danger? It might save your life if you evaluate your biases fairly or lead you to needless fear if you don't. 

Cognitive bias is followed by confirmation bias. This is where we reinforce our beliefs by hanging with those who will affirm us. This is particularly prevalent on social media and where we go for news.

When I go to Facebook, I see memes to inspire hate or anger-- aiming both ways since I have friends on both sides of the divide. Recently the Senate put out a report on the Russian troll farms and what they are attempting to do. Basically, it's that left and right, they create memes that they believe will stir people up in a negative way. The goal is to cause dissension in our country. I am not sure what that gains Russia, but i know it doesn't do us good. But here's the thing-- if people didn't pass these things on, they'd not be effective. Even if you only pass on those that you know your bubble will appreciate, you might be adding to anger or fear. What does that gain you or them?

Back to Emerson's words, written so long ago, do you dare speak out what you feel when you are meditating on what's going or are you driven to suit the mob-- and yes, sometimes, it's a mob. One woman at a restaurant told them that she agreed with their goals but would not do the fist bump. Brave woman.

Finally from Emerson: "Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles."

We should all make sure we know what our principles are and whether they help the community or hurt it.

 

a state of mind

by Rain Trueax

I hope you are having a great holiday season-- however you celebrate it. It would be nice if Christmas could be a time of forgiveness and joining together with love as we look toward a new year.

Philosophy in a romance???

by Rain Trueax

Since doing a word for word edit with a book from my backlist, I've been thinking more about philosophy in my books. First of all, I should define what I mean by philosophy. I am using it as a way of thinking about the universe, the world, and culture. When we look to philosophy, it is to ask basic questions as to what life is all about.What we find can be taken into our own lives to help us in the future or be discarded if it does not fit.

There are, of course, philosophers, some famous for generations, whose words many generations have looked toward for truth that fits what they know of life. But, philosophy itself is about our own way of thinking as well. It asks the question-- what principles guide your life, your decisions, your view of the world? Do you know? Do you look for books to challenge and help you form your own views?

Sometimes the thinking comes from poets and a phrase will leap out. I have always been a collector of such words. The one by Robert Frost didn't make it into Luck of the Draw, but it fits the story. "Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference." It has been a guiding principle for my own life that I not follow what everyone else does-- unless it fits my life.

by Diane : The value of art to me and quotes

My personal story:

I learn positive values of aging from my art making. 

My golden years are an empty canvas or book

that I fill with nurturing care for myself like I care for my paintings.

 

 

Art is a license for me to play, fantasize, and be young at heart.

 

Art is healing was the most compelling theme in a book I read recently. Since last week's post which was a review of "Disturbances in the Field", a novel by Lynn Sharon Schwartz, I am looking for more stories of  the art's power to impact the quality of our lives. One of the secondary stories within the novel was about the main character calming herself by coloring in a children's coloring book after two life tragedies. She hid her coloring books under couch pillows when family and friends came unexpected.  During the eighties adults would think she was digressing to childhood. Today public opinion has become more accepting. Big chain stores like Target, Fred Myers, art galleries, craft stores and even grocery stores market adult coloring books. Artist friends of mine are not ashamed to say at times they find coloring books soothing. Art permits us regardless of age to play.

 

Art saves lives. Practicing an art improves quality of life making living joyful and rich. For example this morning at breakfast I watched the swallows in flight, a couple of foxes hunting and the lighting on the field and woods changing color with the heat of summer. I was looking with the interest of an artist preparing to paint. Seeing like an artist is enough to enhance living. But I wanted more. So I rushed outside to paint. My iphone camera doesn't capture my excitement or how I see the colors. Selecting what I paint from the landscape is empowering.

 

My experiences are reflected  in quotes my sister-in-law Debby Wenzel gave me.

An hour a day of art makes me happier. An hour of art per week reduces depression.


In art as in life much can be forgiven if your values are right. Experiencing the world my values have changed over the years. I would rather buy art supplies than most material things. I see beauty in people and the environment in unconventional ways.

Art humanizes people. One example is children learning to play musical instruments and playing in a band or orchestra. Another is the art of cursive writing helps to develop a child's brain. Art is the sublime manifestation of the human spirit. Henry Louis Gates Jr.

On the internet I found this quote shared by Donna Watson.
Art is not just ornamental, it is an enhancement of life.
It is a path in itself, a way out of the predictable and conventional...a map to self discovery.  Gabrielle Roth

Christmas Day

Christmas is a time for tradition but also of dreams. There are those fantasies we always thought someday. They live still but maybe only in our hearts and thoughts. While it is a religious event for one major, world religion, it is also celebrated by many others both as a secular and an emotional time of beauty and imagination.

