This May Work

I thought Dave would like this template, and then as I starred at it I began to like it too. Very different than what I set out looking for.

The title: It's weird to change a blog title. It's the name by which everyone recognizes us online. But, here's the deal. I heard the phrase "hello star shine, the earth says hello" in the Willy Wonka Movie with Johnny Depp, and thought it was hilarious. I did not know it was part of a song (that I don't really like at all). I think there was sorta a second title to our blog as well, or maybe it was the first and the above was the second. Whatever it was, Growing Like the Lilies, was neat, but I am a creature of change, so I thought I would take advantage of the overall change to throw a new title out there too. Hope I don't mess any of you up too much, trying to change your links and such. We are still here, just with a different name (until I get restless again!). My link list is totally suffering from this change too, so if you don't see your blog listed, and feel a little hurt by this, please know that I am adding more blogs and have not intentionally taken you off the blogroll.

The title may sound intergalactic, but I assure you, it's not. It's actually literary. It's the name of my favorite book when I was 12. Wow, its strange to look that far back in life and realize how impacted I was, at such a young age, by this piece of literature. I think the book really awakened, or maybe spurred and encouraged, my interest in truly learning to know people for who they are. If you have an evening (because seriously, as an adult, that is all it will take you to read this book) give it a shot. It's cute, insightful, hilarious, and a little sad. It might take you back to a certain age of identity development too, when some of your very own values began to surface.

The poem I've stuck up under the title also comes from that same year in life. My grade 7 teacher asked us to memorize a few pieces of literature. I was the only person in the class who did. I've always had a knack for memorizing poems. This is it, and to this day I cannot express my gratitude for the experience of knowing this poem.

I think, for me, the collaboration of the book and this poem encompass some of my deepest values in life: to know, and be known, non-judgmentally, gently. This is how I approach most things I do: work, marriage, parenting, friendships, sustainable living. If you can name it, I am probably trying to get inside of it, to see what it's like to walk two moons in another mans moccasins. If I can do this, than I believe change and hope are boundless.