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deathbyvalentine · 4 years

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The Crucible Children

Their nickname was based on two facts: 1) they lived right on the cross road, tucked into one of the ninety degree angles, 2) they were the children of the town pastor. For this part of the state, that managed to count as wit and the name stuck. So they were the Crucible children and they would be until well into adulthood, no matter what happened next.

There were five of them in total but Agnes was just a baby and so didn’t really count. The other four were jostled close together in age, all being borne from the same mother, which Agnes was not. The pastor’s first wife had died shortly after her last child and another wife was quickly found to continue the important business of raising a family. All agreed this could not be done by a man alone and the second wife was very almost as pretty as the first without eclipsing the poor woman’s memory and was so met with general approval by the populace.

The eldest was a daughter named Miranda. She had long brown curls that formed natural ringlets. Her hair very nearly reached her waist and would have been considered ridiculous if it were not so beautiful. She would too have been considered beautiful if not for the perpetually worried expression on her face and her slightly too-large front teeth chewing on her bottom lip whenever she was thoughtful, which was often.

Teddy was next, a handsome youth with blonde hair who looked as frivolous as his sister did worried. He had exceptionally rosy cheeks and eyes that set the girls in his Sunday School class whispering and doing all sorts of small performances to try and get him to look their way. He seemed utterly oblivious to the contained chaos he caused and cheerfully denied the poor things his affections, not realising that was what they wanted.

Eliza was, chiefly, small. She looked the image of her mother, sickly pallor and dark circles under her eyes not excepted. She herself was not fretful but she caused fretting. Not a week went by when her step mother bore her to the doctor’s office, anxiously presenting some new malady. She had a permanent cough and tired easily. She stayed at home with her not-mama rather than going to school and only left the house in company of her two older siblings. Luckily her father thought the country air would do her the world of good so she was not entirely housebound.

Leon was the youngest and so perpetually out of breath from trying to catch up with his siblings. Like his brother, he had rosy cheeks but only time would tell if he would grow up handsome or homely. He was still sat firmly in the boundaries of childhood, looking longingly over at the coveted teenagerdom that was thus denied to him. This had lent him a somewhat sulky air.

It was rare to see one without at least two of the others. They walked like ducklings to and from school and on the weekends they were joined by Eliza too. Teddy made friends easily and included Miranda in all of his activities as she was paralysingly shy and was not likely to make friends alone. Leon had playmates but was not always very kind for to them, impatient as he was for the induction into grown up friendships, where you talked and explored and traded secrets. Leon had no secrets and couldn’t wait to find one.

He found his first secret on the last day of school, when a light sprinkling of snow covered the land, making it hard and unyielding. Walk on the ground long enough and your knees would ache. The sky was a constant pearly grey and Leon thought that there would be more snow overnight, perhaps even enough to make snow angels. The thought excited him and as he played for what passed as the back yard, he kept craning his neck upwards to squint at the sky. The yard itself was a barren piece of farmland, stretching out for a little while until it met a tree line. They were explicitly forbidden from entering the forest, even Miranda and Teddy. Their father said they would either get lost or get eaten by some wild beast and even when they were feeling brave and rebellious they never managed to move past the first row of trees. They had never seen anything else come out or go in, man or beast. Which is why Leon started when he looked up and saw a woman in a white dress amongst the trees.

She was far away enough that Leon had to work to see her. She was definitely a woman and she was definitely blonde, but little else was he able to discern. What disturbed him though was the absolute certainty she was looking at him right back. He had no way of telling this and yet he knew it, as though her gaze were a layer of snow over his skin. He shivered, all interest in his game gone. A small wind grazed the horizon but her dress did not move. Neither did the leaves of the closest trees to her.

He suddenly felt the cold in his bones and he got to his feet, abandoning the meagre attempt at snowballs. With a burst of speed fuelled by fear, he clattered up the back steps of the house and into the kitchen, slamming the door shut behind him, causing an automatic scolding call from his step mother upstairs. He rested against the door for a moment before inching it open and gazing across the barren fields. She was gone but the odd sensation of ice in his chest had not vanished with her. The cold clung to him all evening, finally only disappearing when he and his siblings took their turn in the sturdy tin bath, heated with water from over the fire. It was then he was able to convince himself his eyes had fooled him, the white snow forming a shape he had mistaken for a woman. This idea soothed him and he found his mood lifted to the point where he was able to bother his siblings his usual amount. He slept as soundly as he did any other night.

Miranda saw her exactly a week later. She had been charged with a trip into town to collect some bones from the butcher. Eliza’s cough had worsened and their fretful stepmother was demanding their cook make a bone broth to warm her. Leon was too young to make the trip alone and Teddy was engrossed in schoolwork so it was left to her. She didn’t mind. In a house with four children, she treasured her moments of silence where she could find them. So she was in a pleasant mood when she started her walk back from town, the sky darkening rapidly. The expected blizzard had not yet arrived but the wind carried with it flakes of snow. Her cheeks reddened and she was forced to press her hands deep in her pockets to maintain any sensation. The last of the light had vanished from the sky when she turned onto the road that lead to the crossroads. There were no stars. There was only the sound of her laboured breath and the slight crunch as her feet moved through the snow.

Then there was something else. Her house spilled light through its windows. Not much, but enough to illuminate a little of the road. In the middle of the crossroads, a woman stood. Miranda blinked and stopped walking for a moment, wondering if it was a parishioner needing sudden spiritual guidance or a lost traveller. As she continued walking and she came into sharper relief, Miranda realised neither of these things could be true for the woman was not wearing shoes. She stood in the snow as if it were a warm summers day and gazed at Miranda and Miranda gazed back.

This turned out to be an error. Not watching her feet, she stood on a hidden slice of water, turned to ice in the cold night air. She fell, spectacularly, landing on her back and smacking her elbow painfully hard into the ground. She heard a snap but it was simply the butcher’s bones in her backpack breaking. She lay there for a moment, gathering herself before sitting up. When she did, the woman was gone, absolutely nothing stood in the yellow half light from the house.

When she arrived home, she was duly fussed on, hot tea given and a poultice wrapped around her elbow that was turning an interesting shade of purple. Miranda sipped the tea gratefully but it didn’t warm her. Not completely. When she went to bed that night, she lay awake, shivering, despite the three blankets piled on top of her body.

Teddy was next. If he had known some of his siblings had seen her first, he would have been much aggrieved. Being the oldest and being a boy, he usually insisted on going first for everything, regardless of how desirable it actually was. He volunteered first for chores, treats and everything in between. He would have perhaps also been aggrieved at the distinct lack of drama surrounding her sighting.

