Seeds of Promise - A Poem of Hope

The new background image reminded me of a poem that I had written many years ago called "Seeds of Promise." I've included it here for readers.

Seeds of Promise

Golden beams of joy
Illuminate the day
Transform to a fragile flower.
Intricate lacy patterns,
Woven with gossamer threads
of dreams.

Translucent desires,
Visible for those with feelings,
hidden from those with none.
Whispers on the breeze
of promise.

Seeds scatter
cast on the wind.
Spreading wishes and dreams.
Messengers of hope
and renewal.

A promise of new life,
of beginnings.

© 1996 Kirsti A. Dyer, MD, MS

About the Poem

Seeds of Promise, is a poem that I wrote to inspire and to bring hope.

The poem is about messengers of hope being scattered on the wind, to grow in other places. With the scattering of seeds comes the hope for the future and in time a promise of a better tomorrow.


The poem appears in the Emergency Pick-me-up section of the Journey of Hearts website.

Image: boymk. Big Dandelion. Royalty Free Use.

Grief, Loss & Transitions is Now a Passionate Blog

In my Internet blog searchings, I came across the Small is Beautiful Manifesto and immediately signed up the Grief, Loss & Transitions Blog as a Passionate Blog.

I have been following my passion with creating and maintaining the Journey of Hearts site and now the Grief, Loss and Transitions Blog for more than 10 years. (At least we've seen more than 600,000 visitors to the Journey of Hearts site.)

The Small is Beautiful Manifesto

We believe stories are valuable, no matter how many people read them.
We believe following your passion is more important that watching your site meter.
We believe in the handmade, the first try, the small start, and the good effort.
We believe that small is beautiful.

Source: Small is Beautiful. Magpie Girl. http://www.magpie-girl.com/small-is-beautiful-bloggers-manifesto/

Journey of Hearts is also GriefandLoss.info

Journey of Hearts was created in 1997 by Domain Designer Dr. Kirsti A. Dyer as an online place for anyone grieving a loss. It was the first and only physician based website devoted to educating people about the normal grief response.

After nearly 10 years of service to the Grieving Internet community providing information on Grief and Loss, Journey of Hearts is taking on a more descriptive term and descriptive URL.

Journey of Hearts has been an online place for Grief and Loss info, now it is officially an online place for GriefandLoss.info

This means if you type in GriefandLoss.info into your browser you will discover the Journey of Hearts website.

A New Blog Feature - Grief, Loss & Comfort Quotes *Check out the bottom of the blog*

With the redesign, we have finally been able to create a Quote Generator that rotates many of the favorite quotations and words of comfort featured on the Journey of Hearts site.

You can find the Quote Generator at the bottom of the blog page. The quote generator is designed to reveal a new quote every day...an incentive to come back and visit the Grief, Loss & Transitions' blog.

Example

Even in the darkest times, memories of past winters melting into spring can comfort, sustain us and bring hope. Kirsti A. Dyer MD, MS

A Special Thanks
We would like to give a special acknowledgment of thanks to "Tips for New Bloggers" for making the code available.


Source:
Java Script for Quote of the Day: Tips for New Bloggers. February 10, 2007.
http://tips-for-new-bloggers.blogspot.com/search/label/Quotes%20Widget

What has the Comfortdoc/Griefdoc been doing?

Visitors and supporters of the The Journey of Hearts site will have noticed that the site has been pretty quiet for the last several years, since the birth of my youngest daughter.

While the site may have been quiet, I have been pretty busy. In the past several years I have experience the following major life events:

• Birth of a second child who is also my NICU Survivor (Making me a former NICU Parent)
  
• Moved to a New Town when my daughter was 5 months old.
  
• Begun shifting my professional focus to teaching - Nutrition and Wellness and Grief, Loss and Bereavement Courses both at the College and Graduate levels.
  
• Developed The Violet Heart Collection as an online business venture. (Also undergoing revision.)

I have also attained the following additional credentials, certifications and positions:

• Certification Fellow in Thanatology from the Association of Death Education and Counselors. As far as I know I am the first physician to receive this designation.
• Online Associate Adjunct Professor with Madonna University.
  
• Certified in Online Teaching from Cerro Coso College and Madonna University.
  
• Editor on the topic of Medicine for the Journal of Educators Online.
• Founding Member of the Medical Wellness Association.
• International Adviser of the Medical Wellness Association.
  
• Editor for Medical Wellness Association Journal.
  
• Executive Advisory Board for the American College of Wellness.
  
