Every week I am going to speak to three topics: anecdotes, books, ideas, products, or innovations that I believe are peace-building, heart-opening, community-celebrating, love-spreading vehicles. Complaining and criticizing are easy traps to fall into, but I am convinced that building up holds far more power and transformative energy.

So, my sweet friends, here goes…Our world is a beautiful village and peace does begin at home.

What I am thinking about / loving this week….

Superpowers

A recent art journaling activity from the online Brene Brown course I am taking asked participants to ‘identify their superpower’. Another article I came across this week also concidentally talked about the value of tapping into and acknowledging the idea of your ‘superpower’,

in other words that one shiniest part of you that comes utterly naturally.

An intriguing question….one that, to be honest,

left me sitting there not sure how to move forward with the assignment,

because this question was actually asking me to delve far deeper than simply identifying what I am good at, or where my talents and strengths lie.

What is my –

superpower?

What is that thing, that most in-the-groove part of me, that comes easily and truly and freely, and always has. To delve deeper, it’s not even really about something that I ‘do’, though it partly is. It’s also about who I am. 

Spiderman, after all, just is Spiderman.

Take Alex’s boyfriend fiance (more about that next week!), Ryland.

He is a brilliant songwriter..

Brilliant.

The lyrics he writes that pour out of him astonish us,

every time.

The wisdom and beauty and clarity that he is able to convey and encapsulate through his story and song are nothing less than inspired gifts.

But here’s the thing. His superpower isn’t necessarily singing and songwriting, though these are certainly wonderful and natural byproducts of his superpower.

His superpower is his ‘voice’, his need for and his abilities around,

self-expression.

Not being quite sure what my superpower was, I asked my family members what they thought.

What ensued was the greatest discussion about not only my superpowers, but also identifying everybody’s superpowers.

It can be a beautiful and uplifting thing to hone in on someone’s superpower. It’s also surprisingly simple, because it all just seems so obvious when you are looking at another, especially someone you know and love.

It’s not that people can be simply summed up, because of course they can’t, and perhaps who we are even changes over time,

but it is still easier than you might think to speak to the unique essence of a person…

their loveliest, who-they-are and what-they-have-to-offer-the-world part.

Olivia needs to move creatively.

George is deeply curious and concerned about the natural world.

Alex is incredibly perceptive and brings clarity.

Dan is sensitive to his environment.

These individual ways of being are so unique and deeply rooted that they are also our ‘Kryptonite’, as Brene Brown would put it. Our deepest challenges are often part and parcel of our superpower journeys,

that ultimately can’t be denied,

and there is such precious empowerment in owning our fullest best versions of ourselves.

oh, how I love this stuff.

Spring on our street

Something really special happens every year on our street around May,

in this part of the world where much of our year is so cold and daunting.

Our street is a one-way, and so it is narrow. Also, there are not a lot of garages out front as the houses are older. Our boulevards, then, are close and inviting and traffic is limited.

So when the weather starts to warm up, people slowly and surely start to emerge from their houses.

The kids, of course, are first. They fling out of the houses and knock on each others’ front doors, chasing each other, chatting, skateboarding and scooting down the sidewalk.

The family next door has just set up a trampoline, so the sounds are also of screeching and jumping,

delight.

The adults follow, less uninhibited and busier, but still happier to spend more lingering minutes visiting in the sunshine.

We are often walking now in the evenings too.

Last week we met the toddler grandson of the neighbours down the street, and he and his grandpa followed us all the way to the park

and back.

For days, Olivia and George relayed the hilarious things this little boy had said and remembered him wildly jumping in the puddle.

It also seems inviting, now, to sit on my steps as I talk on the phone and watch the springtime action,

the leaves that are finally greening this very week,

and feel the warmth of the sun.

These are little things, it seems, but really not so little –

they speak to the annual re-building, re-birthing, and re-affirming of this peaceful community of neighbours.

Spring.

My Chocolate Fix

I never really set out to write about food. After all, does the Internet really need one more person commenting on food,

and posting recipes and pictures of what they just ate?

Probably not, but alas here I sit unable to resist adding my bit to the masses.

To be honest, I have always felt that making and sharing meals is possibly our most meaningful and celebratory social activity.

This week, however, I made something that I didn’t share with anyone.

I was tired this week. Maybe I was fighting off a virus, but I just could not sustain any reasonable level of momentum or energy.

So, I did what any sane woman in my situation would do as she was trying to get through an afternoon or two of writing, book-keeping, and emails before her embarkment on the after-school weekday driving to and from activities shift….

I looked for quick and easy avenues to  good quality chocolate.

Though I was low on energy,

I did have in my kitchen reserves some soft speckled bananas, ripe avocados, and a container of fine dark cocoa that Patricia at Umami introduced me to. I blended all three in my treasured Vitamix and

TaDa!

This is the rich beautiful chocolatey ‘healthier’ deliciousness that magically resulted.

I have tried several versions of this pudding, but this recipe was the easiest and creamiest. If your bananas are over-ripe you really don’t need any kind of sweetener at all and you will be meeting your craving in less than five minutes.

Totally satisfying.

Here is the link to the recipe I used, from All Recipes.

Eat whilst drinking a cup of of lovely green tea, and you will get through your afternoon. You will.

Peace.