“Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous.” ~ Confucius. Before I knew my best friend very well, when we were both starting out at our new high school up in the hills of Jamaica, she had a very clear view of who she was and what she liked. She was not […]
“Let your life lightly dance on the edges of Time like dew on the tip of a leaf.” ~ Rabindranath Tagore. One of the first concepts that puzzled me when I moved to Jamaica as a child, was the term ‘follow’. At the end of the school day, once it was decided that I could […]
“I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet, strange, I am ungrateful to those teachers.” ~ Khalil Gibran. I was introduced to the poet Khalil Gibran in high school. I don’t know who was the first person to find and share ‘The Prophet’ but his prose […]
“Don’t you know yet? It is your light that lights the worlds.” ~ Rumi. I was fortunate to grow up without many fears. My mother was a very matter-of-fact person, so you were expected to face life head on, and deal with whatever came your way. Moving to rural Jamaica from an English city meant […]
FMM 11 5 2021 Soul Imprints “Live a life full of humility, gratitude, intellectual curiosity, and never stop learning.” ~ Gza. I never met my mother-in-law. She died in childbirth, tragically, leaving behind a husband and young children. My father-in-law I first met through letters and photographs, until I finally met him on my first […]
“Only humility will lead us to unity, and unity will lead to peace.” ~ Mother Theresa. The first time I visited New Jersey was on my way to New York city on a Greyhound bus. To be honest we were just driving through it, but took an unplanned break in Newark. My father had decided […]
“The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.” ~ Muriel Rukeyser. The art of science is to be able to make it comprehensible to common man. I remember learning ‘General Science’ in high school, and learning about the water cycle. To illustrate this concept, we had to draw a body of water, the sun […]
“Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” ~ Anton Chekhov. I don’t remember learning about ‘therapeutic communication’ when I was in nursing school forty years ago. Of course, some concepts have earned names which change over time, but being taught how to respond to patients, especially […]
“Don’t worry that children never listen to you; worry that they are always watching you.” ~ Robert Fulghum. The soundtrack of my teenage years was mostly composed of reggae (along with its forbears the ska and rocksteady), with a layer of ‘soul’ music flowing through. It took a while for original Jamaican music to be […]
“Above the cloud with its shadow is the star with its light. Above all things reverence thyself.” ~ Pythagoras. I believe I have always had a fascination with nature. As I got ready to leave Jamaica after high school to go to nursing school in the UK, I made sure to take plenty of photographs. […]
Friday Morning Messages 