He was reading to Eliza in the nursery. Fever had touched her and her cheeks were twin flames, her eyes hazy and unfocused. But in many ways, she was content. Teddy had a particular fondness for his younger sister and her for him. Having him read to her, all to herself, was a rare treat and not one to be diluted by the mere fact of illness. She had long since lost track of what he was reading and after a heroic fight which she lost, she had fallen asleep. With a small chuckle, he placed the book back on its shelf, glancing out of the window as he did so.

There was a woman on the front steps and what’s more, she was looking up at the nursery window. This was not unusual - many people visited his parents, them being both popular folk and important folk. He did wonder however, that she did not feel cold. She was wearing no coat and the sky was turning a threatening yellow. The blizzard would arrive any day now, if not any hour.

Wanting to save Katie (their housemaid) the job, when he returned downstairs, he pulled open the front door to greet their guest. Of course, there was nobody there nor any indication there had been. He stuck his head past the doorframe and peered right and left. He could see no person in any direction. If he had been looking a little closer, he may have also noticed the lack of fresh footprints. But he didn’t and so that mystery eluded him. He shut the door and went to sit in front of the fire to warm up. A gust had quite caught him and a shiver had went up his spine when he opened the door.

Eliza died two days after new year. The fever took her as the blizzard enveloped the house. It took her in a flurry of sweat and vomit, doctor’s visits and servants weeping at all hours. Nobody saw it coming and everybody saw it coming. It had been assumed that Eliza would go on being sick forever, never well but never dying. God, the pastor said, apparently had other plans. She was gone from them and the house sounded silent without the sound of her coughing, the wheeze of her unsteady breath.

None of the children so much as thought of the woman in white. Black was the colour of their lives now. Black clothes, black moods, black tidings. Teddy moved as if he was in a dream, eyes unfocused, taking several seconds to realise when anybody addressed him. Miranda chewed on the end of her plaits and bit her nails as if it was these materials that had caused the loss of her sister. Leon was old enough to know what had happened but too young to really understand it and took to throwing tantrums so severe there would be a dent left in the wall of the hallway for many years to come.

It was at her funeral when they saw it. At the edge of the cemetery. The woman in white, exactly as she was last. Except this time she had a small, dark haired child in her arms. Except this time Eliza was gazing at them too. The effect was instant and catastrophic. Leon sprinted towards the edge of the cemetery. Miranda began to wail. Teddy finally looked away, his eyes bright with a fear that went beyond anything this world could offer. Of course, she disappeared and Eliza with her before Leon reached her. The pastor, furious and embarassed in front of the assembled mourners, caught his youngest son by the arm and demanded to know what he was playing at.

It was like this the whole story came out. In turn, each of the semi-hysterical children blurted out their encounters, all summarising that clearly a ghost had taken Eliza and worst of all, they could have stopped it had they known. The pastor was mystified by the superstition of children. The mourners behind him murmured amongst themselves. The children were calmed just enough for the service to end. They went home with their ears ringing of death and about how ghosts were most certainly not real. They almost believed their father, knowledgeable and wise as he was; and then night fell. Then their belief didn’t matter at all. Neither did their prayers.

The Crucible children (minus one) were the talk of the town. Their breakdown had been very public and therefore every member of the township that was there and several that were not had an opinion on the matter. Maybe it was the dark nights and cold mornings that encouraged them. Or perhaps it was that the pastor was never quite able to steer them away from the superstitions that ran deep in their bones, as much as the land did. Whatever caused it, the result was the same. At some point, the townspeople decided they believed the children. There was a ghost and the ghost had taken Eliza.

It was Old Ernie that had verbalised what everybody was thinking. He was something of a town historian, though the town didn’t have all that much history to document. He knew the comings and goings of every family, every company and every skeleton this place had. He had stories and he would tell them whether you wanted them to or not. Not all of the stories were nice. Some of the stories weren’t possible. If something happened and nobody knew why, you could bet Ernie would know.

So it was with a certainty that bordered on casual that he said his piece. His sons and their wives were gathered about him on a Friday afternoon, the time they always visited, come rain or shine. They gossiped and drank and filled his house with company he was usually deprived of. This afternoon he took his pipe out of his mouth, nodded twice and said, “It’s the wife that’s done it.” When queried, he elaborated. “Not this one. The first o’course.” After he had finished his pipe and sunk a few more drinks, he told a story, one he had heard from his pop. Sometimes when a woman died, not all of her died. The part of her that loved her children lived on. And well, sometimes a girl could love too strongly. Women being women, they didn’t always take kindly to their babies getting a new mama. They got jealous. They got angry. They watched and they seethed until they didn’t just watch no more. They got their babies back.

When he was done, nobody laughed. But everybody listened.

It was spring when Leon got sick. His lungs were filling with fluid as if he was drowning on dry land. He coughed and coughed and coughed and could never empty himself enough to breathe easily. He was constantly bent over bowls of hot water spiked with mint or placed in warm baths, all to little avail. His step-mama fretted and fretted. She had lost one child already, proving her to be a failure of a mother. If she lost two, she wasn’t sure what that would make her.

It wasn’t just the children who saw the lady in white this time around. Mrs Thompson was just coming back from the tailors when she saw her walking behind the pastor, eyes fixed to his back. A carriage went past and she was gone, quick as a bird. Ivan had gone into the forest to collect some firewood, his family too poor to stretch out their coal all winter. He had thought it was a white deer at first, flitting through the trees. It was only when he saw the bright flash of her hair that he realised. Little Kitty, niece of the factor was skipping with her new skipping rope and paused, wailed stranger danger and could not be consoled when her father sprinted out the house and found nothing at all. The tales added up. Small and undeniable. The details, each tiny fragment nothing on its own, painted a picture. The picture was a portrait and everyone in the town knew exactly who it was of.

One of the important things about this town is that they loved their children. In a small town everyone knew everyone and everyone kept an eye out even if it was not their kin. So the town watched Leon grow sicker and sicker and they worried. To lose one child was horrific, to lose two... well that was something like neglect. There wasn’t a meeting or a vote or anything like that to decide what happened next. It probably started as a whisper. But by the time it came around, nobody was at fault and everyone was to blame.

The pastor looked out of his bedroom window and saw the warm glow of torches walking down to the crossroads. He counted fifteen strong men and a few of their wives, anxious faces illuminated by the flames. When they got to his house, he calmly walked down the stairs and opened his front door, inclining his head courteously. As each man walked in, they took off their caps and held them by their side. The children tried to spy from the top of the stairs and were rapidly shooed back into their bed by the maid.

