Sunshine Blogger Award: A kind nomination for the PTLH blog

It is with warm gratitude that I share that this blog has been nominated for the “Sunshine Blogger Award.”

This nomination and award is given by fellow bloggers, in recognition of posts that are “creative, positive, and inspirational.”

My thanks go to Crystal Grasso (Ward) of “Maybe Crazy Help,” who wrote these kind words in her nomination of Put The Light Here:

“A stunning website that ‘specializes in spiritual development and holistic wellness’ and has deep meaningful posts on spirituality, healing energy, and more! This website has a very calming energy.”

The last part of her nomination especially means a lot to me: When I was creating this website, my intention was to make it a safe haven to spend time.  Creating a calming, peaceful, uplifting, purely lighted energy was the basis of everything that I wrote, every image that I carefully chose, and the entire look and feel of PutTheLightHere.com.  It was a full five months of development as I worked to make this site perfect.

As Crystal wrote in her post, the Sunshine Blogger Award “is passed down from blogger to blogger as a way to recognize inspirational bloggers.”

Rules

Upon receipt of a nomination, each blogger is invited to do four things:

1. thank the blogger who nominated you and link back to their blog;

2. answer the 11 questions that the blogger asked you;

3. nominate a further 11 bloggers to receive the award, and write 11 questions for them to answer; and

4. list the rules and display the logo in this post.

My gentle disclosure is that I do not keep up with many blogs, and so at this time I am not able to fulfill the third item.  However, I happily fulfill the others.

Answers to the 11 Questions

What is your favorite book? Why?

“The Autobiography of a Yogi,” by Paramahansa Yogananda.  Because of two main things: First, I so identified with his fervent search for his Teacher and his commitment to finding the Divine that I wept as I read his words.  Second, because his spirit lives so strongly in that book that I feel he is with me and treat the object as precious.

If you could talk to animals, what would be the first animal you talk to? What would you say?

I would probably just talk to the first animal that I encountered.  I would ask what it was thinking and hope to learn its perspective on the world.

Who is your hero and why?

The change-making, outcasted, warrior-like, determined-and-committed class of people are closest that I have to a “hero.”  They fight for what they know is absolutely right, against the worst odds and treatment that humankind is capable of throwing at them, and they go largely unrecognized and unappreciated while they are alive.  Yet…decades in the future, we gather to celebrate them and how they changed our world for the better.  These souls deserve our support–right now.

What is the first thing you would do if you won the lottery?

Breathe a deep, gratitude-filled sigh of relief.

If you could go back in time to any year, what time period would you like to visit?

I wouldn’t mind connecting with the time periods when spiritual and magical life was flourishing on this planet.  The times of the mystery schools, in particular; I would love to visit one.

What is your favorite homecooked meal?

Anything made with organic, not genetically modified ingredients, and prepared with calm, loving energy.  I don’t eat at restaurants anymore because those criteria are hard to find in a single serving.

If you could only have three items on a deserted island, what would they be?

Running water.  Electricity.  And my five-star villa.

What animal do you identify most with? How?

Snowy Owl has been a close connection for a long while, for all of the strengths that it offers us:

What is your all-time favorite song and artist?

Song is probably the theme song for Top Gun.  Artist…it depends on how I’m feeling in the moment.  But for now I’d probably say Eminem?  I spent my teenage years listening to rap–the good stuff of the 90s.  Then this white guy came along and I thought, “who does he think he is, in that orange jumpsuit?”  Then I attended the Up In Smoke Tour, and when Dre, Snoop, and others were performing, guess where Marshall Mathers was?  At the side of the stage, rapping along with them, putting his full body and soul into it.  He wasn’t “a rapper.”  He embodied rap.  That’s when I instantly saw who he was and I have respected him ever since.

Would you rather take a trip to Greenland or Iceland? Why?

Iceland, because I don’t like the cold and I heard that Iceland is actually greener than Greenland.

If you could sit and talk to someone in history who had a major impact on the world, who would it be?

Maybe Mahatma Gandhi.  I would want to know if he ever lost faith in his tactics, ever wanted secretly to fight.  Yogananda tried to quit his own dharma because it was so difficult, and he was already a Yogic Master at the time.  I feel it is important to know that even those whom we consider leaders and “gurus” have doubts, fears, flaws, etc.  I value that information more, sometimes, than their wisdom teachings.

Thank you, Crystal, for your kind questions, nomination, and sentiments about this blog.

May we all have the Light when we need it.

Jen