The Dragon’s Loyalty Award

 I have been nominated for another award! The Dragon’s Loyalty Award. Very cool.

I feel honoured! I would like to point out, especially to those that have not taken the plunge into the blogosphere, that writing a blog, as many other creative pursuits, can be isolating. So a blogging award is also an opportunity to meet , greet and communicate with other bloggers.

I tracked the Dragon’s Loyalty Award backwards, trying to find its source, was led in a couple of loops along the way, and came across some interesting blogs, which fulfilled one of the purposes of the award, connecting with other bloggers one would not otherwise connect with. I also noticed that most people just cut and pasted the award spiel from the person they were nominated by. I suppose that`s one way to do it.

Rather than simply being another award, or a combination of other awards, as the `cut and paste“ version has it, this award is an opportunity to acknowledge those who have supported us along our paths as bloggers.  Those who stuck with us loyally over time. I think this is a much more useful and distinguished purpose for the award. After all, if we are going to take the time, and make the effort to follow “The Rules”, then it should have meaning, worthy of the task.

Since the following “Rules” include nominating 15 deserving bloggers, and I have a few on my list, who qualify for the award, but have no interest in receiving awards, I am going to invest a little more time and thought into putting  my list of nominees together, and will post my list in a week or two.

 O.K., The rules for accepting the Dragon’s Loyalty Award

1. Display the Award on your site

2. Announce it with a post and link to whoever presented your award

3. Present 15 awards to deserving Bloggers.

4. Drop them a comment to tip them off after you’ve linked them to the post

5. Post 7 interesting things about yourself.

 #1    Steve from Gardening in Greenwood, and Naked Nerves, is not only the first person I would nominate for the award, but he is the one that nominated me, so I am happily obliged to write about him first anyway. Thank you Steve!

Steve has created, and maintains 2 blogs.  I can barely squeeze 1 blog out of my days. Not only have I admired his gardening blog, Gardening in Greenwood since I started blogging, but he recently surprised me when I accepted his invitation to visit his other blog, Naked Nerves. Do you know that feeling when you think you know someone, then you discover  a completely different, person and world than what you assumed you would find? The super cool “Real” them?  This was my experience with Steve.

I always enjoy Steve’s gardening blog. As a gardener I could relate to his work. Steve has created a “Botanical garden” right smack in the middle of the city, and by using dwarf varieties and a keen sense of design, had created a paradise from a small city lot. He is very knowledgeable about his plants from a scientific, horticultural and esthetic point of view. He loves them with a passion I can relate to.

I expected something similar to his gardening blog. Nope, nothing like it!  Every once and a while you come across a blog that really moves and inspires you. His words really spoke to me. He has a take that is tempered by personal experience, and informed by his relationship with Nature, something I share and relate to.  So thank you Steve, for putting yourself out there in Naked Nerves, and thank you for the inspiration.

   7 things about myself?

As has been pointed out to me recently, I have not yet put together an About page. It has been over a year and I am still managing to put it off! I assume it is difficult to do for the same reasons it is difficult to write 7 things about myself. But here goes.

1. Following Steve’s lead- I am a Gemini with Gemini Ascendent, Virgo Moon, and 4 planets in Cancer.
2. I am surrounded by an ever growing circle of brilliant, genuine, generous and kind people.
3. I have had wonderful careers as a sculptor, a craftsman and now an herbalist/apothecary. They are all part of my relationship with Nature.  Working with her fragrant and medicinal materials the past 16 years, feels like completing a circle.
4. I spent a few years as the impaler for a circus sideshow. (haha-true!) It was a wonderful way of demonstrating to people, we are not our bodies, but the observers of everything we experience.
5. I will be turning 60 this coming year. I feel it is a time of major change and new beginnings for me. I don’t know what opportunities lie around the corner, but I feel exited and scared. (The best combination!)
6. I quit smoking cigarettes recently after over 40 years of struggling with it.
7.  That is it, I am only going to write 6.

Well that’s it for now. The list of nominees will be forthcoming in the next week or two.

Wishing you all an amazing bountiful new year.