The townsfolk were quick about it at least. They grabbed the pastor’s second wife and calmly dragged her outside into the neat, cool air. She screamed in a way that made several men wince as if it had pierced not only their ears but their skin. It was not a man but a wife that threw the noose over her head, like she was hooking a wayward calf. It was certainly a man, several in fact, that strung her up on the crossroads pole, leaning back with all their strength until her feet were off the ground and her screams became choking became silence. Annie swore blind later that despite the dark, she saw a woman in white watching them from the woods, but her uncle said that she was just talking foolish and that shut her up right quick. They only left the body there a night before they buried it, all respectful and clean. The pastor stumbled through his words and everyone felt for him. The man was plagued by tragedy. To lose two wives and a child! The Lord did indeed test those He loved most.

Leon got better. By the time the spring came, he was running about, getting underfoot as usual and had forgotten all about the woman in white and indeed, the woman who had stroked his hair as he gasped for breath. Children bounced back quickly from all sorts of things. Even this.

#gothic horror #short story #horror #southern gothic

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icarus-imagines · 5 years

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Zero Kiryu X Reincarnated!Reader

Hello~! May I request a Zero Kiryu x Reader? I want him to be how he is now and let's make it reincarnated lovers AU.

Word Count: 2,810

Category: Vampire Knight

Inspiration/Thought Process: Reincarnation Feels

~When I'm No Longer Young and Beautiful~

"Will you still love me when I'm no longer young and beautiful?"

A small giggle erupted from your lips as you stared at him, cuddling closely, to the one and only man you would ever truly call your husband and Soulmate. His hair was a shining silver, relating to that of silk. His skin a snowy-white. Lastly, your favorite part of him, his eyes. They were always so vibrant and shining the color of pure lavender that always cheered you up one way or another whenever you gazed into them.

"You know I always will...," you replied with full, sincere honesty from the bottom of your heart. "No matter what, I always will."

He hummed in response as he lowered the shoulder of your baby blue-dyed kimono to gaze lovingly at your body. A blush erupted from your cheeks at his sudden confidence but scooted closer, on top of the futon, burying your face into the crook of his neck, a normal tendency of yours.

~*~*~*~

Waking up quickly your dream slowly faded away, but your persistent grasped at it even though it was but a single string. Every night would be the same, dreaming it really. It wasn't unusual for people to dream about their past lives and their Soulmate. Oh well, it wasn't unusual for a vampire, that is.

Yet every time you dreamed/remembered it like a memory right when you awoke you forgot every second of it. Which irked you since you always awoke with a brilliant mood and grin plastered on you (F/t) face. Sighing, you groggily leaped out of bed your short (It will help the story) shoulder length (H/c) hair bobbing with your (B/s) figure.

You curiously turned your head to the right looking at the bedside table to see the necklace you've had since you could remember. It was a beautiful heart-shaped pendant made out of pure gold, with your own initials. Your hands reach out and picked it up carefully, the weight of the pendant weighing down your hand just a bit. It actually helps, since it signified that it was there whenever you wore it. Your thumb rubbing lightly over the outdented loopy font of your initials. Even though you rubbed it over and over every day, due to either nervousness and/or anxiety sometimes, you were surprised it hadn't faded at all. It still seemed to keep its original color no matter how had or how long you rubbed it. Which was a bonus, since you didn't have to worry about it ever looking different than it did when you had first been given it.

Your hands turned it sideways and opened up the small clasp. It split into two sections in which you could place one small picture in each. Unfortunately for as long as you have had it, there had never been any sort of pictures fit inside it. And you planned to keep it that way, for the hope of finding the pictures that you knew for sure were there once.

Letting out a small sigh you shook off the subject clamping it back together to make it whole again. Unlatching the chain you lifted your short hair and latched it back again. The pendant resting against your skin, the coolness of the locket including the weight reminding you it was always going to be there.

Adorning the usual Day Class uniform for the elite school Cross Academy, with your golden heart locket, you hurriedly set off to the first of your many classes. You had always wanted to keep your grades high so getting up a little earlier than most people was a normal everyday activity for you. You may not be the most intellectual of your many peers, but you were smarter than the majority of them.

Making sure not to create much noise, since you were about 30 minutes earlier than issued to get to class, you entered one of the first classrooms of your first period not knowing another soul actually had joined you in the room. Glancing up with your (E/c) eyes you noticed a boy with his head resting on his shoulders lazily. His eyelids half covered his eyes not allowing you to see their color, but from what you were seeing from his hair was that it was a glittering silver.

For a second you had to stop in your tracks to your seat in the front, which he was sat right behind you, to just stare at him. Deja vu hit you like a foggy cloud, yet due to not being able to grasp at it, it is not holdable, you could only watch it slip away right in front of you. You shook your head a bit your locks of shoulder-length (H/c) shaking this way and that on your head.

You blush and hold your bag tightly as you feel him staring intently at you, but you being too shy to look down at your feet deciding to just take a seat in the front row, like usual. Your hair blocking the view of your (E/c) colored eyes from him.

~*~*~*~

The first period of the day, along with all the others, passed without a breeze. With the help of keeping my mood up was a result of having Yuki Kuran and Sayori Wakaba by my side throughout the day. Yuki may not be the most engaging student, at least she made me smile and think about life, and how it's too short etc.

I owed her a lot since she had introduced me to many people and showed me around the humongous grounds of Cross Academy.

"(Y/n)!" a voice yelled in your ear. You grimaced a bit and opening your eyes to see Yuki, her short brown shoulder-length hair staring at you with a confused expression. You tilted your head curiously wondering what she could want. It was always a mystery to somebody like her, which made you intrigued in her in the first place. It was fun not knowing what would happen next.

"Yes, Yuki-Chan?" You asked, packing up your school bag quietly trying to maintain eye contact with her. Even though you tried to stay quiet it wasn't like anybody would be bothered by it since everybody had already left in a hurry, along with Sayori.

She smiled noticing she had grabbed your attention. She clapped her hands together letting out a small squeal of excitement. "I have somebody I wish for you to meet!"

Your head stayed tilted to the side, and your hands subconsciously sprang up to the locket rubbing it slowly. "And who would that be?" You questioned her, not too excited about meeting a new person. Especially Yuki's friend since most were vampires, like herself.

