Ask not for whom the Bell Jar tolls....

I'm having a Sylvia Plath kind of week. Life, seemingly in order, was moving along swimmingly, as planned. And yet, yesterday I was overcome with a profound sadness, a cavernous hole in my heart. Spiraling downward faster than Sarah Palin shot to the top (of what, I'm not sure), my stinkin' thinkin' took my rational neurons hostage. "STOP" said I. I shall not pay thy toll. I gave myself a couple of hours to grieve the earthly state of affairs that tormented me.

Being a sensitive and empathetic gal, I care very deeply about - pretty much everything. And sometimes I'll hear or see something, or get an email that sinks my battleship. Having nurtured a new strength, faith, and resilience, I worked through it. No booze, no chocolate cake, no Best of Bread. Prayer, warm sunshine on my face, and taking action put the wheels back on the bus.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels the weight of the world's troubles. As human beings we are intrinsically connected - compelled by pain, injustice and ignorance to sing out "fools said I you do not know, silence like a cancer grows; hear my words that I may teach you, take my arms that I may reach you" (Paul Simon)

And in the immortal words of poet John Donne, "No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were. Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee..." .