FOUR DAYS A WEEK. At Our Fingertips. An Unexpected Place.

COMING TOGETHER. We carry our best wishes and dreams in our hearts and out into the world. We are growing.

At the end of the year and sharing with you below a wish, hope, and growth: an email and a story I recently received from my Japanese friends, Ken Crane, and his wife, Yumi Crane. It was Ken and Yumi who received our treasure box of wishes and cranes for Japan after the tsunami hit their homeland on March 11, 2011.

Today continuing on the journeys of hope and into the New Year, a message from Ken and Yumi:

_OUT OF THE DARKNESS AND INTO THE LIGHT. Remembering our strengths and hopes. We embrace and release our fears.

Thank you, Ken and Yumi, for being here with us and sharing your story and light.

And to you, my readers, I wish you a wonderful New Year. May it be filled with magic and dreams come true. Thanks so much for being part of our journeys. Aspiring and inspiring.

We hope to see you again next week here at the blog on January 2, 2012 when we announce the winner of In The Circle Of Joy (raffle ~ giveaway). If you are reading this on December 26, 2011, there's still time to post a comment, tweet, follow, and like to enter the raffle, which ends at 12:01 a.m. Eastern Standard Time on December 27, 2011.

Until next time when we reconnect, please meet Ken below with best-selling author Paulo Coelho. Ken also shares with us an excerpt from his story, Caterpillar.

-Mia

P.S. I hadn't planned on posting at the blog in December, but when I received Ken's email, I wanted to share his story of growth and hope with you. Enjoy and happy holidays. Thank you, Ken and Yumi.

✶ PHOTO ABOVE: Yumi and Ken Crane. ✶

✶ ILLUSTRATIONS ABOVE: Butterflies by Ken Crane, an illustrator, graphic artist, writer, and musician. He is also the illustrator for best-selling author Paulo Coelho's stories and posts at Paulo's blog. Ken's portfolio includes illustrations for magazine covers (Forbes, Japan Times, Newsweek, Vogue, and Wired), rock concert posters, artwork for the theatre, films, and animations for television shows. ✶

_✶ FROM PAULO COELHO, MAY 12, 2011: Writing creates images in the reader's mind. So, when someone tells you "I can make an illustration of your work", normally I politely decline. Till one day ... that I met Ken Crane in Twitter. Ken proposed to illustrate some posts in my blog and after having a look at his illustrations, I told to myself: "That's the person!"

From this moment on, we started to collaborate together, pro bono, only for the sake of sharing our ideas with other people. Also, from this moment on, people started not only commenting the text, but also the illustrations. I hope that, by the end of 2011, we will have enough material to publish an illustrated book.

I am proud to have Ken by my side, and I am one of his most fervent admirers. [read more from Paulo on Ken and on writing creating images] ✶

__✶ AN EXCERPT FROM THE CATERPILLAR by KEN CRANE: 
"I am all the material of this universe. And you are an existence to choose what to do with those material. The Sun has chosen to shine by collecting the gas floating in space. The Earth has chosen to rotate around the sun using the sun's gravity. Terrestrial plants on Earth has chosen to bloom flowers using the energy of the sun. And that is what is called creation and evolution. And I am this process itself. You must choose what to do and what to be using this process. Once you have chosen what to be with your will, you will be able to experience the miracle ...Don't you want to see a miracle?"
[continue reading the story of the Caterpillar at Ken's blog] ✶

✶A top story in Anita's Finding Inspiration Daily, Daily MsLadyJapan, and
The Becoming Daily. December 2011.✶