Category Archives: Healing Arts

Sisters of the Heart

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“True friendship takes us by the hand and reminds us we are not alone in the journey.” ~ Unknown

sue mary and jan and neighbor kids enlargedI love this photo of my twin sister and me with our neighborhood buddies! It was sent to me as a surprise, compliments of http://www.unbridledimages.com. It was dug up out of the archives! I am truly grateful to have it!

I am the twin on the right.  The photo was taken during my “difficult days.” Before life really began to get better for me thanks to the cardiologists at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Due to God’s amazing providence, Mary Grace and I (my childhood friend who I mention in my memoir in Chapter 7  titled Taking it One Day at a Time  and who I blogged about yesterday) are alive today. She is the little girl pictured next to my sister  in a blue dress.

You see Mary Grace and I are sisters of the heart in more ways than one. She too had childhood illness that has affected her ticker. Leaps and bounds have been made since we were children, in medical research, that has helped heart patients have a wonderful quality of life.

Mary has gone on to do some amazing things. Like myself she has maintained a completely normal existence throughout her lifetime, never letting anything stop her. She, too, is deeply aware of the gift of life.

See you tomorrow on All Things Fulfilling. Not sure where I will travel in my writing. I have come to learn the words will come if I am silent and listen to my heart.Sue’s memoir

 

Horse Sense

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“Be true to your work, your word and your friends.” ~ Henry David Thoreau

The phone rang last Tuesday night. It was Mary Grace calling – my childhood friend who is featured in one of the chapters of my memoir “Gift of a Lifetime: Finding Fulfilling Things in the Unexpected.” I hadn’t spoken with her since my book was published and sometimes decades pass by between our telephone conversations. Yet every time we talk it’s like a only a day has gone by since I’ve seen her.

“Sue, I want to buy some copies of your book.  Oh – and I need one for myself.”

I was delighted and of course, we had to take a trip down memory lane while we were speaking.

“Do you remember the time we cleaned your fathers garage out?” She asked.

“No, I don’t.” I replied.

“You don’t remember that?” Mary Grace asked in astonishment.

“No, why did we do that?” I inquired.  After all, kids typically have better ways to expend their energy.

“Because a radio station was giving away a pony, and I was going to win it!” Mary Grace said.

“What?”

“That’s right,” said Mary Grace. “My parents said they wouldn’t have it.”(the pony Mary knew she was going to win).

It didn’t surprise me that her parents said that. They had enough stuff going on at their house . They were a big Catholic family with even more kids than the Battons.

“So you, Jan (my twin sister) and I,” Mary Grace continued, “had determined we were going to clean out your garage of all your fathers construction and building equipment so I could put my pony in it. We wanted to be prepared for the horse’s arrival. We were certain it would be arriving momentarily, as soon as I made my call to the radio station to claim it.

I cracked up laughing on the telephone because I didn’t recall the incident.

As Mary Grace recounted the disappointment she felt that she didn’t win the pony, I couldn’t help think how she has had a very fulfilling life even though that pony didn’t come through for her then, not until decades later.

Mary has always had horse sense and knew to follow her interest in animals and built a very successful veterinary practice. Now she is semi-retired and has turned her focus to wildlife. She is studying and documenting black-footed ferrets in their natural environment. They are currently on the endangered species list. I hope some day she will write about and publish her research.

As we ended our conversation, I was buoyed by the fact that our friendship in still in tact after all these years. Mary, I hope to scout you out toward the end of the summer with some good news that my sister is going to take a trip West so we can have our own reunion. Today I’d like to say your friendship has always been a gift to me, and I’d like to express my heartfelt gratefulness.


 mary kellogg on horse young age

 Mary taking riding lessons as a young teenager as

her mom looks on.

Photo compliment of www.unbridledimages.com

mary kellogg with horse as adult

 Mary as a veterinarian with her beloved horses.

Photo credit: www.unbridledimages.com

Check out the Facebook Page for Unbridled Images, too! http://on.fb.me/1lYBreC

Do return tomorrow. I’ll be blogging about sisters of the heart. I will be posting a photo of me and my twin sister that I had never seen before last Friday. It will have historic value to my family. I can’t wait to surprise them.

This blog brought to you brought to you by Sue Batton Leonard, author of Gift of a Lifetime:Finding Fulfilling Things in the Unexpected.Sue’s memoir

Special Interest Bookstore

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“Heroes take journeys, confront dragons, and discover the treasure of their true selves.” ~ Carol Lynn Pearson

The expanding heart1Some places you just have to return to. The Expanding Heart, a bookstore in historic downtown Park City, Utah is one of those kinds of places. I encountered this gem of a gift shop and bookstore on my visit to Park City two years ago and have never forgotten it.

It’s evident from what’s inside the store that great thought is put into their offerings. Those taking journeys into their hearts seeking self-realization can learn more about life’s natural energy forces through this bookstore’s publications and gift items. The focus of the store is all things that help fulfill one’s spiritual growth, emotional awareness and rejuvenation of the spirit. The sychronicity of the themes of the inventory is what makes browsing the store so interesting.

