We had planned a nature walk up the Zadnjica valley from 645 meters above sea level to 980 m a.s.l. the day before. Both numbers are written on signs by the walking path. It is a slow ascent from 2116 to 3215 feet. After all, it is a valley and as such cannot rise up too steeply. We had not set the alarm clock, but somehow we had set our “inner-clocks” and woke up at 7:30, when we had originally planned. I was so sleepy that I wanted to tell my husband to cancel the trip, but I got up anyway. An inner voice told me to move my buttocks. Eventually we got up early enough and set foot early enough to...

While I was writing my story about mental illness in form of a book later titled Balancing the Beast, I was also blogging and chatting on several mental health sites. Thus I befriended other mental health consumers like me. I remember a social site for this kind of people, where I was daily conversing with two men and two women. Both women were suicidal and the two guys and I were consoling them. I remember waking up every morning in fear they might have committed suicide. It was agony. Fortunately, after a few months, the site was restructured and I lost contact with the two suicidal women. It was...

I stumble my awkward way, I accidentally step on an ant. Small be it as it may, For her the event still is grand.   God forbid me stepping under A speeding car at a zebra crossing. Yet still this kind of thunder Can happen without much fussing.   It’s all relative in the end. Be it me dead or the ant. Why is my fear so much greater, When the elements to both of us cater.   In seven billion years The Sun the Earth might absorb. This can bring us to tears Or leave placid the orb.   Memento mori. Panta rhei.   Take care, Helena Smole, author of: – a fantasy novel with...

It’s like rolling around in silk sheets, It’s even breakfast in bed that it beats. It’s telling you to start small And in the course of the day enjoy it all.   There are many paths to get there, Where the heart softens the care: From CBT to Louise Hay, From Phyllis Krystal to a forest in May.   Yet, when one feels the inner peace, It’s like the first kiss. One yearns for it all the time from then on, The most, when it is fully gone.   The answer lies in the modest way, In taking it as it happens day to day. After all, inner peace is like sun, Now there and then gone.   Take...