• Served as the About.com guide for Death, Dying & Bereavement

Within the last few months I have undertaken the following projects:

• Launched NICU Parent Support Site
• Created Squidoo Series of Lenses
• Joined Type-A Mom as a Contributing Writer and Blogger
  
• Launched Free NICU eBook
• Begun the Redesign for the Journey of Hearts site.
• Begun the Grief, Loss & Transitions - Journey of Hearts Blog.
  

Griefdoc is becoming Comfortdoc

Since the early days of Journey of Hearts, I have used the pseudonym "Griefdoc" as part of my online alias. The focus with this handle was on grief and grieving. See The Grief Doc at http://journeyofhearts.org/about/griefdoc.html

Over the last several years, I have begun using the pseudonym "Comfortdoc" the name you notice I am using as my profile for this blog. The focus with this newer handle is on comfort and comforting, I think a more appropriate name for the purpose of Journey of Hearts.

So with the redesign and refocus of Journey of Hearts, I am shifting my 'handle' from Griefdoc (with the focus on grief) to Comfortdoc (with the focus being on providing comfort).

Why the name "Journey of Hearts"?

What is a "Journey of Hearts"?
In 1997 following a series of events, I decided to create the first physician-sponsored healing place for people who are grieving on the Internet. It was going to be a place to provide information and nourish the soul.

The byline, "A Healing Place in Cyberspace" came first, chosen for the alliteration. The title for the website was influenced by a book of poetry that I had self-published with a friend in 1996, "Messages from the Heart: A Journey in Healing."

The name "Journey of Hearts" is to remind us how ubiquitous the experience of loss really is...the heart journeys following loss. Visitors to the site have often had their own interpretation of "Journey of Hearts."

Sharing the Losses of Many Hearts
After a loss, our own heart begins to heal after sharing of the losses of many other hearts.

Journey of Hearts was created to remind visitors that we are not alone in our losses or our feelings of grief, that many times someone else will have experienced similar losses (or worse) and survived.

As the grieving person recognizes that others have lived through loss and survived he or she will begin to realize that he/she can survive their own loss.

Journey of Hearts - A Source for Grief, Loss & Transitions

Journey of Hearts was launched in the Fall of 1997 as "a Healing Place in CyberSpace."

Journey of Hearts: A Healing Place in CyberSpace ... }"{

With the redesign in 2002 the became "An Online Healing Place for Anyone Grieving a Loss."

Journey of Hearts: A Healing Place

As we approach our 10th year on the Internet, Journey of Hearts will be taking on a new byline:

Journey of Hearts -
Resources, Information and Support
For Anyone Grieving a Loss and Living through a Transition

and

Grief Resources, Information and Support
from Journey of Hearts

This new byline will be one that helps people unfamiliar with the site to better understand what the focus of the site has been all along, a web resource for anyone grieving a loss. The new design will allow Journey of Hearts to be more easily discovered by search engines as one of the online resources for Grief, Loss & Transitions.

Welcome to Grief, Loss & Transitions - the New Blog for Journey of Hearts

Welcome to the New Blog I am starting for visitors and supporters of the Journey of Hearts Website, the original online devoted to Grief and Loss developed by a physician.

Celebrating 10 Years of Service
This fall, Journey of Hearts celebrates our 10th anniversary of service to the grieving Internet Community. We will be updating and redesigning the site in celebration of our 10 years online.

With more than > 600 pages to convert, update and re-edit it will take some time, but we are optimistic that the new site will be available by the anniversary of our launch in October.

In the meantime, new information, articles and resources will be posted to this blog.

Grief, Loss & Transitions - The Journey of Hearts Blog
Much has changed in the 10 years Journey of Hearts has been online. Blogging or keeping a web log wasn't an option. Now blogging is an easy way of quickly updating visitors and providing useful information.

In addition to providing updates to the redesign of Journey of Hearts I also plan to provide information and resources for anyone grieving a loss and living through life transitions.

A Labor of Love - A Gift to the Grieving Internet Community
Since the beginning planning stages of the site in September 1997 to it's launch in October of that year, the Journey of Hearts site has been physically and financially maintained by Dr. Kirsti A. Dyer and her husband Cole D. Thompson.

The entire operating costs including the thousands of hours over the last 10 years to write, design, host and maintain the web resource have been donated.

From the beginning to 10 years later, Journey of Hearts has been a labor of love, created in my free time. Because of the continued messages and positive feedback on the site, we believe it is a resource that needs to continue.