A trip to the “Big Island” of Hawai`i is always exhilarating, and my July trip was over-the-top amazing!

Each of the Hawaiian Islands has its own personality. Like siblings in a family, no two are alike.

Hawai`i Island is the largest of all of the islands. In fact, all of the other islands would fit inside of it (as if that were possible).

Hawai`i is rugged, rural, majestic, and home to the most active volcano on Earth.

Two exhibits on the Kona side of the island prompted my July trip.

Tiffany DeEtte Shafto is doing a great job presenting my art to a wider audience. She hung my art at both The Four Seasons Hualalai and Henderson House at the Shops in Mauna Lani.

I stayed at the Four Seasons for one night and Ohmygoodness there are so many reasons it is consistently rated the BEST resort in the world!

The beauty, luxurious accommodations, sumptuous grounds, the happy, friendly people, the yummy food, much of which is grown on the resort and the island, are all top notch!

This is the view at dawn from our cabana at the Four Seasons Hualalai

It is paradise on steroids!

Teaching a watercolor class at the Four Seasons was great fun and very rewarding.

Me, Jeanette, & Mike in front of my painting, "Miles from Nowhere", at Henderson House

I am thrilled to have my abstract paintings hanging in the showcase design environment of Henderson House in The Shops at Mauna Lani.

Me and Rebecca Snow relaxing in the middle of a long, exciting day at the Four Seasons.

Rebecca Snow, my friend, fellow artist, and studio-mate, joined me on the trip. It was her first time to Hawai`i Island so we stayed a few extra days with my cousins Mike and Jeanette in Captain Cook.

Mike gave us a tour of their orchard of bananas, oranges, tangerines, mango, avocado, Kona coffee, Ulu, and Pamelo. Jeanette’s healthy meals gave us a delicious respite between the hectic exhibit schedules.

We rose at 2:30AM on Saturday so Mike could drive us to the southern tip of the island to see the glowing Kilauea caldera and watch the sun rise on Mauna Loa. It was breath taking!

The energy of life renewing itself is evident all over the world, in every backyard. That same energy feels amplified on the Big Island.

The contrast of birth/renewal and death happens simultaneously all around us. Our lives become that much sweeter when we realize it’s up to us to pick up the reins and make each path our own.

Putting things off does us no service. Living life is a verb. Creating a life that matters is actionable.

Let’s all take the action we need to take today to make the most of our time here on Earth!

We are meant to continue to grow, becoming more of our REAL selves here on Earth!

Sometime in the last month I reached some sort of limit and declared that I want more sweetness in my life.

That’s when I realized that I must be sweeter!

Be the sweetness you want to feel, right?

"Puppy Love" ©Patrice Federspiel

What does it mean to be sweeter in the world?

What does it feel like to be sweeter?

Sometimes sweetness is an overt action, like buying a coffee for the person behind you in line, or giving a driver easy passage to merge in front of you on the highway.

Other times it’s more an act of omission.

It’s sweet to be patient when the person in front of you at the checkout counter is counting their change.

It’s sweet to NOT roll your eyes when faced with anything you see as utterly ridiculous.

It’s sweet to not speak when speaking only serves as a volley in a useless, unnecessary argument.

It’s always sweeter to give everyone — including yourself — the benefit of the doubt.

"Seriously" ©Patrice Federspiel

Choosing sweetness isn’t always easy, and it certainly isn’t always at the top of my mind.

Still, sweetness is my new barometer; it's the antithesis to anger and resentment.

I want to live in a world of kindness and sweetness.

Just think, we get to choose sweetness with every breath, with every action, and with every non-action that we take.

I woke up at 3AM with this message in mind: Transformation Takes Time.

I got out of bed to write it down and wrote the following:

Shouldn’t I be further along in my career?

I’ve been at this for a long time.

Maybe I’m a slow learner or a slow changer or a slow beginner?

Am I “there” yet?

How much longer will this take?

Well, that depends on how much further you want to go.

Do you feel “cooked”?

Do you feel “done”?

There is no “there” to get to.

There is only now, and you’re looking pretty good from here.

Do you want to be “done”?

Do you feel complete?

What’s the rush?

If you stopped now, would you feel Satisfied?

Would you be Happy?

Would you be “good enough”?

Transformation is a process, a journey, not a destination; and it takes time.

Go back to bed. Go back to sleep. In the morning when you wake up, greet your new day with a renewed sense of self. Let the rest be up to us.

Trust. All is well. 

You’re on “target” (as if there was such a thing!)

Breathe In
Breathe Out
Move On
(The last three lines are Jimmy Buffet’s, but they came to me at that perfect time and place so I included them here.)

Imagine a beautiful, colorful stained-glass window, 30’ long. Now imagine a stone has broken one of the panes. 

Rev. Margaret Stortz recently wrote an essay on this subject and noted that even though the broken pane was small, and not brightly colored, its shattering was deeply felt by all who saw it.

So too when one of us dies (transitions, passes, choose your verb), those of us left behind feel the loss deeply.

People die everyday and we will too. 

When I was almost 25, my brother Ricky died in a car accident (if he were still with us, he’d be known as Rick).

His death was devastating to me and to my family. I went from being one of six kids in the family to one in five remaining.

Never before had I understood the vast difference one number, one person can make in the fabric of our lives.

Yes, It’s hard to “lose” someone to the inevitable. Yes, our lives are forever changed when a loved one dies.

Yes, I believe in the value of then feeling that loss, of remembering the good of that person, and the lessons learned as a result of their presence in our lives.

I am so grateful to Ricky for teaching me so much about life and death. Of course I’d rather he not be the one who taught me, but I’m glad to have learned them.

A broken pane in a stained glass window can be repaired and replaced. The space left when a loved one dies isn’t reparable. It’s something we live with forever more.

All of us are touched by deaths of people we love. Death is part of the continuum of life. It’s not death we abhor, it’s the feeling of loss, the sense that someone vital to our life is missing.

Yet as long as we can deeply feel their presence in our heart, they are never truly gone.

The time it takes to mend our shattered hearts is equal to the importance those deaths hold in our lives.

I’m sending this out to you on my Birthday, a day I love to celebrate (seriously, I still love it as much as I did when I was seven years old!). 

Why am I sending a message about living and dying on my birthday?

Here’s the thing. No matter who we are or what we do with our lives, each and every one of us matters to the fabric of the world. 

We are transitory, just visitors on the planet, yet each of us makes a difference. 

We never know how our lives affect those of others. Whether or not we know those other people, we are connected. 

Our lives affect the fabric of life. 

What difference do you want to make with your life? Is your star shining?

What difference do you see yourself making? 

Are the answers to those questions the same or at least similar?

What can you do today to nudge those two answers closer together?

How can you brighten the star that you are?

These are thoughts to have on occasion. We see ourselves in a mirror every day, yet reflection is a tool we often take for granted.  

Pausing to reflect on life, and our place within it, is a tool used to craft a life that matters. We want our life to matter to ourselves AND let’s remember that it matters to everyone else (even just a teeny bit to those we don’t know).