The Tao Te Ching - Verse 7

Tao Te Ching – Verse 7

The Tao is infinite, eternal.
Why is it eternal?
It was never born;
thus it can never die.
Why is it infinite?
It has no desires for itself;
thus it is present for all beings.

The Master stays behind;
that is why she is ahead.
She is detached from all things;
that is why she is one with them.
Because she has let go of herself,
she is perfectly fulfilled.

Laozi. Tao Te Ching. Translated by Stephen Mitchell. Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2006.

We are sharing the 81 verses of the Tao Te Ching across 81 weeks starting in March 2025. Here is our introductory post if you’d like to learn more about this project.

The Tao Te Ching - Verse 6

Tao Te Ching – Verse 6

The Tao is called the Great Mother:
empty yet inexhaustible,
it gives birth to infinite worlds.

It is always present within you.
You can use it any way you want.

Laozi. Tao Te Ching. Translated by Stephen Mitchell. Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2006.

We are sharing the 81 verses of the Tao Te Ching across 81 weeks starting in March 2025. Here is our introductory post if you’d like to learn more about this project.

The Tao Te Ching - Verse 5

Tao Te Ching – Verse 5

The Tao doesn't take sides;
it gives birth to both good and evil.
The Master doesn't take sides;
she welcomes both saints and sinners.

The Tao is like a bellows:
it is empty yet infinitely capable.
The more you use it, the more it produces;
the more you talk of it, the less you understand.

Hold on to the center.

Laozi. Tao Te Ching. Translated by Stephen Mitchell. New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2006.

We are sharing the 81 verses of the Tao Te Ching across 81 weeks starting in March 2025. Here is our introductory post if you’d like to learn more about this project.

Here's to Mondays

So to counteract the doom and gloom of our country's ongoing political meltdown crap show, I now choose to share something that brings me great joy.

I freaking love Mondays. I've had friends laugh through the years when I share this with them, and they then ask me what the hell am I thinking! Yet why not look at Mondays differently? Mondays get a bad rap collectively, and so from the time I was young, I decided I would look at Mondays differently. There's gotta be an upside. And there sure is. And it all comes down to what we choose to believe.

On this Monday, I am celebrating my new Whole Seed Catalog and all of the promise it carries. This is my spring go-to for garden inspiration and ideas. And, while I'm at it, I love my old Bass canvas bag. This workhorse has been by my side since I was 14 and she's still going strong. Who needs new, fancy, trendy and expensive when you have trusty, sturdy, and dependable? (This, by the way, is how I look at most material objects.)

On this Monday, what brings you joy? Let's shift our worlds. Let's share what brings us joy and life and happiness.


Until next time I offer these words of wisdom for better or for worse. Please take them with a grain of salt for we each live our own individual truths. Our mission while we are here is to understand, accept, and celebrate that one very simple, but incredibly significant fact. For all this, I am grateful.


The Tao Te Ching - Verse 4

Tao Te Ching – Verse 4

The Tao is like a well:
used but never used up.
It is like the eternal void:
filled with infinite possibilities.

It is hidden but always present.
I don't know who gave birth to it.
It is older than God.

Laozi. Tao Te Ching. Translated by Stephen Mitchell. Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2006.

We are sharing the 81 verses of the Tao Te Ching across 81 weeks starting in March 2025. Here is our introductory post if you’d like to learn more about this project.

The Tao Te Ching - Verse 3

Tao Te Ching – Verse 3

If you overesteem great men,
people become powerless.
If you overvalue possessions,
people begin to steal.

The Master leads
by emptying people's minds
and filling their cores,
by weakening their ambition
and toughening their resolve.
He helps people lose everything
they know, everything they desire,
and creates confusion
in those who think that they know.

Practice not-doing,
and everything will fall into place.

Laozi. Tao Te Ching. Translated by Stephen Mitchell. Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2006.

We are sharing the 81 verses of the Tao Te Ching across 81 weeks starting in March 2025. Here is our introductory post if you’d like to learn more about this project.

The Tao Te Ching - Verse 2

Tao Te Ching – Verse 2

When people see some things as beautiful,
other things become ugly.
When people see some things as good,
other things become bad.

Being and non-being create each other.
Difficult and easy support each other.
Long and short define each other.
High and low depend on each other.
Before and after follow each other.

