With 2008 drawing to a close, I am feeling grateful for many things.  One of the greatest blessings of the year for me has been  www.TheEarthConnection.org.  I am especially grateful to my husband Andy Schmookler for conceiving the idea of this site in the first place.  And I am thankful for his encouragement throughout the process of creation;  there were many moments when I wondered if I, a bumbling technophobe, had what it takes to manage a website!    

     www.TheEarthConnection.org means a great deal to me.  Knowing that there are people who are interested in my postings has been heartening.  As you well know, the earth is my passion.  The joy I derive from the natural world is deep, and so is the pain I feel whenever I see, or learn more about, the destruction we humans are wreaking on it.

     This web site is a rich and wonderful opportunity for me to share with others my delight, my hope, my learning, and my natural bent toward activism.  The site has been a means for me to live more from the part of me that is deeply connected with nature, the part that loves that connection. 

     I thank you for reading my postings.  And an extra thanks to those who have taken the trouble to comment from time to time. 

     This website has yielded an unexpected benefit.  I am finding an artist stirring in me.  I see that I am noticing more when I am outside, or even when I look out the window.  Ideas pop into my head for words to describe my experience, words that feel true and pleasing to me.  The knowledge that people will be reading my postings is a fine muse!

     Now for my request.  I am eager to get this website out into the world more widely.  My  request for a ‘Christmas present’ is that you, if you feel happy to do so, share www.TheEarthConnection.org with two people in your life who, you think, might find the site of value to them.  I thank you in advance!

    Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah to you!  And I hope you also enjoyed the solstice.  I like the pagan celebration of darkness, which is just as important, after all, as the light.–April Moore