Hi Diane,

I want to say Thank You for your words of wisdom today. So often one will get far a foot from where they belong, but once you learn to go back and listen, that still silent voice reemerges and says, "now wait a minute, it was a good idea sometime ago, and it still is today, so go ahead, you can do this." So often I have found I have been waiting for permission from someone to do that which I feel is most certainly the right thing to do, but feeling uneasy about going ahead, but now, not so. I think when you finally arrive at the decision making process and can see, yes, indeed a certain thing is achievable, then with the Grace of God, we go and in his mercy, that which we felt we could never do, suddenly is no longer the case.

I read something on the web last night that I shall not forget in the near future. I was reading about a seismologist of some note who was given an award and in the description of him more than once he was applauded for his "intuitive" thought process in finding resolutions to problems in the most unusual ways. To say I was surprised would truly be an understatement. Imagine, "intuitive" and seismologist in the same person. Very surprising but revealing as well. How wonderful that in today's times a scientist can be called intuitive and it is acceptable. Things are indeed changing and it looks like for the better.

While the world may seem at a faster pace than at any time in the past, the basics of life and survival under the most uncertain circumstances is still an issue. Can the bend in the road be achieved so that in the future not so many people die in earthquakes? Perhaps, yes. However, a friend of mind posed a question to me on this issue not long ago. He said if you are successful and people are saved, will it upset the balance of life? I said, "I don't know", but I can't think about that, I said I would leave it to God and let him decide since he knows best. He seems to have embued me with a desire to want to save them, so it must be alright. What happens later, happens later. One thing at a time.

Several years ago I decided I wasn't going to have a Christmas Tree that was dead. I've only been buying ones I could plant in my garden. As I can't plant one every year with a small property on the odd years I use an artificial tree. Today those little Christmas Trees are quite tall and enhance my front yard with grace, beauty and symetry and everyone around here enjoys them, especially when decorated with lights as they form an spiral pattern. Yes Diane, there is reason in all things, large, small, in all shapes and patterns, but in life to life it fully, to share the goodness of it with others and to know in the end it was a journey worth taking, allows you to arrive at the other side and find in some small way, you the pebble in the pond, did indeed influence those around you, mostly in a positive way.

Peace & Light, Pat in Petaluma