This image and quote are from Stencil where they offer thousands of images and quotes for their members. I sorted through for some that I felt stimulated imagination and dreams. For the coming week, each day, there will be one of these intended to encourage imagining what the new year might bring. 

Much of what happens in our lives, we set in motion. Not saying, of course, everything, but a lot of it. Set our minds to what we want and who knows what might come. We have to be careful that we don't do that in reverse too-- by concentrating too much on what we do not want.

None of the quotes are mine, but they are ones I like as part of setting in motion what might change directions into more of what someone wants. The week ahead can be a time of stirring up magic-- if we set it to be so. 

2017 will be a whole new beginning, yes, on the calendar but for our lives if we will it.

quotes to inspire

 There are days when a person needs something to uplift them. Regardless of how you saw the recent election results, this is a time to take a deep breath and try to think positive for our own lives and reflect on how to make a difference in our own little piece of the world. I don't know of words more capable of encouraging that in me than Mary Oliver's. Hence, what follows are her quotes and our photos of the beauty in this world. They come in no special order or place but all are part of what I consider to be my world.

"When it's over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms."

 “So come to the pond, or the river of your imagination, or the harbor of your longing, and put your lips to the world. And live your life.”

“And to tell the truth I don’t want to let go of the wrists of idleness, I don’t want to sell my life for money, I don’t even want to come in out of the rain.”  

 “As long as you’re dancing, you can break the rules. Sometimes breaking the rules is just extending the rules. Sometimes there are no rules.” 

“So come to the pond, or the river of your imagination, or the harbor of your longing, and put your lips to the world. And live your life.”

The quotes (with more) had been collected on a site-- 

quotes to inspire a bold life 

Hope in dark times

There are times when it's harder than others to feel upbeat. This has been one of those week-ends with the losses our country has experienced, and the individuals who are suffering. We keep going through this. Now, here we are as a people, once again looking at senseless killings and trying to make sense of it-- when that's really impossible.

I wish I had answers, but right now, it's hard to see any that uplift. I did go looking, and this site What's your grief gathered together quotes and images.

2016

It's a new year and as I sort through my thoughts and plans for it, I often use quotes I find inspiring. Those shift with the years. If you have ones that are helping you this year, please share.

Man's main task is to give birth to himself.   
Erich Fromm

Use your imagination not to scare yourself to death but 
to inspire yourself to life. 
 Adele Brookman

The longest journey is the journey inward.    
 Dag Hammarskjold

I do believe it is possible to create, even without ever writing a word or painting a picture, by simply molding one's inner life. and that too is a deed.   
Etty Hillesum

I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea, and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the Stern Fact, the Sad Self,
 unrelenting, identical, that I fled from.     
Ralph Waldo Emerson

But what is happiness except the simple harmony 
between a man and the life he leads?          
Albert Camus 

some thoughts

I like creative quotes, inspiring words. I save those, which seem especially meaningful to my life. Here I am combining a few with photographs we have taken in places we love. Some we have been to many times-- others only once, but the memories are always there when it's a special place.

I do believe it is possible to create, even without ever writing a word or painting a picture, by simply molding one’s inner life. And that too is a deed.

-- Etty Hillesum, author

Every human is an artist. The dream of your life is to make beautiful art.

--don Miguel Rulz, author

To fulfill a dream, to be allowed to sweat over lonely labor, to be given the chance to create, is the meat and potatoes of life.

--Bette Davis

The beginning is always today.

--Mary Wollstonecraft

The longest journey is the journey inward.

--Dag Hammarskjold

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.

--Marcel Proust

 

I am ready

A good time to think positive... well, actually every day is good for that. This is one of my photos with the quote on my calendar for April.

thanks giving

HAPPY THANKSGIVING, EVERYONE

I've had a lot to be thankful for this year. I think the sorrows have had to be part of the cycle of life. Sometimes we go through sad times; but if we stay with it, good is ahead. Thinking that way makes the tough times easier to bear when they seem to go on for too long. Going through the shadows, we need to draw on the positive times we've had and it gets us through.

Summer Lake, Oregon

Go confidently in the direction of your dream. Live the life you have imagined. If one advances confidently in the direction of one's dreams, and endeavors to live the life one has imagined, one will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. 

--Henry David Thoreau

discards

The reasons of the heart are leaves in the wind. 

Stand up tall and everything will nest in you. 

