It is the season of color and light, and one of my jobs is to find it and bring it to you. Light heals and color inspires. I did my sacred work this week, I encouraged two people to live the lives they were destined to live. Today, at Battenkill Books, a long time reader of the blog called me up from the Midwest to talk about books. She told me some compelling stories about her life and travels – she spent four months wandering the roads of Alaska last year – and I asked her what she did with her writing, and she said she stored it away, nobody ever saw it. Do you have a blog?, I asked her. She said not, it was too technical for her.

I said no, it was not, and besides, she admitted her husband would do it. I knew that was not the problem, she thought nobody would want to read it. I said it was a shame to keep her writing hidden, I urged her to consider sharing her travels, opening up her life the way a blog can often do. There are no guarantees anybody will ever read your writing, I said, but so what? Put it out there, engage with the world, affirm your own sense of life and your own thoughts and observations.

She said she just might. I hope she will. I told her she can have a blog up and running tomorrow, and if she does I will link to it. Encouragement is one of the most powerful fuels in the world. And one of the rarest.