My Most Beautiful Thing

There's something in the water today, a splash of love felt throughout the World Wide Web. Do you feel it? Would you like a bit? Please take a seat and let me explain.

Fiona Robyn, creator of "small stones" and co-founder (with her husband Kaspalita) of the Writing Our Way Home writing community, has written a novel The Most Beautiful Thing. It is free for the Kindle on Amazon today and tomorrow. I loved it and I'm sure you will, too.

So the splash is actually a wave of blogs spreading the news and sharing with the world their most beautiful things. Read more about it here.

I've been thinking for weeks about my most beautiful thing. The key word here is MOST, which means ONE. There are many things dear and beautiful to me; how could I choose just one?

Of course my family was tops on the list. I decided to ask them what their most beautiful things were in hopes that I could weasel my way out of this debacle. Here are the answers I received.

Pete: Me

Katie: Trees

Andrew: A sunset

Nicholas: Me

It was getting down to the wire and I was starting to have a panic attack. My children are so very precious, as is Pete. My present life is very dear to me because without it I would have nothing. Cardinals (you know how much they mean to me) and other birds are so gorgeous. I love the beach, nature, writing, reading, blah blah blah-ing.

That's when it hit me. I knew what my most favorite thing was. It's LOVE.

Love is my most beautiful thing! Without it, where would we be? Love is in the air we breath, the mountains we climb, the trickle of a river on a quiet wooded path, the sound of laughter in the park. It's childbirth and death; the circle of life. Love is being at peace and knowing all will be okay. It's trust, hope, forgiveness, acceptance. Love is God. God is love.

Now I've told you my favorite thing. What's yours?

*Click here to read about all the other blogsplashers taking part in today's most beautiful revolution!

A new book-- "pay attention: a river of stones"

You can purchase the book (hardback, paperback or download) here through Lulu.com

Fiona Robyn is a wonderful inspiration not only in the writing world, but in life's never-ending journey toward spirituality. A friend told me about her blogs, a handful of stones  and a small stone, many months ago. I started following her immediately.

Then in January, she started a movement around the world of collecting 'small stones' for 'a river of stones' (aros). Now she and her fiance Kaspa have created this wonderful book, pay attention: a river of stones, filled with a collection of observations from January. I am delighted to have a small stone and quote included in the book.

I asked Fiona to share her thoughts on the whole process and how it came to fruition. Thank you Fiona and Kaspa for touching so many lives and reminding us to stop and smell the flowers.  I hope you, too, will join in.

Fiona Robyn:

Sometime during December, I had the idea that people might like to join me during January in writing a small stone every day – something I’ve been doing for many years. I believe that there are lots of benefits from having a daily writing practice, and this seemed like an ideal way to share this practice with others. Kaspa teamed up with me and we created a blog and started asking people if they wanted to join the ‘river’. We originally thought it would be nice if 20 people joined us – by the beginning of January more than 300 people were writing small stones and posting them on their blogs.

We really enjoyed reading the small stones during January, and thought it would be good to choose the cream of these and publish them in a book. More than 3000 small stones (and MANY hours) later, we’d chosen the stones for the book, edited them, communicated with their writers, arranged them into chapter groupings, designed the cover, arranged them into an order and written some prose pieces to go alongside them. And – TA-DA! – ‘pay attention: a river of stones’ was born!

We do hope it’ll be read both by people writing small stones and people who’ve never written before – it’s full of beautiful short pieces. And it might inspire a few more people to start writing them….