Clearly evident from her long strands of brown hair that had once been shoulder-length until Kaname, a pureblood also being her older brother, had changed her. At least she had the decency of telling you her deepest secret. Even Sayori didn't even know. Which meant a lot to you, that she thought you could be trusted with something of the likes of vampires.

"He's been my friend for quite a while! Since we were children! He should be looking out for Day Class students right now!" She cheered with glee. You showed a small smile, not wanting to upset her. You nodding picking up your bag, standing up from your seat. "I wanted to introduce you two before I leave with Kaname...," her voice soft for once. You looked her in the eye and knew you had to meet this person. For Yuki.

~*~*~*~

"He should be this way!" She yelled, probably making the person she wanted to meet aware of her coming from a mile away. You clung desperately to her hand as she ran through the schoolyard towards the Night Class Dorms, where he was likely to be keeping a lookout.

Your locket thumped against your (S/c) chest, calming you down a bit to at least stare at Yuki's hair flowing behind her.

"Oh, there he is!" Yuki yelled knocking you out of our thoughts. She stopped almost abruptly causing you to fall on the ground butt first, after bumping into her sturdy back. "Gomen!"

"You should be careful Yuki, you can't keep doing that to people so much," a voice like silk thread said. You stared at your shoes embarrassed as your face grew hot.

"Okay...," Yuki pouted.

"You need any help?" The voice asked as its owner reached their hand out in front of your face. Your (E/c) eyes trailed from the tips of his finger, along with the length of his arm, and to his face.

You froze in place as your eyes met, (E/c) with lavender. His breath caught short in his throat as he stared down at you.

The memories, like bombs, all erupted at once as you started to remember

~*~*~*~

"Zero!" Your yell echoed off the walls as you stared at his lifeless body, blood spilling from the countless wounds on his body. The most severe from the left side of his neck. Running towards his body, almost tripping over your kimono, your body gave out from underneath you as you neared him. Your arms cuddled his body close gingerly supporting his head as if he was a newborn infant. "Z-Zero?"

Looking down at his face, even though you knew he was long gone, you couldn't help him. Though you were a pureblood there was nothing that you could do that would make him wake up.

"So you're the one that he so truly desires?" A soft voice of a woman said with a mocking hint laying underneath.

Your head snapped up in horror as the figure came closer. Her skin was a snowy-white, her hair a silvery-white that reached down to her feet. And her eyes an unusual shade of pink glared at you as she stepped closer her kimono dragging on the ground. "Shizuka H-hio!?" You yelled confused.

"That's my name isn't it?" she said with a snappy bark. "I was wondering when you would come after him, I just knew you would...."

"W-Why? Why!" You yelled your voice becoming hoarse with overuse.

"Why, you ask? To get back at you," Her bangs swished as she stared at Zero's dead body, trapped between your arms in a desperate plea to keep him with you as long as you could. "Always stealing my men, because of your beauty I could never be with who I wished. How foolish of me, because you never cared about any of them. Until he came along...," she pointed at Zero. "I had finally found a target, somebody you didn't yet know about then you came into his life and you both fell in love. With each other no less! I was heartbroken to hear that you two had gotten married!" she yelled her voice even higher as she grimaced at the rings on both you and Zero's wedding fingers, glittering a bright gold.

"So just because I fell in love with a man you needed to do this!? I loved him! I still love him! " You cried out tears spilling down your face. "And I'll continue to still love him, forever!"

You held your long (H/c) hair, that went to your knees, in your left hand and brought out a silver dagger from your kimono. Shizuka eyed you warily, watching your every move. "What are you doing?"

You ignored her question as you cleanly cut your hair, it falling to the floor as the rest is only shoulder-length. Your eyes slowly swirl into the color red as you bear your white fangs. "I'm going to love Zero, forever. I don't care if I have to give up being a Pureblood to be with him...I love him too much...," you say softly against Zero's skin on the left side of his neck. You stick your tongue out licking the blood already dripping from the wound given to him by Shizuka.

Biting down as soft as you could into his flesh you drank his blood savoring the sweet taste and smell of him, wanting to bath in it for the rest of your life. Unlatching your mouth from his neck you open his mouth enough to shove in your wrist that you had already bitten. Your blood sliding down his throat easily.

Shizuka stared at you in pure terror realizing what you were about to do. But she never thought somebody could actually activate it. She tried running towards you to pull you away from Zero but was held back by your powers. Keeping her restrained, but still incited the spell you kept working. Your mouth moved forming words silently until it stopped and your body gave out, laying atop Zero.

Shizuka screamed realizing what you had done. Now she could never have Zero. And he only belonged to you...

~*~*~*~

You gasped getting sucked out of the first memory, pushed out like you had drowned in waves of ocean water. Your eyes flickered up seeing Zero with the same expression on his face. He smiled at you, knowing you both were Soulmates. But the moment was soon broken by Yuki.

"Oh, my gosh, Zero! You're actually smiling! I can't believe your Soulmates, but you're not a vamp-" she's cut off when she stares at your features. Your skin had become paler than usual (If possible) and your eyes were a bloody red, fangs poking your bottom lip. Your hair had grown longer, to your knees like in your memory. "I have to tell Kaname! He'll be so happy about this!" She ran off to find him without another thought.

You turned to Zero a smile reaching your face. You had gained some of your memories and you knew spending more time with him would act more and you would learn more about what the spell meant and what he had meant to you in your "past" life. But for now, all you wished to do was learn more about him.

"So, your name's Zero?" You asked softly holding your hand out for his to take. "Mine's (Y/n)...It's nice to meet you, Soulmate."

He reached his hand out, taking your much smaller one in his. "Likewise."

~*~*~*~

~Extra Ending~

You held the locket in your hands looking at the contents of that held two pictures. One of both you and Zero at your wedding. And the other your newborn daughter.

Looking at both you couldn't help, but feel a rushing wave of happiness and relief. You had already gotten all of your missing memories completing the puzzle into one. Clamping it shut you held it close to your chest. You sat in the chair in front of the fireplace but was snapped out of your trance to the padding of footsteps.

You watched as you daughter only 5 years old ran into the room with a towel covering her naked body. Bubbles clung to the top of her cute little head as she headed towards you, getting you wet as she jumped onto your lap. She giggled as she hugged your waist tightly.

"What are you doing?" You asked your eyes widening.

"Daddy was trying to make me take a bath!" she giggled out.

And true to her words Zero came running in his clothes all wet, his hair dripping with water. You blushed at his appearance.

