A personal message from Gail…
Many of you have written to ask where I’ve been, am I okay, why haven’t I been in touch, and even to say you miss my occasional newsletters. Thank you! It has been a fallow time in my creative life as my outer life has been taking my full energy. But the seeds of new experience have been planted that I trust will bring a rich harvest.
The irony is not lost on me that my attempt to upgrade my website and become social media savvy to communicate more regularly was a big part of what shut me down! The process was agonizing and I haven’t written since the new site went live last spring. At the same time, 2011 was full of “firsts” including an amazing trip to Peru, where I was able to connect more directly with the indigenous wisdom that informs my work. Lynne Twist and I developed a new workshop Fundraising from the Heart: The Soul of Money, the Soul of Story, which we presented at Stillheart Institute in the California redwoods (coming soon on video). My two-day introductory workshop in Vancouver for 25 people sold out in a week, so I returned for a second one. I also had the honor of coaching the seven Social Venture Network innovation award winners for the award ceremony at the Philadelphia conference in October. Their world-changing stories, all so different, reminded me once again that when we know our medicine and our message and answer the call of our hearts, we get out of our own way and serve the needs of our changing times.
In January and September respectively, I lost my beloved elder dogs, 
Sienna and Sampson. Their need for care at the end of their lives became my life for a time and there was such sweetness in those final days with both of them and the messages they sent me after they left their bodies. My new puppy Paqobel is helping to heal my heart with his exuberant puppy energy, his early December electrocution notwithstanding.
As I consider what I’d most like to communicate in this rare missive, I’m reminded of words from John O’Donohue’s blessing, For the Interim Time.
The path you took to get here has washed out;
The way forward is still concealed from you.
The old is not old enough to have died away;
the new is still too young to be born. . .
What is being transfigured here is your mind,
And it is difficult and slow to become new.
The more faithfully you can endure here,
The more refined your heart will become
For your arrival in the new dawn.
He could well be speaking of the year 2012.
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