Greetings to all in our hive, far and wide, young and older. Jazianzza and I wish you a 2025 filled with much joy, good health, abundance, and deep peace. We also want to wish you a new year filled with wonder. Why wonder, you might ask.
The other day, I was sitting in the backyard, marveling how a few brave bees were out working on that chilly day. I thought, “What a wonder to see those little bee-ings out flying from flower to flower while I sat bundled up, cap on head to retain more warmth!” It made me think about how the word “wonder” started with “won.” I realized that as we allow the sense of wonder into our lives, we’ve already won something. We’ve won the gift of being in the present rather than dwelling on the past or worrying about the future. We’ve won the subtle yet important gift of creating endorphins and other feel-good chemicals in the brain. And if we take that tiniest of moments, we can allow ourselves to see what other “everyday wonders” are awaiting our discovery…and that feel-good loop can continue.
Why are Jazi and I talking about this now? We know that the coming year might be one of potential stress for many around the world. If we lose our sense of wonder, we are giving up a strength that no one can take away. As we talked about in the last newsletter, we were all born to be in these times, to shine our lights, to help our children and grandchildren be true to who they really are, and to keep our lights shining brightly. It helps us stay strong in our goodness and kindness, something humanity desperately needs now, perhaps more than ever.
Bee-Coming Strong is Jazi’s memoir of her journey from being scared and bullied to being the heroine. This only happened because she used the breathing practices MamaQueenzieBee taught her to be strong in the present moment, which enabled her to be seated in her kindness. If we can all do this for ourselves and one another and encourage this in our young ones, we can create a kinder, more peaceful, more joyful world, breath by breath. We can live experiencing more moments of wonder.
Bees are a wonder, right? So are the stars, the trees, random acts of kindness, seemingly serendipitous events, and each breath. By the time you read this, I will have had a “reverse shoulder replacement” to fix a long tear in the rotator cuff created when I was rear-ended in 2023. A “reverse” shoulder replacement! That’s crazy! They switch up the placement of the ball and socket in the shoulder to enable the deltoid muscles to compensate for the loss of the rotator cuff – basically, so that I can have better shoulder movement. What a wonder that is — that some ingenious person even thought up this creative solution! There are wonders all around us if we choose to notice them, to let them move into our consciousness.
Yoga talks about enlightened souls being able to see Spirit, or Light, all around them, infusing and suffusing everything they see, from other people to animals to even sidewalks and the earth itself. What a marvelous wonder awaits us! I believe it begins by consciously noticing the tiny wonders all around us and allowing that sense of marvel to blossom, despite all the challenges in our lives and the world at large.
Want some fun, free children’s books for your young ones this January? Here’s a link to take you to 17 free books, ranging from a lost cat to the antics of a German Shepherd to a beautiful mindful coloring book and journal, and more. (By the way, I’ve been writing a gratitude journal for years now and it has been life-enhancing. What a beautiful thing to do with a child!) Here you go….
https://books.bookfunnel.com/letsgoonanadventure/cgw4nqw3mf
Enjoy!
So Jazianzza Azzaza Buzzabee and I wish you a new year filled with wonder. We wish you delight in the small things (like watching one of Jazi’s sisters at work in the flowers). May we all shine our lights as brightly as possible, despite anything and everything. Shine on! Desiderius Erasmus, the Dutch humanist scholar who lived in the 15th Century said, “Give light, and the darkness will disappear of itself.” I love that. It’s so true!
“Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.”
Socrates