I came across a book that I couldn’t pass up because books in this genre are not a dime a dozen. At first glance I thought it was an unexpected find. But as I pondered the publication further, it indeed belonged among the other publications. It is all about self-expression and learning about oneself through art.

What was it you might ask? An historical art fiction book called With Violets: A Novel of the Dawn of Impressionism by Elizabeth Robards. It takes place in Paris in the 1860s when art had reached a new dawn, and creatives were freely exploring new styles of painting. Based on artist Edouard Manet and his relationship with one of his models, she comes to terms with the fact that she does not want to follow what Society expects for her but rather she will create her own future. I can’t wait to dig into it.

I enjoyed my second visit to The Expanding Heart and Svetlana, the store attendant, could not have been more enjoyable to talk with. Park City was a welcome get-away after having just completed a memoir. Sue’s memoir Come back on Monday I will let you in on a few of my favorite art galleries I visited in historic Park City, Utah.

downtown park city

Historic Main Street, Park City, Utah

The Nature of Easter

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 Fling off thy sadness!

Fair vernal flowers, laugh forth

Your ancient gladness! 

~Thomas Blackburn, An Easter Hymn

Today as my present to you, valued readers, I have posted an audio chapter of Gift of a Lifetime: Finding Fulfilling Things in the Unexpected.

This audio recording will also be posted permanently to the About the Book page of All Things Fulfilling so you can return and listen to it as often as you’d like.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA Your entire family will enjoy listening to what the stellar character in my memoir has to say about an element in nature that has more meaning than just a beautiful flower. Celebrate Easter week by sharing this story with others. Happy Spring!

To listen, click the arrow pointing  right, next to the speaker icon.

 

 

 

 

 

Originations in Baltimore

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“A kind gesture can reach a wound that only compassion can heal.” ~ Steve Maraboli – Life, Truth and Being Free.

dialing for dollarsWas Dialing for Dollars broadcast in your home town when you were growing up? This show originated as a radio show in Baltimore, Maryland and then became a syndicated TV show in cities around the country. The show had a run of 38 years and gave away $800,000 to suburban housewives who sat by the telephone waiting for the host of the show to call their number.  It finally terminated when more sophisticated game shows began to be aired and fewer households had stay-at-home moms who were in residence to answer the telephone. Here is how it worked, if you don’t remember it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialing_for_Dollars.

I know my mother wished upon a star many times that Dialing for Dollars would call 4-6750. It was our home number and those were the only digits you needed to reach our family back in the 1950s. Then as the population grew,  dialing VA4-6750 (Valley4- 6750) became mandatory. She and my father had medical bills they needed to pay from having given birth to twins – a not so common occurrence in the 1950s and they could have used the money.

The other day I was going through my baby book, and I found the obstetricians bill from when my twin sister and I were born.  There was a personal note on it from the doctor that said “I realize you have incurred very large medical bills with these births, I have tried to keep my charges as low as possible. Please know you can pay whenever or however it is convenient.” The bill was for $140. Seven years later when the doctors figured out how to give me a long and fulfilling life, much greater medical bills were added.  The bills became very staggering for a young couple who by then had three young children and were going through a very difficult time in life.  However, unexpected and more difficult circumstances occurred but that finally allowed them to financially rebuild their life a little bit.

Compared to medical bills in today’s world, my parent’s medical bills were a pittance. But with the wages of that era, everything is relative. Medical bills are a strain on all people who live within very tight budgets. The very technology that helps people to live long lives today is expensive to develop, maintain and use. I do get it, but our medical insurance system does need overhauling and I don’t think we are even close with a viable solution.

Come on back tomorrow to All Things Fulfilling. I will share with you a letter I found in my baby book that I had written to the tooth fairy. It made me chuckle when I read it.

 

Connecting to the Great Outdoors

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“Teaching children about the natural world should be seen as one of the most important events in their lives.”  ~Thomas Berry, The Dream of the Earth

If you are a baby boomer, no doubt you learned to read from the Dick and Jane series. For forty years (1930s – 1970s) these books were used by elementary school teachers around the world to teach children the art of reading.

dick and jane jumping ropeDid you ever notice how the Dick and Jane series had so many pictures of children engaged in outdoors activities? The books typically featured images of kids walking the dog, playing hopscotch on the sidewalk, planting flowers, pulling wagons, playing ball, lying in a hammock under the shade tree day-dreaming, and flying kites outdoors.

Miss Zerna Sharp, known as the “Mother of Dick and Jane” http://bit.ly/1pwGk0u had great insight in the creation of the series because she felt that students would enjoy learning to read and find it much easier if they identified with the children shown in the illustrations. If she were alive today to redo the series to make the stories more relatable for this generation of children, she’d probably be horrified to realize what would the illustrations would look like. Rather than publishing pictures of fit children playing outdoors, I suppose we’d see images of  children engaged in all things digital and figure drawings of children with physiques that look very different than those of the children from the 1930s – 1970s. dick and jane use the force

We are living in a very visual age. With the power of digital marketing perhaps we need to stir children’s interests and entice them into wanting to experience the great adventure of life called the “great outdoors.” Personally, I think our whole society would benefit by becoming more aware of our connection to mother nature and all that she has to offer.  And it may even save us some trips to the doctor!

