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"In my darkest night, when the moon was covered and I roamed through the wreckage, a nimbus-clouded voice directed me: "Live in the layers, not on the litter." Though I lack the art to decipher it, no doubt the next chapter in my book of transformations is already written. I am not done with my changes." Stanley Kunitz

Sometimes I don't give thanks enough, feel gratitude enough, feel fortunate and count my blessings enough. I've never had a great 2nd person relationship with God to find a place to give thanks.

"Morning Glory! Another thing I will never know." Basho

It is a funny thing to speak of opening one's heart as though we can do it on command. We have all been raised with our own stereotypes and biases and I can honestly say that if it is late at night and I am walking down a street alone and a man steps out walking toward me, I am not working on opening my heart. In that moment, I am vigilant.

I was resting after a set of 150 pound leg presses when George asked me if I had ever heard the expression, "tiptoeing my way safely toward death." I hadn't. My response was, "No way for me, George. I'm going out in a full blaze to the end." He laughed and responded, "Me too." I was pumped up and filled with endorphins gone wild.

When I was in fifth grade, my homeroom teacher was Mr. Orifice. Yes, really. He was Italian and when he came to Canada as a boy, his father changed their surname to Orifice from Orifici (pronounced Ori-fi-chee). He changed the "i" at the end of the name to an "e" and personally, I think that was a mistake.

I work with many clients who are not thrilled in the work that they are doing. Finding or discovering more satisfying work is a common coaching topic. So many men and women are miserable at their jobs or career choices. They also feel a call of something more, something deeper, something more core to who they are and how they hold their sense of Self.

I have a history of speaking up when I have needed to. I will have difficult conversations with people versus letting things go unsaid or fester. For the most part, I think I stay relatively capable in those conversations.

There is a little girl in Lebanon who wants to be a doctor when she grows up. She is nine years old, with dark brown piercing eyes, black as coal hair tucked into a scarf that tightly encircles her head. She speaks passionately and wisely; a still presence that speaks volumes. She has seen much more of death and dying in her short life than I will in all of mine.

In the house where I used to live I often watched out the back window of my ground floor office where there was a children’s playground. It was a closed in small area probably no more that 40 X 30 feet where the children attending a private school would play during lunch and breaks. But early in the morning I was most interested in watching a custodian who worked there.