Tag Archives: Live a Life Worth Celebrating

Day 4: Clouds, Photography and Doodling

When I walk the mile to Priscilla’s coffee shop once or twice a day, I have developed a meditative practice.I walk along the street opening and closing my eyes. Eyes closed for 5-10 steps connecting to my heart and breathing and feeling the impact of my feet on the pavement.When I open my eyes, I listen to my heart and I look to a place where I feel guided to look. I observe nature, the sidewalk, the skyline. I might stop and touch the leaves of a tree or stop to observe bees and butterflies pollinating a group of flowers. I notice a red flower growing in the midst of yellow and white petunias.I notice things. I look into the eyes of the people I pass on the street. Words pop off a sign. U Love. The world has an aliveness that could have been missed by swiftly walking and thinking about what I will do when I get to the coffee shop or when I get home.A view of the skyline:

Doodling late last night. The words Freedom and Rich came to me. Combining all of the parts of life as I open to the inspiration on my walk.

 

Day 2: Photography and Doodle: There’s a Wishbone in my Tree

Outside the window of my apartment, there is a wishbone shape in the tree. The first time I saw it was a month after I moved in. This was a year ago. I was talking on the phone with my friend, Sherryl Frauenglass. All of a sudden I stopped and I said, “There is a wishbone in my tree!”Look at the picture…do you see the wishbone?

How about now? Do you see it?

Look closer…Now…make a wish!

My Doodle: Make a Wish!

Oklahoma City: An Example of Peace on Earth

Oklahoma City: An example of Peace on Earth by Andrea Hylen
(This was originally published in Beloved World- Voices of Peace Newsletter Sept 2008)
July 7, 2008 – A journal entry
Words seem so inadequate on this day.
By spending the morning and the evening at the Oklahoma City Memorial, I feel that my life has been touched in a profound way. I sit here staring at the blank page feeling the stillness, not knowing how to capture this experience in words.
A field of empty chairs represents the lives lost on April 19, 1995. My heart felt like it was bursting open when I first entered the Memorial. Tears ran down by cheeks, as I opened to the emotion. I felt that my heart was bursting with love and gratitude. Love and gratitude? This took me by surprise. I found out later that the entrance we walked through was the Door of Hope. And that is what I felt.
Through the tragedy of loss, the powerful emotions of forgiveness, healing, hope and love have arisen here. Beginning with the people who responded with help immediately, to those who came from afar, to the words of love from children, this is an example of the hope and beauty that is arising on the planet.
The people of Oklahoma City have risen from the ashes and chosen peace. They are an example of peace on Earth as we each make conscious choices for inner peace.
An educator shared the peace that has been birthed here. Conflict resolution classes in schools; Cards and artwork from children, like the tile that reads, ”The world cares.” Sharing tools of peace with the children.
Every night when the sun goes down, the lights below each chair shine brighter and brighter. As the darkness spreads throughout the city, I see the moon at the highest point in the sky. There is stillness. The chairs that represent loss are transformed and emerge into brilliant candles of hope and light.
I see in this moment, it is in the greatest times of darkness that we become the brightest lights.

Hurley Cox


Hurley Cox. 4 years ago today. Died peacefully in Baltimore in Hospice. For hours, people came to express their love and share their stories. The garden was alive with hummingbirds that day. All singing the joy of Hurley’s arrival back home. Live a Life Worth Celebrating. My husband certainly did! (Bottom left hand corner of picture)
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This is what I wrote on my Facebook status today and on the Jonas Watch Facebook status. I can’t really write about anything else today. It is here. The remembrance of the day, the man, the years I was married to him, the year he was sick with cancer, the day he died, the four years since his death.

During our 15 year marriage, we packed more life and death into 15 years, than many people experience in a lifetime. Here is a list of a few of our experiences together

1. We had a son who lived with a congenital heart defect through two open heart surgeries and died of cancer at the age of 19 months.

2. We gave life to a beautiful daughter, Hannah who, at the age of 5, nicknamed herself, “running princess who finds diamonds.”

3. We had joint custody of my amazing daughters, Mary and Liz and raised them to adulthood.

4. We moved into a house with three falling down ceilings and 27 boarded up windows and did most of the renovating ourselves.

5. We home schooled our daughters.

6. We installed an in ground pool together (amazing we stayed married during that adventure!)

7. We celebrated life with go karts in the front yard and kite flying on the beach.

8. We had a house full of animals with 2 golden retrievers and three cats and canaries hanging from the ceiling, and aquariums of exotic and every day fish and 2 leopard geckos.

9. We planted a huge garden with a 4-H club, provided space and guidance to many children through Destination Imagination and Girl Scouts and home schooling classes.

10. I recovered from a life threatening, autoimmune condition and Hurley did not recover from multiple myeloma cancer.

Today I AM:

Sad: I miss our pillow talk, late at night, early in the morning. Our best time of the day.

Happy: Thinking about his booming laughter. You could hear him wherever he was with his out-loud, booming, body shaking, head thrown back laughter.

Grateful: For all I learned about myself because we were in a relationship together.

Determined: To live a life worth celebrating with joy during ALL of the ups and downs

Awake: To everything I can see, hear, feel, taste and touch and to live in the now of life.

I AM Living a Life Worth Celebrating.