lara simmons

"My happiness grows in direct proportion (to) my acceptance and in inverse proportion to my expectations.” -- Michael J. Fox

  A little "leftover" from our trip to Hawaii in April. Thought it was perfect for a Monday morning. Pass it on...

“...[H]armony requires us to change along with the whole. If you open yourself to the hum of the world—if you live in the present rather than in your idea of it—it will change you." -- Philip Shepherd , author of New Self, New World , interviewed in The Sun

"The trouble is in the mind." -- Phineas Quimby , the father of the New Thought Movement

"Every time a group of people is gathered together, everybody who is needed is present." --Dale Stubbart in New Spirit Journal Everybody who is needed is present....This is a concept I have struggled with mightily throughout my life. At most significant events in my life there was always somebody missing, or somebody who I thought "shouldn't" be there. I always had in mind the "perfect" guest list and inevitably it included someone who couldn't make it or didn't include someone who could. As I have walked the spiritual path I have come to see the truth in this statement, but I still struggle against it sometimes. After we came back from Japan we hosted my husband's cousin and his family at our house for a week. The timing couldn't have been better as our upstairs tenants had just moved out so we had two empty bedrooms, a bathroom and even a small kitchen to offer for their stay. My husband's family definitely fall into the

"Everything is energy..." -- Daryl Anka   At the beginning of our trip to Japan my son's teacher handed each of us a few sheets of paper stapled together. This was to be our "trip journal" and we were expected to fill it out each day, answering the questions that were posed.  On Day 1 the questions were: How are you feeling? What are you looking forward to most on this trip? What are your concerns?  My primary concern was losing my son.  During the final trip meeting, held about one month before the trip, the teacher had mentioned that because the trains are so crowded in Japan it is possible that someone might not make it onto the train in time and end up stranded on the platform. She gave the kids instructions on how to handle this if it happened and promised to give each child a badge with her name and cell phone number on it to wear at all times while we were in Tokyo.  After the meeting I became convinced that my son was going to

  The Great Buddha of Kamakura (Daibutsu) "Ichi-go ichi-e." --from the Japanese meaning “every encounter is but once in a lifetime” Every so often you get a "once in a lifetime" opportunity. Our recent trip to Japan was just such an opportunity. To travel alone with my fifth grader, to a country where he speaks the language and I do not, with his former classmates, many of whom will be off in new directions in the fall, to send him off to be hosted by a family who accepted him (and me) sight unseen, truly was a "once in a lifetime" trip. This week I would like to attempt to share some of the trip with you through words and pictures. This will not be an exhaustive account of all that we saw and experienced, but rather an attempt at capturing the spirit of the trip through a few shared stories. "Ichi-go ichi-e" was a phrase I learned on the plane. I think it might have been in the in-flight magazine. I immediately connected with

"Hello, again, hello...I couldn't sleep at all tonight..." so I got up and made myself a cup of tea and a piece of peanut butter toast and I have been sitting here reading through quotes and downloading updates to my computer and searching campsites for later this summer and, mostly, trying to figure out what to write. Trying to figure out how to say, "Hello, again," to this blog after a rather long and unintended break. "What happened?" You may be wondering. "Where did you go?"  I went to a place called Summer Vacation. I went to a place called The Kids are Out of School. I went to a place called The Relatives are Visiting. And I went to a place called Japan.  I went on a 35,000 km motorcycle ride with Nathan Millward (author of The Long Ride 'Home' ). And I went on a journey to the depths of the human experience with Dear Sugar (in her book Tiny Beautiful Things ). I went to a place called Happy. And a place called