Six Year Anniversary

January 18, 2020January 18, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Current events, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Uncategorized, Writing Tags: A moment in time, All is One, Anniversary, Blogging, Community, Gratitude, International, Just because, Milestone, Statistics, Thankful, Writing 34 Comments

wordpress6yrs

So … the above just appeared in my notifications.

I stared at it a moment. Because, you see, I would’ve thought it was longer than six years. I also would’ve thought it couldn’t possibly have been six years already … Yet, there it is. Time doing the odd thing it knows to do as it spirals around.

Can’t ever hold on to time. It is a slippery thing, it is. Can hardly hold on to stats, seeing how they dance around. It is folly to try.

But I thought I would, anyhow, just for fun, post a snapshot of this moment in time. Even if it will change as soon as I post this, as soon as you see this, as soon as any one of you reacts or comments or clicks on this.

Still. Just because …

Here are a few stats:

1681 posts
5922 comments
115,515 views
72,111 visitors from practically every country in the world!
23,743 likes
921 followers

By the time your eyes rest on this, the numbers are already different … The values are not … Because the numbers have little meaning. Many blogs have more than this a day. Many more still have less. What does matter, to me, is you. That you read this. That you are part of this. That you matter. That you are you. You made this. With me.

I am especially moved that this little tiny sliver of a blog in the big vast space of the Internet, has had visitors from every corner of the globe. From countries large and small, from the smallest islands to the largest landmasses, from a multitude of cultures and languages and ways of life, from countries that we’re supposed to believe don’t get along, or won’t, or don’t care.

This is proof we do. Care. Because we are first and foremost humans. No matter where we were born, under what flag, to what faith or belief or upbringing, in what skin, to what family, to which doctrine. We all share this one home. We’re roommates on a blue marble hurtling through space. Equally precious. Equally worthy. We all are made of the same atoms. We breathe the same air. Drink the same water. Are tethered to the same core gravity. The same moon. Under the same sun. In the same cluster of souls riding the great vastness of Space.

So, you see, to me this little corner of the Internet — along with many others like it — is a window to our universality. To what we can be if we so choose. I’m honored. I’m humbled. I’m grateful to have the opportunity see through this window, through others’ windows, to have others look in through mine. To share light.

So, in this moment, and every moment, know that I am deeply thankful.

For you. For each and every one.

And I’m hopeful that we can, together … read more, write more, see more, share more, listen more, understand more, be more, be kind.

Common Good

December 17, 2019December 17, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Photography, Reflections, Writing Tags: Basics, Common, Fire, Flash Fiction, fpj-photo-challenge, Gratitude, Historical fiction, Micro-fiction, parenting, Photo Challenge, Raising Children, Thankful 28 Comments

Photo: Amitai Asif

“What are you grateful for, Mama?” the girl asked, head bent over her slate.

“I’m grateful for fire,” the mother said.

“For fire?” the child paused, somewhat dismayed. Perhaps she thought she’d rise up to the top of gratitude instead. Perhaps because her foot, where an amber had landed and left a painful blister, was not particularly appreciative of flames. Perhaps because fire-related chores of breaking kindling and cleaning out the ashes needed doing before she could go out to play.

“Yes,” the woman smiled, one hand stirring the oats even as a foot rocked the cradle which held the girl’s new brother. “Because without fire there will be no breakfast, no tea, no warm bath. Without it there would be no hearth, no place to get out from the damp, nowhere to warm your hands. Without it there would be no pots, no pans, no knife, no shovel, no kettle, no cake, no bread.”

Speaking of the last, the woman rose to rake the coals and make room for the dutch oven before shoveling a heaping mound of glowing red atop the lid, so the sourdough loaf could bake. She could feel the girl’s eyes on her, reassessing what she’d been privileged to always take for granted. What the mother knew could not.

“It is the common that we often forget to be grateful for,” the mother added, her lilting voice directed at the infant, who’d began to fuss, as her words matched the pace of her resumed cradle rocking: “Air to breathe, water to drink, flour for bread, cloth and fleece, a garden and field, to grow our food in.