"I thought I was the only one that could make you wet?~" You teased forgetting about your daughter. But she just giggled thinking of something innocent. You hugged her tighter resting your dry head on her damp hair, as you stared at her (E/c) eyes lovingly. Zero came up to you two kneeling on his knees his front resting on your lap. He smiled up at you through his strands of silver hair.

"(Y/n)?" he asked. You hummed telling him you were listening. "Will you still love me when I'm no longer young and beautiful?"

A laugh slipped past your lips as you gazed at both Zero and (Y/d/n). "You know I always will...And I always will...,"

And you meant every word of it. Being vampires had its perks. And since both of you were, along with your dear child, you would all be able to stay together...forever.

And thanks to Kaname, Shizuka was no longer alive.

You would have to thank him for that at least.

#x reader #oneshot #imagine #drabble #zero kiryu #zero kiryu x reader #zero kiryu x reincarnated!reader #vampire knight #request #anime

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newstfionline · 6 years

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The town that gave the world Spam is proud to be ‘autism-friendly’

By Amy Ellis Nutt, Washington Post, September 23, 2018

AUSTIN, Minn.--The tall teenager with the buzz cut opened the museum door, extended a large hand and said cheerily, “Welcome to the Spam Museum.”

Samuel Ehret is an official “Spambassador” at the museum, a hot spot for tourists who have a taste for the much-mocked canned meat that has been made here by Hormel Foods for 81 years.

Samuel is also autistic, and he got this job because he loves all things Spam--its taste, its history, and especially the museum’s showpiece: a motorcycle that runs on bacon grease.

He also landed the job because Austin is an autism-friendly town. Ten years ago, it became one of the first in the country to launch a community-wide effort both to reduce the disorder’s stigma and make local businesses aware of the special needs of autistic customers. It is also probably the only small town in America to employ a community autism resource specialist.

The mission was “a grass-roots effort to improve our community,” said Mary Barinka, an employee of the nonprofit Hormel Historic Home, where she serves as an autism resource liaison for Austin. She is also a former Hormel marketing executive, and the mother of a 16-year-old daughter with autism.

For someone like 18-year-old Samuel, the town’s attention to the condition has been invaluable.

“When he was an infant, he would just lie there, no crying,” said Sarah Ehret, Samuel’s mother. Her son failed to reach expected milestones on time and she was at a loss as to why. When someone anonymously placed a magazine in her mailbox, it suddenly made sense. One of the articles was “Top 10 signs your child has autism.”

“This is my son,” she said to herself.

Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder that is characterized by delayed language, repetitive behaviors, sensory sensitivities and difficulty with social skills. Although the symptoms of autism can overlap with other developmental disorders, such as learning disabilities and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, it has distinctive characteristics, including narrow, intense interests and routines and occasional emotional meltdowns when those routines are disrupted.

More than 3.5 million Americans have been diagnosed with this disorder, according to the Autism Society. In April, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revised the estimate of those with the disorder to 1 in 59 children, four years after it was set at 1 in 68. Most experts attribute the increase to more-precise diagnostics and enhanced awareness of the disorder, particularly in black and Hispanic children.

Austin, with a population of 26,000, is the kind of place that still has a video store, where the one coffee shop in town is called “The Coffee Shop,” and a yellow traffic sign near a nursing home carries the warning “Dear Crossing.”

Fifteen businesses in this Midwestern hamlet carry the official designation “autism-friendly.” Among them: the Paramount Theater, Mid-Town Auto, two dentists, two ophthalmologists, two hair salons and three summer day camps.

To qualify as autism-friendly, a business must make an effort to minimize sensory overstimulation--lowering lights, turning down or eliminating loud music, and shielding the individual from others’ cross talk.

Business owners must fill out an application and then, along with their employees, go through educational sessions. They learn about the difficulties people with autism experience, including their triggers--a sound or a smell or an unfamiliar situation that may cause a meltdown. They also learn how to interact by speaking slowly, in a clear voice and in short phrases. Most important, they are shown the value of learning to be patient and flexible.

Jackson Schara has been to dentist Catherine Guy a number of times, and his first visit was so surprisingly comfortable that he made a YouTube video explaining why other people with the condition shouldn’t be afraid to go to an autism-friendly dentist.

Standing next to Jackson on a recent visit to her office, Guy described what she did for him that first time:

“It’s a sensory thing, so I told him about the armrests, the bib around the neck, that the chair will move. Then I offered him a bear or a weighted blanket on his chest for comfort.

“I also show them the special toothpaste, let them smell it, and do two or three teeth at a time. I let them experience the suction device, and even do a practice run.”

Sunglasses protect the patients from the harsh lights used to peer inside a mouth. A mirror is also available if they want to watch the dentist at work.

The value of these autism-friendly efforts is incalculable, families say, because it not only makes the lives of those living with autism easier, it also allows them to have experiences that those without autism have routinely. Best of all, they are lessons in communication, one of the chief skills that many children with autism must work especially hard to develop.

Jackson’s mother, Heidi Schara, remembers well a breakthrough moment she witnessed when her son came home from school one day.

“He said, ‘I think I talked too much about something or other.’ Then he said, ‘How was your day?’?”

That Heidi’s son was able to turn his attention from himself to his mother made it her “best day ever.”

She credits these eureka moments, in part, to Austin’s unusually open environment.

“Having this autism-friendly movement--it’s incredible to have people who want to understand,” she said.

For Jackson, who has a love of Japanese monster movies and is eager to talk about all things Godzilla, the experience at Guy’s office as well as at a hair salon in town have been revelatory.

“I am surprised at what I’ve done. Legitimately surprised,” he said.

Jackson was so comfortable getting his hair cut at the Style Lounge that he made a video of it.

Austin’s autism-friendly program began a decade ago, when a retired Hormel executive, Gary Ray, telephoned Barinka, a family friend, and asked whether her autistic daughter, then 6, was able to participate in any town activities, such as summer camp.

“No, not really,” Barinka remembers answering. “We’d like to take her to camp, but you have to explain her frequent needs and hire someone as a helper.”

Austin is small enough that Ray and his wife, Pat, were familiar with Barinka’s struggle to find appropriate recreation for her daughter.

“What if [Pat and I] gave you a small contribution of $5,000?” Ray said. “Could you start a camp?”

It didn’t take long for Barinka to say yes. She is a woman with a keen ability to advocate and organize and a seemingly bottomless reservoir of energy. Her job as autism resource specialist is part time, just 10 hours a week, but Barinka regularly puts in 40, often fielding questions and requests from other parents: “A new business wants to become autism-friendly, can you give a presentation to employees?” “How do I find the best speech therapists in town?” “The local community college wants to start a special autism program. Can you help out?”