Those are my independent thoughts, words and views for today. See you tomorrow on http://www.AllThingsFulfilling.com. Have a great day, and remember to get outdoors for some fresh air! It’s good for fulfilling the mind, body and spirit.

Nature’s Healing Qualities

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“Reading about nature is fine, but if a person walks in the woods and listens carefully, he can learn more than what is in books, for they speak with the voice of God.” ~George Washington Carver

The image below looks like me as a little girl. Even as a little child who lived life on the edge with some serious health issues, I was not pampered and made to feel any different than my twin sister and brothers. Our home was surrounded by the forest with a leafy canopy of tall straight tulip poplar trees. A beautiful natural environment where fresh air and sunshine was plentiful. I played outdoors constantly digging for worms, making mud pies and throwing rocks in the streams that bordered both sides of our property. My parents insisted that I spend the days outdoors playing in the muck so I had little time to think about my miseries. For that, I am grateful to my parents.

It concerns me that too many children today are nature deprived and become ill as a result of it. It’s important for children to get outdoors and explore the natural world. Here is an article from the New York Times that every parent should be aware of. http://nyti.ms/Nx7lVj.

Spring has sprung, and the warm-up has begun. Parents get your children outdoors as much as possible in the coming months. Take them to parks, gardens, nearby woods and forests. If that’s not possible, be one another’s walking partners. Hold each other accountable and trade off TV and video time for outdoors time. Enjoy the natural world that was given to us for a reason. Its good for the mind, body and spirit.

childs immune system

This blog brought to you by www.CornerstoneFulfillmentService.com. See you tomorrow on All Things Fulfilling.

The Lady in the Choir

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laughing sistersWhy is it that when you have a twin sister, everything is doubly  funny? I swear my sister and I can have more fun laughing at something that might not strike anyone else as being one bit funny.

A good hearty belly laugh is only annoying if it happens in inappropriate places. When we were kids, it always happened in church. My sister and I didn’t dare even glance at each other when the mezzo-soprano in the choir started singing. There was something about her voice that made us listen but we found her inflection hysterical. If we even saw one anothers faces in our peripheral vision, it was all over – we’d lose control and laugh so hard we’d have tears running down our cheeks. Then our little brothers got in on the action.

Somehow our parents always knew exactly what started it and struggled to keep their own joy of hearing us twins laughing together in check and in cheek. Someone had to be the adults and keep order in the family. Week after week we vowed to our parents that it would never happen again, but oh, how we were telling a story.

Since I have been taught that God is love, I knew I’d be forgiven and not be struck down by the devil. Our scolding often came from someone else who you’ll learn more about in my memoir. Whenever she got word of our childish antics, her words had a more powerful effect than anything our parents could have ever uttered.

“Lord a Mercy,” she’d say “What is you? A bunch a heathens, laughin’ in da Lord’s house?” Have you ever noticed how carefully one listens to someone who is speaking a different dialect?

“It was the funny lady in the choir’s fault,” my sister and I’d say, taking no responsibility for our inability to control ourselves. After all, we were just children.

That’s another family story that wasn’t included in my memoir from All Things Fulfilling. This blog is brought to you by www.CornestoneFulfillmentService.com.

Coming Full Circle

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“The honeysuckle is learning to appreciate all the small drops of sweetness in life.”

 ~ Sue Batton Leonard

testcart-2Last summer, when I was in Cambridge, Maryland I walked into Walmart. I selected what I wanted to buy and took it to the check-out counter. The sale was rung up and the cashier asked if I wanted to donate to the sick children in JohnsHopkinsHospital.

“Of course,” I said. “How could I not?” I thought.

The cashier thanked me for donating to the cause and said “Have a Blessed Day!” I smiled at her and thanked her back. As I walked out of the store, all I could think was “Have a blessed day? I’ve had a blessed life!”

You see, long ago I was a sick child in JohnsHopkinsHospital. And because the doctors and nurses did not give up on me and gave their time and expertise in caring for me, they saved my life.  Several events have taken me on a journey of realizing the blessings that I have been given, and it is all is told in my upcoming memoir.

It was such a simple thing to donate to the Johns Hopkins children and the monetary value was little compared to what I’ve been given – decades of  fulfilling and vigorous livin’. But a large group of compassionate people donating to a great cause can make a big difference.

The next day, I entered Walmart once again because I had forgotten something, and again I was asked if I wanted to make a meager donation. I answered in the affirmative.

Pay it ahead or pay it back, it’s all good. What is important is that we remember those who give us the sweetness from the vine of knowledge, friendship and love.

Those are my independent thoughts, words and views today on All Things Fulfilling.

This blog brought to you by www.CornerstoneFulfillmentService.com