Therefore the Master
acts without doing anything
and teaches without saying anything.
Things arise and she lets them come;
things disappear and she lets them go.
She has but doesn't possess,
acts but doesn't expect.
When her work is done, she forgets it.
That is why it lasts forever.

Laozi. Tao Te Ching. Translated by Stephen Mitchell. New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2006.

We are sharing the 81 verses of the Tao Te Ching across 81 weeks starting in March 2025. Here is our introductory post if you’d like to learn more about this project.

The Tao Te Ching - Verse 1

Tao Te Ching – Verse 1

The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name.

The unnamable is the eternally real.
Naming is the origin
of all particular things.

Free from desire, you realize the mystery.
Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations.

Yet mystery and manifestations
arise from the same source.
This source is called darkness.

Darkness within darkness.
The gateway to all understanding.

Laozi. Tao Te Ching. Translated by Stephen Mitchell. Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2006.

We are sharing the 81 verses of the Tao Te Ching across 81 weeks starting in March 2025. Here is our introductory post if you’d like to learn more about this project.

The Tao Te Ching... Please Join Us

The Tao Te Ching is one of the first connections we (David and Jennifer) bonded over when we were young lovers a little more than ten years ago. David began studying the Tao as a teenager and Jennifer became deeply inspired by the sacred text in her mid-twenties. It has been a dream for quite a long time for us to share our love of the Tao with the greater community, and we cannot think of a better time.

You are invited to join us for 81 weeks starting today. Every Saturday, we will post a verse from the Tao along with an inspired photo of ours on our business page through Facebook and Instagram, and our journal here on our website. The mission of this project is to celebrate the invitation for each of us to bring peace, understanding, and gentle connection forward. We invite you to come along with us on this journey through this ancient text. Witness in silence, hold space, or comment as you feel called to share your own reflection of the verse.

As for translations, David is most familiar with Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English’s work, while Jennifer is most familiar with Stephen Mitchell’s (both are displayed in this photograph). For this project, we will feature Stephen Mitchell’s translation.

We understand there may be many in our circles who are not familiar with the Tao, so as we have dreamt this project forward, here are a few themes from the text that came forward for us…

Reflection and contemplation… peace-centered living… balance… unity… effective leadership… mindful and conscious action… power, not force… balance of the masculine and the feminine… focus and discipline… healing… gentleness… environmental stewardship… community… simple elegance… living with integrity… equality and inclusivity…

P.S. We are still young lovers and are thrilled to create a peaceful connection with you :)

Here's to the bridge-builders ...

Here's to the bridge-builders, the hand-holders, the light-bringers, those extraordinary souls wrapped in ordinary lives who quietly weave threads of humanity into an inhumane world. They are the unsung heroes in a world at war with itself. They are the whisperers of hope that peace is possible. Look for them in this present darkness. Light your candle with their flame. And then go. Build bridges. Hold hands. Bring light to a dark and desperate world. Be the hero you are looking for. Peace is possible. It begins with us.

~L.R. Knost
Photograph captured last week where I find peace.


Until next time I offer these words of wisdom for better or for worse. Please take them with a grain of salt for we each live our own individual truths. Our mission while we are here is to understand, accept, and celebrate that one very simple, but incredibly significant fact. For all this, I am grateful.


What will remain is the truth. What will remain is our love.

At the beginning of each day, I light my candle with prayers, questions, hopes, and dreams. At a very early hour this morning, I was connecting with one of my closest friends and allies as I lit my candle.

My heart is clear today. Please realize the majority of us in the U.S. are not in favor of policies that are already being brought to the table. The showmanship, the rhetoric, and the ridiculous nature plastered over yesterday's circus will pass. This is not Christ-like. We all understand this, right? Pitting one another against "the other" is not what Christ would have condoned. If you believe that, please sit quietly with that for as long as it takes.

What will remain is the truth. What will remain is our love. What will remain is our steadfast nature to look out for each other. Politics will not define us, nor will it save us either. To put our faith and focus solely on politics is dangerous ground, as it is ever-shifting like quicksand.

Breathe. Remain grounded. Remain in your center. Remain in your truth. Remain in your love. Remain in your resilience. Remain in your creative potential. Breathe.

