Where is the Value?

They shook hands with devils not really known.
Would a fist bump have kept them apart?

How many souls have gone down before
not knowing addiction’s true heart?

A handshake is open and often seems true
Fist bumps are closed hand to hand.

Disease doesn’t care whether open or closed
and is false about what’s truly planned

Months, weeks or years go rolling along
as addiction lies dormant and still.

When demons and devils stir once again,
active addiction invades with it’s chill.

Where is the value in this fierce disease?
Only those clean and sober can know.

“Addiction isn’t about using drugs. It’s about 

what the drug does to your life.”

~ Enock Maregesi

***Author’s note:  the above quotation is true of alcohol as well.

Accessibility's Value

Accessibility to healthy food, the means and ability to store and prepare healthy food becomes of real value to the community as a whole, local neighbourhoods and those far flung throughout the globe. This value is to our nutritional status and thus our general health, with positive results, I suspect, on the many budgets our government’s have developed.

Accessibility is so very different for everyone in the economic strata throughout the world. And not only economics, but in wellness, age and gender. Rules and regulations, laws and societal norms create barriers and boundaries strung like innumerable cat's cradles throughout neighbourhoods, provinces, states, countries and globally for each of these classes. 

Accessibility to healthy food, besides grocery stores, finances and housing may also mean growing our own or buying locally whenever and if possible.

However, for those of us that have housing and a salary, what foods are actually accessible within our own homes? What do we have within our reach? What’s in the cupboard? We are very fortunate to have fruits, nuts and so many foods from outside of Canada available to us, provided by farmers in other countries. Not to mention the grains and fruits our own farmers grow; dairy and meats that ranchers produce for our consumption.

“Accessible design is good design.””

~ Steve Ballmer

Repost - 'The Value of Envy'

Envy

The green eyed monster

something to be 

shunned

turned away from

Envy can certainly be a

green eyed monster when

it seeks evil or is covetous

but it doesn't have to be………..

It just might show a 

new set of stairs,

aspirations for a journey

toward new horizons.

"The most absurd and reckless aspirations

have sometimes led to extraordinary success."

~ Luc de Clapiers

The Value of Happiness

Happiness allows hands and hearts to open.
Happiness stirs curiousity, learning and study.

Happiness allows umbrellas, snow angels or beach balls.
Happiness allows whistling and working all at once.

Happiness sidles up gently beside sadness or grief.
Happiness allows turbulent waters to calm and settle.

Happiness looks forward while valuing the past.
Happiness ~ prepackaged in acceptance and tolerance ~
is available to all who are willing stay in the present.

“Happiness is the settling of the soul into its most appropriate spot.”

~ Aristotle

The Value of a Smile

A smile
That’s all it takes
Just one smile, 
from just one person
a quick nod “Hello!”
no judgment tossed out
replies not required
just a welcome gift of kindness.

It is hard to smile when tired or sad or just plain mad.
Leaden stiff muscles do not wish to obey, 
Yet smile-less days stretch down, long and gray.

How to give back the many smiles that are given?
Easily, sincerely and just one small smile, 
it doesn't have to be driven, so
listen for music and watch out for flowers,
step close to a playground where kids play for hours!
See stars in the sky or a sunrise at dawn.
If thunder and lightening pleases, turn that smile on.

Pass a smile forward whenever you can
~ the moment may pass but heart memory lives on.

“Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile,

but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.”

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

The Value of Starlight

“Starlight, starbright
First star I’ve seen tonight”
A nursery rhyme of old

“Twinkle twinkle little star.
How I wonder where you are”
A 19th Century English lullaby.

Starlight magic reserved for children and play
shooting across the universe to astronomy, poetry and military strategy.
But what happens between childhood and science?

Long before a toddler even knows of the scientific research,
when adolescents are busy with education in and out of school and playground,
as adult’s go about daily work of family, employment and community.........

Silver-gold starlight in a velvety black sky
bouncing from star to star, sun and moon ~ planet to planet
says grandly that we are gently surrounded by a starlit community.

Starlight, caught in eyes and imagination,
is a first sparkling picture of the universe outside of humanity.

Starlight, caught only at night, 
is private, quiet and magically true.

Starlight, hidden by drifting clouded skies,
minimized by unblinking earthly masses of organized lights
is forever present above moisture laden blankets, in open field or ocean.

Science may explain the why’s, wherefore’s, distances and light years,
but starlight in a velvet moonless sky catches heart and soul.
Humanity’s criss crossing rules of order fall away into nursery rhymes and lullaby.

  “Silently, one by one, in the infintie meadows of heaven,

Blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the angels,”

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie