Meri's Musings

For more Haiku My Heart, click HERE .  "Ascending Layers" © 2010 Meri Arnett-Kremian unruly thinking you make it hard for me to achieve nirvana

After spending hours working on a project I just had to kick up my heels and play. "Effervescent" © 2010 Meri Arnett-Kremian A little color magic is good for the soul. What did you do to play today?

Joy is a choice you make. It's an attitude of celebration and thankfulness for  little moments of  awe or ahhhh......... and wonderful memories like the trips to France that speak to your soul. Sometimes it's overwhelming. Sometimes it just sits quietly waiting for you to notice and say, "Oh - here you are!" Where's the joy in your life today? It's usually marked with a smile. Won't you share it with us? (And don't forget to visit the beautiful and gracious NOELLE to wish her a Happy Birthday.) To play along: 1. do a post that tells and shows us what gives you joy. 2. capture the URL of the specific post and paste it into the Mr. Linky box along with your name. 3. visit other players -- as many as possible -- and let their joy infect you.  Leave them a comment about their post. Let's start an epidemic of joy!

There are lots of reasons for JOY in this season so I'm celebrating and honoring its presence. Friends and family come to mind as a reason for joy. And in anticipation of their visits, I've readied the house with lots of decoration. The family room tree with its multi-colored ornaments has a Santa standing guard over the presents. I decorated the fancy living room tree with its white, silver and gold ornaments, the first year it's been decorated in a long time. Santas are looking jolly all around the house. The Father Frost figures are on display, too - in honor of my sons' Lithuanian heritage. Little cardinals are peeking out  among the candle jars  in various places.  They remind me of the joy it brought me to hear a cardinal sing when I lived  on the east coast  many years ago. We'd love to have you join us for Share the Joy Thursday this week.  I have no doubt you have an abundance of joy in your life -- even if times are tough. And

As the solstice approaches, signaling the point at which the light begins to return little by little in the northern hemisphere, I am reminded that it is important for each of us to let our light shine. © 2010 Meri Arnett-Kremian You are like a candle. Imagine you are sending light out all around you. All your words, thoughts and actions are going in many directions. If you say something kind, your kind words go in many directions, and you yourself go with them. We are ...transforming and continuing in a different form at every moment. - Thich Nhat Hanh

Watching the couple officially embarking on life together, surfing on a tsunami of love and emotion. Tears in their eyes. Hearts on their sleeves. Hand in hand.  Stumbling toward ecstasy.

For more Haiku My Heart, click HERE .  © 2010 Meri Arnett-Kremian her slender hand thrust high in the air, a bouquet of roses clutched there

Joy isn't always announced by the blaring of trumpets. Sometimes it's heralded by chalk dust and shouts of, "Look, Daddy!" It might rush in like waves to the sand, making you jump for joy because you love your family and life itself so much. Sometimes you find delight in a mug of latte because the barista created a little heart on top with caramel and the "extra-foamy" you asked for. One day I found it at the bottom of a bowl of mushroom soup and took it as a sign my true love was on his way. And if you're like me, even something as simple as red chairs can fill you with joy. Just the way they're lined up so neatly, gathered like friends, and saying, " Come join us!" We'd love to have you join us for Share the Joy Thursday this week.  To play along: 1. do a post that tells and shows us what gives you joy. 2. capture the URL of the specific post and paste it into the Mr. Linky box along with your name. 3. visit

After two-plus hours at a book discussion discussing The Help, racism and sexism, and a five hour-long telephone conference  about work issues yesterday,  I'm flat out of words. All talked out. (I know..... that concept renders you speechless, too.) Time for think ing in images, the antidote to verbal overload. © 2010 Meri Arnett-Kremian K? (And check back Wednesday about 5 pm Pacific for the Mr. Linky for Share the Joy Thursday.)

She's a little off-center, this Virgin, having adjusted to the upheavals, the shift in conditions around her. But through it all, she's maintained her serenity, her attitude of reverence. We should be so lucky. . . or intentional. For more Virgin-ities, click here .

Fat babe in her arms, she looks on with mother's love fair Queen of Heaven. Fill your heart with Virgin images and celebrate Haiku My Heart Friday .

It's time to celebrate those fleeting moments of joy, those times when you think "I love that exuberance!"  © 2010 Meri Arnett-Kremian or "I wish this moment would never end" because he's so cute  and he reminds me of his daddy when his daddy was little and time flies by so quickly. . .  © 2010 Meri Arnett-Kremian or "I don't want to forget this moment, when I was draped like a goddess and worried my sneakers would slip off the wet rock and I'd freeze to death  in the rushing water, but did it anyway for the shot and it was worth it." © 2009 Gail Hoffman-Rule  or even  "That woman's head  would look perfect in my garden." © 2010 Meri Arnett-Kremian What little moments spelled J-O-Y for you,  this week? Or that zip into your mind when you think about joy? Will you share your joy? Join the Joy Revolution! ------------------- To play along: 1. do a post that tells and shows us what giv

Look into my eyes, so kind, so full of wisdom born of the sorrows of the world. Touch my heart, a heart both sacred and open to love - and through your fingers take love in and breathe it out. My sacred heart, like yours, is radiant with miracles. For more  Virgin miracles , visit Rebecca.

When I find myself in times of trouble Mother Mary comes to me Speaking words of wisdom "Let it be." -  Lennon/McCartney               Retablos -- tin paintings with religious themes -- are done to as a thank-you note to a saint  for intervening in  people's lives. For more Virgins, visit Rebecca's A Virgin a Day . Be sure to read Steven's comment regarding what Paul McCartney said about the impetus  for this work. As for me, I think that when we dream, there are many image threads woven through them.  Some people appear as themselves -- Paul's mother, for example -- and the dream may be taken at  a very literal level. Other times, people are stand-ins for archetypes, like the all loving Mother Goddess who comes to you in dreams to impart  wisdom and crucial information that the conscious mind is not absorbing. From "virgin sightings" both historical and contemporary, we know that many believe that Mother Mary  comes to them, speaking wor