For those of you who are feeling fear and despair, I see you. We got this. We've got you. I just shared this on another dear friend's post as they wrestle with what the future looks like. This is for everyone this morning:

Your fear is absolutely real and we hold you where you are so that you know we see you (I see you). What do we do? We do our best. We put our hearts forward. We stay awake and stay informed. We hold fast and remain resilient. We stay connected because isolation is not an option. We continue to understand this is the breakdown of huge systems that have been dysfunctional for a very long time. And, we will make it past this phase of breakdown so that we can begin to create again. We wake up and do it again tomorrow. We remember to breathe. We hold love at the center. I love you.


The Question
by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
for Jude Jordan Kalush, who asked me the question

All day, I replay these words:
Is this the path of love?
I think of them as I rise, as
I wake my children, as I wash dishes,
as I drive too close behind the slow
blue Subaru, Is this the path of love?
Think of these words as I stand in line
at the grocery store,
think of them as I sit on the couch
with my daughter. Amazing how
quickly six words become compass,
the new lens through which to see myself
in the world. I notice what the question is not.
Not, “Is this right?” Not,
“Is this wrong?” It just longs to know
how the action of existence
links us to the path to love.
And is it this? Is it this? All day,
I let myself be led by the question.
All day I let myself not be too certain
of the answer. Is it this?
Is this the path of love? I ask
as I wait for the next word to come.

Published in The Path to Kindness: Poems of Connection & Joy, edited by James Crews (Storey Publishing, 2022)


Until next time I offer these words of wisdom for better or for worse. Please take them with a grain of salt for we each live our own individual truths. Our mission while we are here is to understand, accept, and celebrate that one very simple, but incredibly significant fact. For all this, I am grateful.


New Stories... and seeking wisdom

Friends, I am sinking into new stories this year and am looking for some ideas and your wisdom...

I need creative outlets and writing is at the top of my list, next to photography, watercolors, gardening, and moving my body.

For my fellow writers out there, how do you feel about Substack? I started sharing some writing back on Blogger back in 2010, then moved pieces to my website. I am now looking for another solid way to share in a user-friendly format - both for myself and for those who are curious to tap in. Any other platforms out there nowadays you recommend? Also, what has drawn you to what I have shared through writing? I'm curious and open to where the energies move us.

Thank you from the top of my head to the bottom of my tippy toes for those of you who have have joined me on the creative path through the years. The Energy Experience is one part of this. I have met many of you through energy and consciousness work through the last two decades. What an incredible blessing!

Life truly is energy: how it comes together, how it is expressed, how we heal, grow, connect, worship, transition... this all is a deeply creative act. This takes a village too, and I have to say the village and circles I am blessed to be a part of are magnificent. Let's create more, shall we? Let's make this year truly one to remember in all the right ways

*Photo taken by David last spring while we were engaged in sacred community work in Glastonbury, England. In this particular moment, David, our friend Brad, and I were practically getting blown off of the Tor by the gale force winds. The ancient tower held us a bit more intact before venturing back out. What a day to be alive and creative!


Until next time I offer these words of wisdom for better or for worse. Please take them with a grain of salt for we each live our own individual truths. Our mission while we are here is to understand, accept, and celebrate that one very simple, but incredibly significant fact. For all this, I am grateful.


Sacred Winter

For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, we are reminded of the dark days of winter and the promise of the return of the light. I cherish this dark time of year and the winter season yet to come. This is when I get very quiet, rest, reflect, and breathe forward new possibilities into the spring season.

This time of the year holds more than 20 different sacred holidays and observances around the world between December and January. The path my heart follows is rooted in a dedication to honoring the rhythms of the Earth, and the Divine Feminine and Masculine as spiritual and grounding practice. For as long as I can recall, I have been deeply inspired by the traditional weavings of the ancient people who I come from and honor the homelands of what we now refer to as Germany, Scotland, England, and Northwestern Europe. Following the seasons helps me feel close to them. Embodying my own sacred Feminine and Masculine qualities helps me embody the contrast of polarity and nonduality. This solstice season will be set aside with new understandings as I am now our eldest still embodied within our immediate lineage, with both of my parents now sitting with our ancient people. I envision this to be a special time.