“And,” she tugged fondly on a ringlet by her daughter’s chin, “having the common things all tended to, gives us the comfort in which to appreciate the more obvious gifts we cherish … like you, and little David, and your Pa.”

“And Gwendoline,” the girl reminded, eyes flicking to the swaddled corn-doll that she liked to tend.

“And Gwendoline,” the mother grinned. She peeked at the letters on the child’s slate. “And children who do their chores, as you will need to as soon as your S and W here receive a bit of mend.”

For the Tuesday Photo Challenge: Common

100,000 Thank Yous!

August 19, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Current events, Life and love, Reflections, Uncategorized, Writing Tags: 100000 views, Blogging, Gratitude, Milestone, Thank you, Thankful, Views 19 Comments

THANK YOU!!!

To all of you

Who follow, visit, read, ‘like,’ and comment …

For making possible this milestone of reaching over

100,000 views!

I am so very grateful!

XOXO

Na’ama

beautiful beautiful flowers bouquet color

Photo by Rosie Ann on Pexels.com

Thankful Still

November 18, 2018Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Meditations, Muse and Flow, Photography, Reflections, Writing Tags: Beach, Ebb and flow, Gratitude, Life Lessons, Meditation, Ocean, Poetry, Sunday Stills, Thankful, Thanksgiving, wisdom 4 Comments

Photo: Na’ama Yehuda

Thankful still for life’s living

Thankful still

For the hope

That each breath that’s drawn in

Can begin

And can bring.

Thankful still, if hadn’t always

For the ebb

And the flow

Of small joys and big sorrows

As they come

And they go

As we grow

And we know.

For the Sunday Stills Challenge: Thankful

Welcoming Hearts

May 14, 2017Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Current events, Life and love, Reflections, Writing Tags: Guidance, Hospitality, love, Mother's Day, Mothering, parenting, Raising Children, Thankful, The Daily Post 7 Comments

tender hand

For all the mothers, biological and adoptive, temporary or ‘forever,’ immediate and surrogate, spiritual, female and otherwise …

A day of thanks, for open hearts.

A day for those who carry, hold, deliver, care-for;

For those who pat-the-back-of-babies through long nights, who walk a groove into the floors in the new-parent-dance;

For those who wipe the brow of fever, whose arms and hands are never empty, who fill a plate for others before sitting down for theirs;

For those who watch over the children while their parents cannot be there – day in and day out, in emergency, or any needed time;

For those who fret and worry, contemplate and weigh each day, each milestone, each possible advance to a child’s healthy growing;

For those who open every corner of their heart for love far bigger than imagined;

For those who welcome little ones (and sometimes not so little) and parent, guide, teach, hug, steer safe, keep whole, allow, provide;

For those who still raise pieces of themselves even as they are called to raise others;

For those determined to change course from paths that harm, to ones that cradle;

For those who let be known that children matter, who fight to make the world a better place for those unable yet to lead but destined to inherit what we will leave them;

For the hospitality of parenting souls of all kinds;

For the depth of care so many offer;

For the triumphs and the challenges:

Deep thanks.

For The Daily Post

Mothering

May 8, 2016May 8, 2016Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Meditations, Reflections Tags: Gratitude, kindness, Mother Earth, Mother's Day, Mothering, NaamaYehuda, self-care, Thankful 4 Comments

tender care

Thankful

For mothering

In all its forms:

The immediate, the early, the continuous, the delayed;

The biological, the fostered, the adopted, the periodical, the incremental and the unusual;

To mothering by women, by men, by friends and neighbors, co-workers and teachers, siblings and relatives, by the kind smile of a stranger and moments of shared understanding;

To mothering by nature, by pets, by ocean waves, by breath and life’s constant flow and ebb;

To Mother Earth and Mother Moon;

To mothering of self, by self, by growth, by age and lessons learned and known …

To all of this, and more;

Thankful for mothering.

In all its forms.

tenderness