Dear friends and family,
Happy Summer! Or, if you are in the southern hemisphere, Happy Winter!
I'm sending this email to share news about a semi-sabbatical I am taking and about a fabulous award received by The Twelve Gifts from the Garden.
First, the sabbatical.
For the next few months, while Frank and I are learning to balance adventure with rest, travel with home care, and endings with beginnings, I plan to send two touchstones a week instead of seven. I may sometimes send an extra one, but my intention is to send two a week for the next three months. I may also send a photo and share insights from our 3,000 miles adventure.
I hope you'll stay tuned to my emails and postings. Tentatively, you'll receive them on Mondays and Thursday. The first few weeks will come from an RV motor home we are driving to PA, NY, and NJ - where we have family.
Next, the award:
I'm delighted to share a review of The Twelve Gifts from the Garden that is posted on the Readers' Favorite site. The Twelve Gifts from the Garden won the second place, silver award, from Readers Favorite. Here is the review:
BOOK REVIEW
Reviewed by Foluso Falaye for Readers' Favorite
Inspired by nature in all its grand beauty, The Twelve Gifts from the Garden provides profound life lessons to guide readers of all ages and cultures through their time on earth. The journey of enlightenment that started in 1987 with The Twelve Gifts collection continues in The Twelve Gifts from the Garden with a deep
look into Mother Nature and her unique children: trees, birds, butterflies, bees, dogs, humans, flowers, and more. The many insightful ideas in the book touch on different themes, including dreams, imagination, beauty, cancer, marital discord, appreciation, assumption, compassion, and childhood. Charlene Costanzo's encounters with different beautiful living beings—like a berry plant and a cheerful crab spider—holds lessons worth sharing and remembering for a lifetime.
Reading The Twelve Gifts from the Garden was like putting on a pair of glasses that gave me a magical and deeply satisfying view of the world around me. I suddenly felt relaxed when I started reading the book as its vivid descriptions planted in my mind the trees, the flowers, and all the beautiful living beings narrated by Charlene Costanzo. The different heartwarming stories make it even more intriguing, like the one about the zebra finch that appeared to be dying and taught Charlene an
important lesson about hope. I appreciated the lessons and found many of these quotable and memorable. An example: "Perhaps another gift is the realization that life gives us guidance and opportunities for lessons every day." Charlene's book reveals the importance of stopping to smell the roses and appreciating the free gifts of life instead of chasing endless desires and destroying the natural world we've been blessed with. What a life-changing and healing experience!
Touchstone quotes to consider:
"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes." Marcel Proust.
Let's seek to see things from another way.
“The wise rest at least as hard as they work.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana
THE SECOND GIFT IS BEAUTY.
May your deeds reflect its depth.
- from The Twelve Gifts of Birth
|
|
|
|
|