As we each lean into our own practices of faith and spirit and remembrance, may we all be reminded of the one common thread that runs through us all: connection. May you feel warmed by the fire of your heart and hearth and honor the connection we all share to the greater mystery of what it means to be an eternal being held within a temporal shell on this magnificent planet of ours.

(Image above of the black ebony statue of Madonna and Child, from when I visited Truro Cathedral in Cornwall in 2022)


Until next time I offer these words of wisdom for better or for worse. Please take them with a grain of salt for we each live our own individual truths. Our mission while we are here is to understand, accept, and celebrate that one very simple, but incredibly significant fact. For all this, I am grateful.


Crossing a Threshold

Two weeks from now, we will be sitting in the Bryce Jordan Center honoring a group of Pennsylvania State University graduates including our daughter Emily. Over the last few years, we have held close to the present moment while also understanding how quickly this day would come. And here we are.

It has been a journey, Boo, and what a beautiful one. You have held your heart high learning how to find your way at a huge university during a pandemic. You have embraced your passions of rowing and connecting with a team both at Penn State and Victoria University of Wellington. You’ve worked with your teammates to raise funds and awareness for THON through the years. You have made lasting friendships and memories that your heart will carry through your lifetime.

In the classroom, you’ve excelled at your academics by making the dean’s list every semester and participating in research studies with your professors on campus. Just this semester you’ve healed through a broken hip and are on your way back into your running shoes. What a weekend we are coming out of even now … celebrating together 30 years of our Penn State Crew family. It is an honor to now hold with you the space of two generations of Penn State grads, and also the space of two generations of PSU Crew alum.

In addition to filling your time on campus and in town, you have remained an integral part of our immediate family by sharing time between home here in Centre County and home in Western NY. A massive piece of sharing your time with family has been your dedication to embracing Grandpa over these past six years while he’s been under our care. Your love, presence, and countless moments spent with G’Pa through these years have held him here. You lit up his world from Day 1, Peanut, and his dream was to witness you cross this threshold of receiving your diploma in two weeks. He almost made it. And, even though he won’t be sitting with us in that auditorium in two weeks, I know full well both he and G’Ma, Aunt Becky, Grandpa Bob, and an army of your radiant ancestors will be holding your hand as you cross that stage to receive your degree.

Here is to your fierce and gentle heart. Here is to your dreams. Here is to your future as you help light the way forward. We absolutely love you. We are so proud of you. We are—ancestors included—cheering you on every step of the way

WE ARE!!!

The Truth Mandala

How are you doing?

We are all are landing on the collective threshold of the U.S. election. Many of us are reeling. Many of us are celebrating. Many of us are wondering how to navigate between these two worlds.

In moments like this, I am learning to lean in and then reach out. Below, you will see an invitation to participate in a sacred gathering online to help move through the emotions of this time. There is no cost to attend. Pre-registration is required. Please consider joining us if you are feeling called to connect. All of the details are listed below.

Questions can be directed to my dear friend Rachel Allen at rachel@yogasong.net.

Are you struggling with anger, numbness, grief, despair?

Do you know that this is a healthy, normal response to these times?


Would you appreciate a container that can hold all of these things and support us in a process that both metabolizes suffering and potentially frees us for creative, life affirming action?

Join us in a practice of the Truth Mandala from The Work That Reconnects. 

This group process from eco-Buddhist scholar Joanna Macy, is a ritual that honors our pain as coming from a caring, connected heart space.

The paradox of honoring our pain can actually open us up to deeper levels of compassion and joy and be the foundation for both fruitful action and sustainability in these times.

The Truth Mandala Practices:
Centering/Grounding
Breathwork
Somatic Practices
Group Sharing/Reflection
Singing

You can also participate by holding space as a silent and sacred witness if you choose not to share.