To date, the Rays have contributed more than $100,000 to fund autism-friendly programs in Austin. One of the more successful is the monthly respite night, when children with autism are dropped off at the Hormel Historic Home--a site for weddings and tours as well as community events--and parents or caregivers are given a few hours of free time.

The children might do an art project, or go out to a restaurant, bowling lanes or the YMCA to swim. The lifeguards are taught to get their attention by calling their name instead of blowing a whistle. The Y sponsors swim teams for children with autism, and they occasionally compete against other teams with disabilities, including at the Special Olympics.

Autism-friendliness has also reached into the schools, where a peer program pairs high schoolers with autism with similarly aged student volunteers. The program is so popular that there is a waiting list of student volunteers.

Word of Austin’s unusual autism-friendly services has resulted in at least a half-dozen families moving to the town.

Carolyn Dube grew up in Austin, but she spent much of her life elsewhere, primarily in Phoenix, where the resources for her son, Alex, diagnosed with autism at 2½, were lacking.

“There were a lot of behavioral issues with him,” Dube said about life with her son in Arizona. “He threw things, was increasingly violent and too hard to predict.”

A new job brought her to a suburb of Minneapolis, about 90 minutes from Austin, and Dube began to pick up stories about her hometown’s transformation.

“We’d hear amazing things,” she said. “And that’s when we started realizing how special some of Austin’s autism programs were.”

Dube’s family moved back to Austin when Alex was 4. He’s in high school now and takes mostly mainstream classes. He is especially talented in math and science, and because autism is a spectrum disorder of varying degrees of disability, Dube fully expects him to go to college and study engineering.

“Now Alex is almost a new person,” she said.

Other parents say they’re seeing progress they never thought possible before Austin became autism-friendly. Barinka’s 16-year-old daughter used to bite the chain-link fence at her older sister’s softball games and throw tantrums. Today, she is on her high school dance team and plays the trumpet in the band.

Barinka has received calls from Salt Lake City and Flagstaff, Ariz. inquiring about how to set up their own autism-friendly programs, furthering a trend of entrepreneurship and innovation by individuals in the autism community. In 2015, for example, Pennsylvanian Topher Wurts, a marketing and technology executive who has a son with autism, founded a virtual Autism Village. It’s an app that works a bit like Yelp, locating nearby autism-friendly places and businesses and letting users rate and review their experiences.

How Barinka helped create her own bricks-and-mortar version of an Autism Village included not only the Rays, but also the Hormel Foundation, the Hormel Historic Home and numerous members of the community, both paid and volunteer, who make the programs run.

Because of such contributions, Austin is able to offer services at vastly lower costs than those in places where camps can run as high as $800 or $900 a week, according to Barinka. Austin’s autism day camps cost just $150, and many of the more than 50 campers receive scholarships, bringing the price down to $25.

#Austin MN #Spam Museum #autism-friendly town #autism

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flowermandalas · 7 years

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How to Handle Change with Ease

Emotional adaptability is the ability to respond to changing circumstances and events without being unduly shaken by these changes. It’s a Balancer characteristic and a key component of resilience. Those of us who are emotionally adaptable can bend with the wind, like saplings. Those of us who are less adaptable are likely to strain and crack as we struggle to maintain equilibrium.

Emotional adaptability varies from person to person and can also be impacted by life events. Most of us are less emotionally adaptable when we are under constant or unusual stress. Those of us raised in a rigid environment, with fixed ideas of how we or the world works, may also be less adaptable. Being attached to expectations of ourselves, others, or how things ought to be also limits emotional adaptability.

The good news is that there are many ways to become more adept at responding to change.

Some of the best strategies for enhancing emotional adaptability include practices that promote an accepting attitude, increase compassion and self-compassion, and enable forgiveness and self-forgiveness. Creative activities and an experimental attitude are also helpful in increasing our adaptability to change.

Radical Acceptance

Although chronic stress, adversity, and other actions of the UnBalancer can sometimes make us more emotionally rigid, for many of us the most persistent obstacle to emotional adaptability is difficulty with accepting things as they are.

When we don’t accept how things really are, we live in a false reality that we must constantly defend against the evidence. We may become preoccupied with a hypothetical future, worried that things won’t turn out the way we hope, or stuck in the past, consumed by resentments over things not turning out as we wanted them to.

When we’re struggling to defend this alternate reality, we have fewer resources to deal with what’s actually at hand. We’re too busy rebuilding our imagined reality to go with the flow, respond with compassion, or see the humor in our own situation.

In the absence of acceptance, there can be little or no forward movement. We grow older, and the external circumstances of our lives still change, but we can’t embrace them. As the Talking Heads put it, inside our heads it’s “the same as it ever was, same as it ever was, same as it ever was.”

Buddhist teacher Tara Brach recommends what she calls Radical Acceptance as a way to open ourselves to present reality. Radical acceptance means fully accepting our situations, feelings, limitations, and strengths. Radical acceptance is a prerequisite to meaningful change. As pioneering psychologist Carl Rogers observed, “The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.” Tara Brach adds, “When we can meet our experience with Radical Acceptance, we discover the wholeness, wisdom and love that are our deepest nature.”

When we accept things as they are, we don’t have to struggle against their reality. We can radically accept our bodies, our pasts, our peers, our partners, our children, and the strengths and limitations of our own personalities, and then we can choose to try to change what can be changed, and to embrace what cannot.

Radical acceptance is a balm for difficult emotions such as envy, resentment, and frustration. We accept our present circumstances and what has led up to them, and we understand that railing against them won’t change anything. Radical acceptance is also an antidote to the lingering pain of misfortune. When we radically accept our losses, we are more open to the possible gains that may come from them. Then we can move on, recovered.

Radical acceptance can be as complex as accepting a traumatic loss or catastrophic event, or as simple as accepting the weather.

An example: I’ve lived in the U.S. Northeast most of my life. Here, the winters can be harsh. I have never liked cold weather or snow, and I’ve never been drawn to winter sports. Each year, as the days shorten and the nights grow longer, I have felt a sense of dread as winter approaches and a great sense of relief when I finally put away the snow shovel and hang up my winter coat. But this past winter just was. Autumn flowed into winter as it always does, and this time I was fine with it.

