Category Global health and disparities

FMM 4 30 2021 Commodification

“Rivers, ponds, lakes and streams – they all have different names, but they all contain water. Just as religions do – they all contain truths.” ~ Muhammad Ali. There is something about rain.  I was born in the north west of England, a city famous for its grey skies and persistent rain.  I have not […]

FMM 4 23 2021 The Arrogance of Assumptions

“There are two primary choices in life: to accept conditions as they exist, or accept the responsibility for changing them.” ~ Denis Waitley. Whenever I hear three stories on the same theme, I know this is a topic to write on.  Unfortunately, I have already forgotten one of them!  It is only recently that I […]

FMM 3 12 21 Will it go round in Circles?

“The longer one is alone, the easier it is to hear the song of the earth.” ~ Robert Anton Wilson. Every once in a while I will hear someone singing a song and say “Oh, that’s what that line says?” I’m sure it has happened to you too.  There used to be a segment on […]

FMM 3 5 2021 Threats and Opportunities

“An awareness of one’s mortality can lead you to wake up and live an authentic, meaningful life.” ~ Bernie Siegel. I can’t say that I loved Physics when I was in high school.  I was amused by one of our teachers who demonstrated the movement of molecules and how it changed as they got heated […]

FMM 2 19 2021 A Layered Life

“My legacy is that I stayed on course… from the beginning to the end, because I believed in something inside of me.” ~ Tina Turner. I do not bake.  Not that I haven’t tried, I have, but like many perfectionists who are also blessed with impatience, when I did not get the expected results on […]

FMM 2 12 2021 Outspeaking

“All advocacy is, at its core, an exercise in empathy.” ~ Samantha Power. When I was a young working mother of four young children, I did what many other nurses did who had similar responsibilities, I worked nights and weekends.  It didn’t give you much of a social life, but it maximized your earning power […]

FMM 2 5 21 Sometimes you’re the Bug

“We live in a time when science is validating what humans have known throughout the ages: that compassion is not a luxury; it is a necessity for our well-being, resilience, and survival.” ~ Joan Halifax. Full disclosure: I never learned the trick of being able to handle being teased as a child.  I may have […]

FMM 1 29 21 Hey, Cousin!

“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive.” ~ Dalai Lama. As a young child, I was used to family get-togethers surrounded by cousins.  On my father’s side I had nine cousins, and on my mother’s side I had 7, and when you added either of those to the five kids […]

FMM 1 22 2021 Health and Healing

“Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.” ~ John Muir. One of the features of my childhood was cuts and scrapes.  I suppose they are a feature for any child who is allowed to explore and climb, […]

FMM 1 15 2021 Imagine a World

“No problem can be solved from the same consciousness that created it. We must learn to see the world anew.”~ Albert Einstein. I am not sure when it was that I began to acknowledge that I was not happy in my marriage.  When you have four young kids and work full-time as a nurse (mostly […]