My Youth and Children 

My earliest memories are of nurturing the little things in my environment, perhaps because of the loving nature of my parents and grandparents.  Therefore, as I look back on my life, I see it was from a very young age that infants and children accented my life in a beautiful way. 

As a toddler I had a favorite baby doll whom I carried everywhere.  Her name was of course, "Baby"!  Baby had many adventures in her day and someday I may write a children's book about her!  I've always been visually imaginative and as a child I felt Baby was real.  At the age of four I loved bringing this soft, blue, sleepy-eyed doll with me to the beach and setting her up in a cozy cradle.  Fashioned by me, it was made from a cardboard box and was complete with a small blanket with which to cover my baby.   Baby-dolls, dolls my grandparents brought back from "from far-away lands", and fashion dolls with long hair (and usually a baby in tow!) were my favorite play things growing up.  But eventually the time came when I became too old for such activities.  

It was soon after this turning point, I realized I was nearly old enough to take the Red Cross Babysitting Course and become a babysitter for real infants and children!  Throughout my pre-teen and teenage years I was filled with bliss as the favorite babysitter for the young family next door who had four children: two boys & two girls, the youngest newly born.  Even though I loved spending time with my peers and was involved in the competitive sport of gymnastics, community activities including church and Girl Scouts, overnight summer camp and camping trips with my family, caring for children was above-all my favorite activity.  

I loved the way children processed information, their creativity, innocence and joy for life.  My mind spun with child psychology, even though I had no formal training.  And at this young age I was fully absorbed and entertained with using my intuitive skills; knowing just the right thing a child might need or want while teary, or un-raveling their language in my mind as they spoke "gibberish", or finding just the right words a child might need to hear in order to happily follow my lead.  And of course, filling them with sparkly light at every turn.  

I still remember quite clearly the day at age fifteen when I had the realization I was going to study Child Development and Child Psychology in college and own my very own nursery school one day.  Standing in the backyard of my neighbor's home, with the children laughing and spinning merrily on a simple backyard merry-go-round with friends, I just knew.  And what about "Baby" you might ask?  She still sleeps peacefully in her own special place in my home!        

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We Are All Divine In Nature

I have always felt a connection to the Divine.  As a child I had the feeling of seeing magic happening everywhere!  I could be swinging on the swings, playing beneath the branches of a tree, or twirling my body while singing a beloved song and I'd become aware that I was bonding with nature, people and the sea of life.  As a little girl I was also fascinated by people.  As I watched adults interact with one another, I would daydream about the person's life, see their nature in my heart and feel what it was like to be them.  It was mostly a very peaceful feeling to be in that love energy, almost like floating in the water.  Sometimes I could tell if a person was in pain or in need of comfort and in my mind and my own little way, I would wrap a blanket of warmth around this painful spot for them and seal this bubble of healing with my hands in my imagination.  I was also handy at finding lost items.  It seemed natural to me that when someone misplaced a something, I'd imagine what the item would be "seeing" from its point of view and then, seeing this location in my mind's eye, I'd go and find the lost item. Being intuitive was natural and just a part of me as it is for most children.

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"Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream,
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream."
A Children's Lullabye