Behind each face there is a unique world that no one else can see. This is the mystery of individuality. The shape of each soul is different. No one else feels your life the way you do. No one else sees or hears the world as you do. The creation of the individual is a divine masterpiece. We were dreamed for a long time before we were born. Our souls, minds, and hearts fashioned in the divine imagination. Such care and attention went into the creation of each person. Given the uniqueness of each of us, it should not be surprising that one of the greatest challenges is to inhabit our own individuality and to discover which life-form best expresses it. - JOHN O’DONOHUE

Good Morning Digital Friends & Neighbors! Came across this quote while listening to the story of Jazz Jennings and the current sad state of Jazz's life. A very sad chapter for this young person to be transitioned so early in life (age 7) and is now at a normal crossroads of then teen/young adult years. Life is hard enough for our young people in discerning their gifts, self, and desires to be further compounded by a militant culture that really doesn't care about the individual. My heart broke for Jazz, I was never really aware her story except in marginal ways because I am not a consumer of cultural distraction, I have enough of my own. Higher functioning ADHD means never having to be bored for long, what was I talking about? 😉

We live in such an oddly impersonal age where we can have the most amazing connections to others and act in the most profoundly impersonal ways towards them. (Twitter 🤮) The Donohue quote reminds me of the uniqueness of each person. Even if you don't believe in a Higher Power or Simulation Programmer (same thing really), everyone is unique. Sure there are plenty of us vanilla ice cream souls out there, but most contain little bits of something else that makes us much more than "vanilla". Sometime you have to scoop deeper to find those bits, in ice cream and in self-discernment.

I was not a big fan of the crazy flavors in early life, but that has changed. You never know how the combination of flavor might be an enjoyable experience. I mean Spumoni looked appealing, but there was green ice cream. 🤨 It was pretty amazing, not my favorite, but a good lesson in being more appreciative of things beyond my current experience. But, there is always a BUT, not all changes are for the better, even when people mean well and adopt what they think is good posture. Remember Jazz. Jazz at the current moment seems to be a victim of poor parenting and cultural exploitation as an icon for the "I want to be TRANS movement." Perhaps the parents should have dug deeper in life to find the unique bits in Jazz's life before transitioning to sherbet.

Inhabiting our own individuality - not an easy task, and one of the real gifts in life is find that through experience, learning, friendship and good mentors. My life have been blessed with nothing but unique souls, a fair number sadly think they are only vanilla, but helping them scoop a little deeper, finding those bits and combination of them has been one of my greatest joys. I have enjoyed the singular souls out there too, the ones that stand out and everyone notices. There are many of them, but we first have to overcome the comfort of false vanilla to find our unique flavor. So much tension between being a person and belonging to a group, everyone has their own preferred ratio.

I will never have children and have a front row seat witnessing the development of a unique self (both an immense joy & sorrow, YMMV - human relationships is such a crapshoot.) But helping people know their flavor, celebrate their uniqueness, discipline their exaggerations, and process their story has been a surprisingly generative gift for me. It is not always a fun trip, some souls are chained by perpetual "can't" and others let their wounds define them. Well enough rambling my unique friends, have a great Thursday! Know that I have been blessed to venture on here an get to know so many wonderful flavors of humanity.

And now the fruits of a happy Duck Duck Going!!🦆🦆

Winter Barn - Westerlo, New York