If you look carefully in the image above you can see a floating cow, a pig with wings, and a red and blue brain (just below blue and yellow patterned balloon). It was Oct. 5, 7:38 am, in Albuquerque, at the annual International Hot Air Balloon Fiesta. We watched the sun rise over plains lit by stars, then the surprise of neon-lit balloons to test the air, and once tested, the eventual loft of hundreds of balloons – an offering of wonder created by hundreds of volunteers each year for decades. It was, in the very fullest sense of the word, awesome. Made even more poignant by the backdrop of a country at odds with itself, a way of working that locks many of us into our homes, and a time of life when so very much is the opposite of wondrous, or generous, or uplifting.
It was a joy of joys to be in person, encouraging and clapping and gasping as each of the more than 550 balloons found their way into the sky, baskets filled with experts and newbies, and children with eyes open to a world in which – for those few days anyway – kindness and beauty and goodness triumphed.
With all our technology and the web that weaves signals across nearly all the lands and oceans of our world, there still is nothing like time together in person, human to human, heart to heart.
A bit of time is left for a few in-person programs this year.
A weekend on the Cape, exploring how we might increase our diet of beauty and goodness and appreciation so as to build a happier and more generative life: https://www.oceanedge.com/wellness-retreats/the-generous-exchange
A weekend at Kripalu, considering the boundaries that unlock a more authentic living: https://kripalu.org/experiences/better-boundaries-gateway-authentic-living
An evening at the Hartford Happiness Club, sharing the benefits of appreciating beauty in all its forms, unlocking keys to happiness: https://www.hartfordhappinessclub.com/maria-sirois-2025/
And a day-long retreat for women in Vermont, to refuel, reclaim and reimagine what life and work might be like in the year to come: https://www.bellflowerstreet.com/upcomingevent
We won’t have the lift of balloons, but we will have the upwinds of connection and the joy of learning and laughing together!
Sending a warm wave from here,
Maria