Join us Sunday, November 10th
6:00 - 7:45 PM Eastern
Zoom
There is no cost
Pre-registration is a must
Please click here to register
(This event will not be recorded)

How to prepare:
Wear comfortable clothes
Have water/tea
Journal and pen (optional)

For the ritual:
A stone, dry leaves, a stick, and an empty bowl

Meet Your Facilitators:

Rachel Allen, BA, CMP, E-RYT200 is a Healing Arts Practitioner, writer, and lifelong activist. She is a student and practitioner of The Work That Reconnects and is a member of the Founders Circle of the School for the Great Turning. She is committed to engaging people from all walks of life in the healing arts to create healthy, diverse and joyful communities. www.yogasong.net

Jennifer Archibald, BS, EEM-CP is an Energy Medicine Practitioner, Reiki Master, and writer. Through her sacred work, she connects with and helps to nurture a global community of individuals to help recognize and embrace our radiance, health, and creative potential. www.theenergyexperience.net

My Daughter

There is a lot I can say about my daughter.

What comes to mind this very moment is how resilient and determined she is. This time last week she started working with an orthopedic surgeon who was evaluating her for a stress fracture in the neck of her left femur. She was scheduled for an MRI Wednesday and, depending on the results, she’d either go into surgery as soon as possible and/or remain on crutches for the next six to eight weeks. Either way, she was going to need to look at the next two months very differently. I witnessed her making immediate adjustments moment by moment as this very new information was coming forward, understanding this last semester of school suddenly looked very different.

It was determined that she would in fact go into surgery so that two screws could be utilized to help reinforce her femur. Remarkably this was her first surgery and she did great. Deep breaths and now to invite the healing process to begin!

She is still required to be on crutches for six to eight weeks and is adjusting in stellar ways. Fast forward to this week and she has exceeded all expectations, making her way around town and campus like a champ. Her dad and granddad were due last weekend for a visit and lo and behold, this image of her was taken by her dad when they went out Friday night for a drink and a piece of pizza. I am finding despite the frustrations she faces at times, her spirit rises to the occasion and she creates a new pathway forward.

On this day celebrating daughters, I honor mine in more ways than I can count. Here’s to you, Emily. May you continue to shine your light even during the darkest of moments.

I love you ❤️


Until next time I offer these words of wisdom for better or for worse. Please take them with a grain of salt for we each live our own individual truths. Our mission while we are here is to understand, accept, and celebrate that one very simple, but incredibly significant fact. For all this, I am grateful.


The "Firsts"

They say the “firsts” are the hardest. I’m somewhat on board with that feeling, although I had a lot of “firsts” with my mom’s passing that were not typical. For my dad, we honored his first birthday this past Thursday since his passing in January. He would have been 82.

To be honest he was not much of a birthday guy and argued each year about not wanting to celebrate and grumbled about getting older and less able-bodied. He was angry at his body and so we did our best to cheer him regularly, especially on each of the six birthdays he was with us after my mom’s passing. It felt important to share with him that we were glad he was still here with us and experiencing more of life with us than he ever had the opportunity to do so before. Celebration was not something he and my mom practiced easily.

I dreamt of him in the early hours of his birthday on Thursday. We embraced tightly as if we hadn’t seen each other in a very long time. He was happy. What a gift I was given! I cherish the moments in dreams we connect, and each time I am reminded that he is doing well.

We have memories to lean into and I am glad to have photos of him from earlier times. In this image, he is on the beach near where I lived in Florida with my faithful companion Brown Dog. He looks strong and healthy, straight and happy. He had many health challenges already at this time, and yet I will hold him in this place for a while in my heart feeling his love and seeing his smile, hearing the gentle surf of that day, feeling the sun on our skin, and sharing a peaceful moment of connection.

Happy birthday, Papa. I’m so glad we had an extra six years. I love you ❤️


Until next time I offer these words of wisdom for better or for worse. Please take them with a grain of salt for we each live our own individual truths. Our mission while we are here is to understand, accept, and celebrate that one very simple, but incredibly significant fact. For all this, I am grateful.


Closing the Circle

We spent the long weekend honoring my dad and laying to rest his and Mom's ashes. We now close the circle of her sudden passing six years ago and complete this chapter of learning how to become spontaneous caregivers for Dad who has needed us so desperately.

I realize on the other side of this weekend I can now start to reframe the stories, experiences, hardships, and heartaches of being parented by two incredibly lovely, yet devastatingly out of balance individuals. They were trying to do their best. Life is full of contrasts, isn’t it? I have so much deep healing to do and stories to understand. I know I would not be who I am today without the family who raised me. Blessing upon blessing, I have also been raised (and continue to be raised) by so very many who are not related to me through bloodlines.