Mark Nepo 

Years ago I planted a tea rose beside a small pine tree. The tea rose froze one winter, all but one part and I waited that spring to see what would emerge as it appeared it had frozen down to the stronger but less desirable rose the tea had been grafted onto.

What came up was a beautiful climbing red rose. Normally they don't bloom but once in the spring which is why many prefer tea roses which will bloom all summer.  I could have considered the wild one to be undesirable and dug it up. I didn't and that wild rose has bloomed profusely every year and continues through the summer. This year I realized it had wound its way upward and was heading toward the top of the pine.

Every time I see it I think of how it is like me and those I know. We want the showy blooms. We reject or even would cut out our sturdier and even wilder parts. We miss so much when we don't see them as value also. For me, that unwanted rose has become a reminder of the unexpectedness of life, and I treasure it more than any of the others for that reminder.

A few favorite quotations for life

If you love something, set it free.
If it comes back to you, it is yours.
If it doesn't, it never was.

On my home front, I've been concentrating on getting rid of debris in my life, editing a fiction manuscript from over 10 years back, to see if it has worth for today (not to mention the difficulty of bringing it to date for things like technology. Stories based in another time period avoid this problem), doing a daily drawing practice, all mingled together with regular responsibilities

As I was cleaning out a drawer of my desk-- a job that took me most of a morning due to the meaningless odds and ends that had been shoved into it (by someone, not sure who)-- I came across a pile of small post-it notes on which I had written some of my favorite, inspiring-to-me quotes. I liked rereading them and thought someone here might also. I combined them with some of my favorite photos from 2010 which were taken by either me or Farm Boss. It's often hard to tell who took what, but they came from what we were doing last year.

If I knew the author, I included it. Some are by well-recognized names. Some words have many who claim authorship. The one above, which is actually a magnet on my refrigerator, is said to be anonymous as might be some of the following. If I have one without an author and you believe you know who wrote it, I'll be happy to add that.

Also if you have a life quote that is especially meaningful to your life, please add it in comments. The following are in no order of importance to me but just as the little papers came out of my desk.

Hold fast to dreams for if dreams die, life is a winged bird that cannot fly. --Langston Hughes

Knowledge is awareness, and to it are many paths, not all of them paved with logic. But sometimes one is guided through the maze by intuition. One is led by something felt on the wind, something seen in the stars, something that calls from the wasteland to the spirit. -- Louis L'Amour


Don't we all die someday and someday comes all too soon? What will you do with your own wild, glorious chance at this thing we call life. -- Mary Oliver

Don't lose hold of your dreams! Dreams are birds in flight, oceans at high tide. Dreams give life wings and let us fly high. -- although this resembles what Langston Hughes said, it's slightly different, might still be his, but I am not sure where I got it. I liked its additional imagery.

Go confidently in the direction of your dream. Live the life you have imagined. If one advances confidently in the direction of one's dreams, and endeavors to live the life one has imagined, one will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. --Henry David Thoreau


And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight inside the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. --Anais Nin


What would it be like if you lived each day, each breath, as a work of art in progress? Imagine that you are a masterpiece unfolding each second of every day, a work of art taking form with every breath. --Thomas Crum


Life and death are of supreme importance. Time swiftly passes by and opportunity is lost. Each of us should strive to awaken! Take heed-- do not squander your life. --Zen night chant


Don't let someone else create your happiness. Your joy lies within you.

Feel your feelings. Stand out in the rain-- naked and let the rain wash your soul.

Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment sparkling like a star in our hand -- and melting like a snowflake. --Sir Francis Bacon

I hope I have found myself, my work, my happiness -- under the light of the western skies. --Zane Grey


Dreams are necessary to life. --Anais Nin

I do not unmarry ____. But I marry myself. I take my fate as within. --Sena Jeter Naslund


Where we choose to be-- we have that power to determine our lives. We cannot reel time backward or forward, but we can take ourselves to the place that defines our being. --Sena Jeter Naslund

The final piece of paper that was in my desk is a bit different. I think now its meaning has changed for me and what it means is surrendering to the power of life, letting it take me wherever it might go. It is surrendering to the experience of life and our own place in the creating of it. Grace is the fact that we were gifted with life at all.

Om Namaha Shivia

Surrendering to God. The power of God is within me. The grace of God surrounds me.

There is one more that stays in my memory, after many years on a paper in my wallet that finally disintegrated but not before I had memorized it. It was particularly important to me during the child rearing years.

Let my love like sunlight surround you and yet give you illumined freedom. -- Tagore