The weather acceptance switch flipped the previous summer during a meeting of the Buddhist study group I belong to. On an extraordinarily hot and humid evening, as we began our walking meditation, I was struggling with the discomfort of my shirt sticking to my back and the sweat beading on my forehead. Then our teacher said, “This is heat.” As we walked in silence, I pondered his observation, feeling into the reality of the present moment, and something shifted. The rest of that evening, and for all the other hot days that summer, heat was simply heat, not something to be dreaded or avoided. When the cold set in this winter, I thought, “This is cold.” When the snow fell, “This is snow.” When it melted, “This is Spring.” And as the summer heat approaches again, I remember, “This is heat.”

When we radically accept something, we don’t judge it. We don’t get angry, we don’t try to fight it, and we don’t resent it. We simply recognize that this is how it is, freeing up all the energy we might otherwise have expended on judging, fighting, anger, or resentment. Then we can take in, with renewed openness, whatever comes our way.

For more on Radical Acceptance, see Tara Brach’s book Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha.

Compassion and Self-Compassion

Like Radical Acceptance, developing a compassionate attitude toward ourselves and others promotes emotional adaptability and increases responsiveness to our present reality.

Self-compassion is a term coined by psychologist Kristin Neff to describe extending to yourself the compassion you would feel for a good friend or someone you love.

Dr. Neff’s description of compassion and self-compassion is as eloquent and complete as any I have seen. “Having compassion for oneself is really no different than having compassion for others,” she writes. “Think about what the experience of compassion feels like. First, to have compassion for others you must notice that they are suffering. If you ignore that homeless person on the street, you can’t feel compassion for how difficult his or her experience is. Second, compassion involves feeling moved by others’ suffering so that your heart responds to their pain (the word compassion literally means to ‘suffer with’). When this occurs, you feel warmth, caring, and the desire to help the suffering person in some way. Having compassion also means that you offer understanding and kindness to others when they fail or make mistakes, rather than judging them harshly. Finally, when you feel compassion for another (rather than mere pity), it means that you realize that suffering, failure, and imperfection is part of the shared human experience. ‘There but for fortune go I.’

“Self-compassion,” she continues, “involves acting the same way towards yourself when you are having a difficult time, fail, or notice something you don’t like about yourself. Instead of just ignoring your pain with a ‘stiff upper lip’ mentality, you stop to tell yourself ‘this is really difficult right now, how can I comfort and care for myself in this moment?’”

Self-compassion is one of the most powerful tools for reducing critical self-talk. When we are compassionate toward ourselves, we don’t give ourselves a hard time and we don’t push our vulnerable feelings aside and “suck it up.” Instead, we treat our difficult emotions as if they were a baby crying inside us and do whatever we need in order to attend to it.

Practicing self-compassion helps us become more responsive not only to our own needs, but also to the needs of others. Released from the tyranny of our inner critics, we become more able to blossom into our full selves and, ironically, less self-centered and more compassionate toward others. We have more of ourselves to give away.

Extending compassion to others also enhances our emotional adaptability. Giving to others lets us become our best selves, even when we feel depleted. This principle underlies healing practices in many indigenous cultures, where the shaman chooses a sickly boy to become his apprentice. The boy becomes strong through healing his people, but he must continue to heal others in order to stay healthy himself.

In my work as a psychotherapist, I have found this healing/healer link also to be true. Regardless of what is going on in my life, when I get to my office and put on my imaginary “therapist jacket,” I become my best self, doing what I can to attend to the needs of my clients. Because I have been that best self all day, by evening the troubles of the morning have become smaller and more manageable. And the next day, I often awaken a little more emotionally adaptable, not only to my clients, but also to myself.

For more on self-compassion, including a quick test of your level of self-compassion, see Kristin Neff’s site self-compassion.org.

Forgiveness and Self-Forgiveness

Like acceptance and compassion, the ability to forgive ourselves and others can free us from what Romantic poet William Blake called “mind-forged manacles” – in this case, feelings such as anger, hatred, resentment, guilt, shame, and victimization. Liberation from these feelings through forgiveness can help us be more available in the present moment and more adaptable to its ever-changing conditions.

Forgiveness, however is sometimes difficult to achieve.

Some obstacles to forgiving are easy to understand. Forgiveness is hardest when there is ongoing harm. Before we can offer forgiveness, we must be safe; before we can ask to be forgiven, we must stop doing harm. Forgiveness is also challenging when injuries haven’t healed. Unhealed wounds can lock us into a pattern of attracting others who hurt us again, or they can imprison us in a self-protective shell that keeps out not only potential harm, but also healing.

But for many of us, the chief impediment to forgiveness is unwillingness. Our culture glorifies an “eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” tradition that spans millennia. Forgiveness – forgiving others, seeking forgiveness, even forgiving ourselves – is seen as weakness. If we have been hurt, we may feel, we should punish those who harmed us, and if we cannot, we should at least punish them in our hearts. If we have harmed others, we may feel that we should punish ourselves, hoping that self-punishment will prevent us from harming again.

Releasing ourselves from these vengeful emotions through forgiveness may seem unfamiliar and unsafe. But actually, refusing to forgive ourselves doesn’t guarantee we will not harm again, nor does refusing to forgive others punish those who have harmed us. Withholding forgiveness merely uses up energy that could be put to more life-affirming purposes.

Forgiving my father for our lifelong estrangement began with a dream I had several years after his death and concluded when I realized, finally, that I was no longer afflicted by what had been damaging in our relationship. I could then regard him with compassion, understand how his difficulties and limitations had shaped him, and forgive him for his part in our conflicts – and myself, for mine.

The most helpful tool I’ve encountered for fostering forgiveness is a Buddhist meditation popularized by psychologist and teacher Jack Kornfield. Within the safety of the meditation, it instructs us first to feel the pain of keeping our hearts closed and then offers gentle steps for opening them just enough to ask for forgiveness from those we have harmed, to forgive ourselves, and to forgive those who have harmed us. Cautioning that forgiveness may come slowly and cannot be forced, the meditation encourages a gradual letting go of the burdens of unforgiven acts, with each iteration lightening our load just a little, like a sigh of relief.

For more on forgiveness and self-forgiveness, see the “Forgiveness” chapter in my book Paths to Wholeness: Fifty-Two Flower Mandalas and Jack Kornfield’s Forgiveness Mediation.

Creative Approach

Creative activities – and the creative approach to life that often accompanies them – can also help us become more emotionally adaptable.

Creative activities are rewarding as outlets for self-expression. They feel good, they are centering, and they give us a sense of accomplishment. And they’re often fun! But besides these more obvious benefits, creative activities can also change the way we approach our lives.

When we work creatively, we dive deep. We pause, look at what we are making, check inside and ask “Is this working?” and then bring up something of value that we might otherwise never have discovered. As we pause/look/check/incorporate, we create something new and authentic.