One thing I know for certain is that I have needed community to help care for and advocate for us especially in dire times. I've learned I cannot and do not want to journey on my own in this lifetime. No man (or woman) is an island, yet this is the message I was taught and shown for 42 years. For my mom and my maternal lineage especially, asking for assistance was shown to be a weakness and significant lack of character. How debilitating this message was and how my heart goes out to all who are not able to trust others and reach out for help when they need it most.

Now more than ever we also need to be fully accountable, honest, and vulnerable. How else are we going to make it? Every day this is our choice.

The clarity created out of absolute necessity these past six years has provided a canvas upon which to build a solid new foundation. I will begin to build again. Rest is first though: my mind has been overwhelmed, my body is exhausted, and my spirit absolutely needs quiet and stillness and space to learn how to breathe again.

I hope to write more about all of this when I find the balance in my heart and in words. I feel there will be many words to share.

For now, I thank all who have offered love, support, and encouragement through the years. I see you and I hold you close. For the first time in so many years, I am starting to see the light of hope and joy and connection in the future again.

Image: the meadow space at home where I plan to spend a lot of time in the coming months laying on the ground and coming back to foundational basics.


Until next time I offer these words of wisdom for better or for worse. Please take them with a grain of salt for we each live our own individual truths. Our mission while we are here is to understand, accept, and celebrate that one very simple, but incredibly significant fact. For all this, I am grateful.


The In-Between

I spent most of the day in the library earlier this week diving into a new course dedicated to rest and softly holding the liminal space within sacred transition. This is a year for my heart to honor endings and new beginnings, and I am ready. I also realize I cannot do this alone as these in-between spaces are massive.

Between the in-between the other day I hugged and chatted with my kiddo between her classes and then my man and I got out for a sunset hike in the chill with our pup (that in-between of the light and dark of day at dawn and dusk has always been my favorite light).

In these small moments that feel so special and big in the moment, I realize how much I appreciate the in-between. No matter who we are or where we are, we are constantly in these in-between spaces. It is not always as comfortable, yet all are absolutely necessary for proper transition from one chapter to another.


Until next time I offer these words of wisdom for better or for worse. Please take them with a grain of salt for we each live our own individual truths. Our mission while we are here is to understand, accept, and celebrate that one very simple, but incredibly significant fact. For all this, I am grateful.


Active Labor

Almost a full month out now from my dad’s passing and I am beginning to rise with fresh eyes and renewed heart. I have seen how his beautiful and effortless transition has freed him from his great suffering and me from his care. Becoming a spontaneous caregiver and logistics holder for my dad six years ago has changed me forever. There have been many blessings, and I also realize the life-altering events that have taken place. I am beginning to deeply grieve the life I was creating at that time. These past six years have not allowed me to pay much attention to anything other than what is directly in front of me each day with Dad's needs and the immediate needs of our family.

It did not take long for me to recognize these years have felt deeply akin to my active labor process when my daughter was emerging from my amazing body 22 years ago. Six years of active labor with Dad’s release have gifted me the moment that, upon his passing, I sat back in full awe and utter amazement. I held Dad through the morning and then through the moment of his transition. Once words could be found, I shared with Dad’s beautiful hospice nurse that I felt like I had just witnessed a baby being born… it was nothing short of miraculous. This feeling of amazement was so very similar to the miraculous moment I held my daughter in my arms for the first time.

I recognize the gift of seeing this world washed anew and what life means to me now. I am raw, vulnerable, exhausted, grieving the life I thought I would embody, and I am hopeful. I am celebrating the love and the friendship my dad and I still share even though he is no longer embodied. I am grateful for having an amazing support network holding me tightly even now. I am holding all of this so tenderly and with immense presence and care.

My husband said to me upon Dad’s passing, “You have been running a marathon every day for six years. It is now time for you to rest.” And so, I shall. I will rest. I will grieve. I will also rebuild with a completely new foundation of what I am understanding now to be aligned with my path and calling as I embrace this second half of my life.


Until next time I offer these words of wisdom for better or for worse. Please take them with a grain of salt for we each live our own individual truths. Our mission while we are here is to understand, accept, and celebrate that one very simple, but incredibly significant fact. For all this, I am grateful.