I have just received word from a reader in the UK who is sending in a donation through PayPal. When I receive her funds I will officially be at the $5,000 goal. I am so grateful to all of you for participating, and I think it’s wonderful that the human spirit can be so empathetic and compassionate. Bravo to you all! If you would like to see how this evolved, you can see An Overnight for Japan or An Overnight for Japan: An update. Please note that one of my donors may be able to get his company to match his own contribution, and if that happens you will all have helped me reach $7,000. Either way, I have an amazing group of people in my life, and I appreciate you all very much. xoxoxo

This brings my effort to a close.

THANK YOU AGAIN SO MUCH!!

Hello everyone! As the disaster recovery continues, I wanted to give an update as to what is happening thus far with my efforts to raise contributions to send for relief. I do this, so that I can be accountable, and so that I can perhaps encourage you to participate in the assistance effort in some way. In “An Overnight for Japan,” I set out to schedule an overnight appointment at a reduced rate, so that I could send $1,000 to the efforts in Sendai. In a short time I have decided to raise that goal to $5,000. The reasons for this are as follows:

• I have scheduled one overnight special for $1,000 which will also be matched by the client in question with another $1,000 ($2,000)
• I have received through PayPal donations from friends and clients who want to contribute, but who could not meet in person ($400 $500 $800)
• I am about to schedule a second overnight special ($1,000)
• I was just informed that a reader was 2 readers were moved to contribute on my behalf, one for $500 which was then matched with another $500 from his organization, the other 2 others for $100 each ($1,000 $1,100 $1,200)

Totaling all of these figures together gives a sum of $4,400 $4,500 $4,600 $4,700 $5,000. Please consider helping me collect the remaining $600 $500 $400 $300 $ZERO to reach this goal – you don’t have to send it to me. Just let me know if you send anything at all, and I will add it toward the tally.

I want to thank everyone who has been generous and kind enough to do this along with me, and I really do KNOW that these types of acts are rewarded (although this isn’t why they are done in the first place, and THAT makes them even more beautiful). I hope that the recovery in Japan continues, and that any further destruction can be avoided or minimized. With all gratitude, I embrace you. xoxoxo

SUCCESS!! Read about it here!

I can’t sleep, so I’m blogging an idea. While I was in San Francisco this past weekend a client had to cancel an appointment due to a local tsunami warning. At the time I wasn’t aware that there was one, and then as I was reading the news all weekend I started following what was happening. Reading about it and seeing still pictures made everything in Japan seem dire, but it wasn’t until I got home yesterday that I had reliable enough internet access to go into more depth. Seeing the videos yesterday afternoon of the enormous destruction in Sendai and other parts of Japan has made me nauseous with something that isn’t guilt, but which is still a nagging kind of draining emotion that I cannot quite describe. I really feel the need to reach out and make some kind of gesture to help.

I have come up with an idea, and I want to invite you to help me. I don’t know who “you” is, but hear me out, and if this proposal speaks to you, please contact me directly at devonhunter1814@yahoo.com. This is my proposal:

I would like to send a $1,000 donation to Red Cross or one of the other internationally recognized aid organizations operating in Japan during this triple crisis of earthquake-tsunami-nuclear meltdown. I propose lowering my overnight rate from $1,200 to $1,000 on a new booking. If you and I have already scheduled an overnight, it has been budgeted into the costs of that particular trip, so I need this to be a new booking independent of anything I have scheduled up until now. To ensure that this $1,000 goes to the aid work in Japan, I am happy to work out an arrangement with you such that you see the actual donation when I make it.

Whether you participate in this particular plan of mine or not, please consider what you might offer to help. Even if you cannot send money, please at least take a few moments to be thankful. If you are reading this from a place of security, safety, and comfort, please at least take a moment to send something positive from within yourself out to Japan.

Seeing these videos was like watching a child play with toy boats in a bath tub. We are so delicate. At any moment we can be swept away into chaos by any number of factors. Japan has been very generous throughout the many crises over the years involving natural disasters and other humanitarian efforts. The people of Japan deserve the support and comfort of humanity in return during this time of upheaval. Also, Japan is the third largest economy in the world: If the Japanese slide back into recession as a result of this destruction, they could drag the world economy back into financial instability just as growth is puttering into positive numbers. We all benefit by Japan recovering from these challenges as quickly as possible. We are all interconnected, so helping others will ultimately help you as well. Please help in whatever way you are able!

An update: Read about it here

SUCCESS!! Read about it here!

For those of you who know me well, you know that the title I used here today is also the title of my favorite book, which was written by Mary Renault. You can see two entries I wrote about this book back in May, 2009 (“The Last of the Wine:” Sokrates, on getting and keeping a true and honourable lover, and “The Last of the Wine:” Lysis, on prayer), and upon rereading them I see how everything gets knitted together. Everything is connected. There are no coincidences.

On October 12, 2006 I left my last boyfriend after I discovered he’d defrauded me for tens of thousands of dollars in credit cards he’d opened in my name and in cash he’d removed from various bank accounts. Two years later, On October 12, 2008, I went to the discount wine warehouse store to make a hefty splurge purchase: I wanted to spend $100 on a bottle of wine. At the time it was a luxury that almost crippled me for the rest of the month. But I had a reason for doing this. I had decided that I was going to pay down my debt as quickly as possible, and I began formulating my plan for doing so. I bought that bottle of wine with a very particular goal in mind: “I will eliminate not only this fraudulent debt, but all my pre-existing debt as well, by my birthday of 2012.” I bought a bottle of Duckhorn Vineyards Merlot (2004, Napa Valley) to celebrate my rediscovered faith in the idea that everything would get better. I promised myself I wouldn’t open this bottle of wine until the day my last outstanding balance was reported as ZERO by the creditor in question.