Because our brains get better at doing whatever they do, the more we practice diving deep, the better we get at it. Regularly doing creative activities often leads to a more general diving deep, allowing us to become more proficient at sensing and incorporating the less obvious aspects of ourselves and the world around us. This increased facility for sensing and responding to the whole of our present circumstances makes us more aware of ourselves and our surroundings, and more adept at adapting to change.

When we make the effort to check in with our deeper natures, we also tend to forge ahead more surely. If we look only at our superficial thoughts and feelings, and we try to make a change, it’s as if we are trying to move an iceberg by pushing on the tip. We may manage to lean it over, but it will eventually spring back. Diving deep allows us to travel below the water’s surface in our mental/emotional submarine, where we can take in the whole iceberg, home in on its center of gravity, and exert our efforts exactly there. The movement that results may be smaller, but what moves stays moved.

I see this dive-deep/move-forward-surely process often in therapy. Clients who tend to make the most profound changes may begin a session by simply describing a situation. But then they pause, check in with some murkier, less clear part of themselves, and bring to the surface what they find. For instance, they may begin by describing a situation that made them angry. “When he did that,” they might say, “I was so mad that…” And then they pause. “Well, it wasn’t just that I was mad. I got mad, but really, I was hurt.” Then we can deal not only with the surface feeling of anger, but also with the deeper feeling of hurt that triggered it.

Engaging in a creative hobby can not only train the brain, but can lead to changes in what we do with our lives. A friend in the construction business for most of his career began to create small oil paintings a couple of years ago. He found the practice centering, calming, and self-reflective, so much so that now he is taking the necessary steps to become a professional artist – a reinvention.

If you’re already doing something creative, keep doing it! If not, experiment with different art forms. Begin with the forms of creativity you enjoy taking in. If you like to read, consider writing. If you like to listen to music, consider learning to play an instrument and/or composing. If you like to look at art, consider painting, photography, sculpture, pottery. If you like movies, consider acting – or making movies yourself. If you enjoy walking in gardens, consider starting one.

One of the best books on living more creatively is Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity. For specific training in diving deep, both in life and in creative activities, see Eugene Gendlin’s work with Focusing at focusing.org and his concise handbook on the technique of Focusing, Focusing.

Experimental Attitude

As discussed in more depth in another post, maintaining an experimental attitude toward life keeps us more open to experiences and to other people and helps us be more resilient in the face of difficulties.

Acceptance frees us from unrealistic hope and unwarranted anxiety, self-compassion from self-criticism, and forgiveness from the weight of unforgiving.

Relieved of these burdens, we are more able to adopt an experimental attitude. We can face our lives with open minds, seeing them as ongoing experiments. When things shift in unanticipated ways, we can say, “That was my path, but this is my path now,” adapting to the present moment as it arrives. Instead of conforming to the limits of past patterns, we can try things out, see what happens, and adjust our view of reality – and our next steps – accordingly.

An experimental attitude gives our ReBalancers the power to craft new strategies on the fly whenever new challenges occur. These new strategies, once created, cannot be uncreated. They are always there, ready whenever we need them, helping us to feel confident that we can handle whatever unknowns life (and UnBalancer) hands us with curiosity, resourcefulness, and equanimity.

For more on the experimental attitude, see the blog posts The Experiment and How to Design an Experiment.

What to do:

Radically accept. The most essential step to adapting to change is to accept the change itself and your own responses to it. Accept who you are and your present circumstances and free up the energy that might otherwise be exhausted through struggling against reality. See Tara Brach’s book Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha to more fully explore Radical Acceptance as a way of life.

Be compassionate and self-compassionate. Treat yourself with the compassion you would have for a dear friend and you will quiet your inner critic and also find yourself more able to respond authentically to change and to the needs of others. See Kristin Neff’s website self-compassion.org for more on self-compassion, and take her quick test to check out your own self-compassion level.

Forgive and self-forgive. To break free of the burden of what Romantic poet William Blake called “mind-forged manacles” such as anger, hatred, resentment, guilt, shame, and victimization, practice slowly forgiving yourself and others with Jack Kornfield’s Forgiveness Mediation. For more on forgiveness and self-forgiveness, see the “Forgiveness” chapter in my book Paths to Wholeness: Fifty-Two Flower Mandalas.

Create and dive deep. To train your brain to respond more fully to yourself and your surroundings, do something creative on a regular basis, then practice applying the dive-deep/move-forward-surely process of creative work to your daily life. See Julia Cameron’s book The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity for more on living creatively and Eugene Gendlin’s book Focusing for a way to integrate subconscious needs, wants, and desires into your conscious self.

Experiment. Maintain an experimental attitude toward life to stay open to experiences and to other people, and to grow ever more resilient in the face of difficulties. Experience your life as an ongoing experiment, rather than as a fixed path. For more on experiments and the experimental attitude, see the blog posts The Experiment and How to Design an Experiment.

COMING NEXT:

Related Posts: The Under Toad and the UnBalancer The Balancer/ReBalancer Tag Team A Mini-Lesson on Mini Self-Care Gyroscopes and Personal Flywheels Hanging in the Balance Balancing the Books The Experiment How to Design an Experiment Build Your Resilience in 6 Steps How to Rebalance Your Brain in 3 Easy Steps How to Boost Connections and Support How to Handle Change with Ease

Books: From Paths to Wholeness: Fifty-Two Flower Mandalas COURAGE: “The difference between those who successfully reach the end of their Hero’s Journeys and those who do not isn’t better opportunities, more strength, or superior allies, but the courage to get up and try again, even when the odds seem insurmountable and discouragement feels overwhelming.”

Print: Amazon – BookBaby – B&N – Books-a-Million eBook: Kindle – Nook – iTunes – Kobo

NOTE: Paths to Wholeness is now available at the following Boston-area bookstores and libraries:

Cabot Street Books & Cards, 272 Cabot Street, Beverly, MA 01915 The Bookshop, 40 West Street, Beverly Farms, MA 01915 Boston Public Library (main branch) Brookline Public Library (main branch) NOBLE Public Libraries (Beverly Farms and Salem) MVLC Public Libraries (Hamilton-Wenham)

Please let me know if you find it in other locations!

Also available: 52 (more) Flower Mandalas: An Adult Coloring Book for Inspiration and Stress Relief 52 Flower Mandalas: An Adult Coloring Book for Inspiration and Stress Relief Paths to Wholeness: Selections (free eBook)

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