I formulated a payment plan by December, 2008; I implemented in in January, 2009; and I have stuck to this plan religiously ever since. I realized several months later that I’d done the math wrong in my favor: I could have it all paid off by my birthday of 2011! A whole year sooner!! And then, just as I was getting comfortable with this idea, I realized a few months ago that I’d done the math wrong in my favor yet again: I could have the entire debt gone by Valentine’s Day of 2011. This puts me 16 months “ahead of schedule.”

I am writing this now to announce the news: Although I paid “only” $100 for it, this bottle of wine cost me almost $100,000, and it is the best wine I have ever drunk in my life. It is true: The more you pay for wine the better it tastes. And right now I am sharing the bottle with a few friends (who will also be enjoying this nectar of the gods with some gorgeous chocolate that was formulated specifically for wine pairings). This is what freedom tastes like, and it is sweet!

Put “Emancipation” by Prince on repeat, baby: I gotta jam to some funky music RIGHT NOW.

From The Bonnie Blue's Flickr stream

Hi Devon,

Writing this e-mail feels a little strange, mainly because it’s not what I was expecting to say to you at all.

I had intended to relay the curious tale of how a straight white Scottish girl (me!) found herself perusing the web-page of an intelligent, funny, erudite and thought provoking gay guy from America. But now, having read the sad news of the loss of your beloved grandfather, I think that it should remain a story for another day. For now, I just wanted to say how very sorry I am for your loss. I know that nothing much can help at the moment. So often people talk about how to cope with this kind of situation. I have found that you don’t so much cope as simply endure. But endurance requires courage, tenacity, strength of character, foresight, insight and an unshakable belief that it will, in the end, be worth it. That life will get better again.

From the very little I know of you through your own writings and through the testimony of others who have written to you and about you, I have no doubt that you have these personal qualities and attributes in abundance, and I suspect many other virtues which I, as yet, know nothing of. And this reassures me that through your own efforts, and with the help and support of your family and friends, you will make it through this difficult time, and, as it would seem you have done during other times in your life, you will find something positive and life affirming within the sadness.

Keeping you in my thoughts,
Love Helen
xXx

PS

I don’t know if you have heard of/read someone named Kahlil Gibran (especially his book The Prophet – not at all religious I promise, just incredibly spiritual and affecting). Anyway, he wrote this, and somehow I thought it spoke directly to your situation. Hope it helps even a little.

“Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.”
- Kahlil Gibran

"Snowheart," by Susan Tuttle of www.ilkasattic.blogspot.com

Hi Helen,

Helen, Helen, HELEN! I don’t know what I did to deserve an email like that, but I am crying. And in a very good way. That couldn’t be any more eloquent, generous, or beautiful. I had fallen from my 7-week spiritual high, what with Grampa’s passing and some of the dysfunction I’d seen within my family last week. I’d sunk into funk these last 10 days. I hadn’t been sleeping or eating (which makes me confrontational), and it was all compounding into depression. I know me, and I can’t let that happen.

This morning, I was laying in bed focusing on how GOOD my life is, how WONDERFUL it is. (I have more to be grateful for than almost anyone I know!) I went through my Wellness Affirmations from this past Thanksgiving, really absorbing them again, trying to haul myself back into being whole by re-examining my Perfect Meditation from a couple weeks ago. I needed to re-achieve “wellness” and “whole,” so that the rest of the meditation would follow. But I kept stopping at the last part: I am happy.

I stumbled on it repeatedly. It felt disrespectful to say or feel it; however, I know that Grampa wouldn’t want me to be unhappy. He would never want that – he would want me to be invigorated by his memory, not miserable in his loss. I walked over to pick up a well-timed delivery of chocolate from a friend in Boston, and as I crunched toward the leasing office I got through saying “I am happy” several times. It was as if the ice veneer snapping under my feet had cracked open specifically to erupt with the fluffy white powder underneath (just for my entertainment!). It was like tiptoeing on crème brûlée, and how can THAT not be fabulous? I don’t understand the minutiae making it true, but saying “I am happy” within explodes “I am happy” without.

I am happy! (*step; crunch; puff of snow; smile…)

And then I get this email… just in the nick of time. Just as that initial excitement was calming back down. Being neutral is balanced, but I was falling down past neutral. I want to post this on my blog, because I want people to see specifically how reaching out and doing something kind (even to strangers!) creates a fracturing effect: Love breaks sadness. It is real. I am so happy you wrote to me, and I didn’t even know you existed until now. What if all introductions could be like this?? What hardness could be broken, so that softness could erupt?

This is amazing: Even before you shared the Gibran quote, that cracking shell imagery was already at work in my head today while walking outside in the snow. There are no coincidences. Thanks again for taking the time to write me something so helpful and inspiring. I also want to thank everyone else who, whether publicly or privately, has sent me encouragement and sympathy. Please know that it matters. It really does, and I am grateful to be the recipient of your good will.

I hope you are well,
Love Devon
xXx