Cranes, cranes and MORE cranes!

Last Friday the postal carrier left me two boxes, both from the same lady. My friend Laura's daughter folded 250 cranes for Stacey! 250! I really thought that Alison and I were the only two people folding cranes in ALL of our spare time... Laura's daughter (who's name escapes me at the moment!) YOU ROCK!!! She, no doubt, has some good karma points heading her way. As do all of the people who just cruise through here and for a moment think something loving.

We have received at this point cranes from all over the US. I'm so touched (as I'm sure I've said before) by the effort that people will go to for each other. I'm pleased as can be to find that people really are like that... I had no idea.

Today I received a package from a lady in Georgia with one crane... I really almost cried... I am honestly as moved by the one lovingly folded crane as I am all 800+ we've received before today.

Sweet, lovely, strangers turned saints...

Love and light,
Jul

Repost about Stacey today.

Hi Everyone!
I have gotten several emails asking for an update on Stacey and right now while my family is in the shower and I'm procrastinating on the shopping list I thought that I would send out a cross post so that I'm not leaving people dangling.

Stacey is steady. She is grateful for the health that she has today and that she's not in the hospital. To you and I she looks a little sleepy and has to take her time not doing much moving, but she's able to sit and chat, to "do crafties" with me and snuggle her fur babies. When I came back from Lake Tahoe Sunday I brought her with me. She stayed the night here and then was able to go to Lexee's recital with me - which was an adventure to say the least! :) Yesterday she hung out with her little sister and the cutest 2 boys I have EVER seen! Today her Mom is taking her to UC Davis to have the ERCP at 10:00am PST that I mentioned in the last post on this blog and then is bringing her back up to So. Lake Tahoe to get some R&R. Once we get the news that the ERCP is ALL CLEAR we will also be getting the news that Stacey is BACK on the donor list and that she'll be getting her new liver within the next few months - probably around the 4th of July (she seems to have a lot of abdominal surgeries at that time) or sooner.

If you know that you have friends who have been sending us love and light and little folded cranes please forward this note to them with our deepest gratitude. The cranes keep rolling in and we'll have 1000 soon!

Love,
Jul

YEAH STACEY!

Stacey is home from the hospital! Such good news that she is healthy enough to be back at home. She is still awaiting one of the main tests that she needs to move forward with in order to be eligible again for liver donation.

Our thoughts are with you, Stacey, and know that you will have a clear ERCP on the 27th.

Love and Light,
Jul

The first cranes arrive

What joy to find a dozen brightly colored, beautifully folded cranes awaiting me in my mailbox today. My friend Marilyn's friend Andrew (Paper arts and "Origami guy extrordinairre") sent me a lovely package of cranes that I received today... I'm sure that Stacey will LOVE them.

Then a little while later, my Mom showed up with over 65! A bag full that her good friend folded from a beautiful wrapping paper and around a dozen from my mom... such a WONDERFUL contribution. We had fun folding a few more up here today. My studio is a loft space that hangs over our living room so I flew my crane of the loft - it landed safely on the coffee table - I crack me up sometimes!!! My mom, even funnier, said, "I worked too hard to fold mine just right to throw him!" and she tucked him into the box instead.

This is soooo cool. I love seeing what everyone is doing to support Stacey. She is already so touched. When I went to visit her on Tuesday I brought her the first 67 from the last post's photo. I knew that she would love to fold some for herself, but I also believe deeply in the power of positive anticipation. Remembering back to the Victor Frankl book I read years ago reminded me of this concept and helped me to decide to bring the first set.

I know that Stacey is only going to get the best news.

Thanks to everyone who even reads about this movement and thinks good thoughts for Stace.

Love,
Jul

Crane Update

Hi!
Thanks for popping in to see what's going on with the crane project for Stacey Ballard. My friend, Alison, delivered some cranes last night and I put them together with the cranes that we folded the other night and the ones that I've been working on between things and so far we have 67 cranes! They are all sizes and colors and are exploding out of their box as you can see!

I've heard from some people that the links that I provided for instructions are not the best. Being as I have no real expertise (of any kind, whatsoever, at all at all at all :) I didn't realize that, and I'm really sorry if that discouraged anyone. The link to the written instructions are hard, but I did get a crane out if it, but I learned from an expert that they are not just hard, but that the diagrams are actually wrong (!) oops. I've also heard that the video doesn't actually work for some people. Now, the video worked for me and I'm on wireless, but it may be that too many people were using it at once or that there was some other technical difficulty that I could not foresee, but I found the video easy (even though I had to stop it 97 times to catch up!) and I made my first successful attempts from that video. If any one finds well written instructions PLEASE let me know and if there is another video that streams better for people let me know about that too!

A few comments have come across asking for my address. Please leave me your email address in case your email is NOT available through your blog so that I can send you a private email address with my snail mail address.

So many people are helping to get the word out as well as actually folding cranes and I am moved beyond words to know that you all are so loving!

Thank you, thank you, a thousand times, THANK YOU!!!

Love and light and Blessings Bright!
xoxo
jul

Cranes for Peace and Wellbeing

In Japan there is a tradition of folding origami cranes for all sorts of celebrations from new babies, to weddings and get well wishes. There is also a popular culture story about a little girl that folded cranes that you can check out at Wikipedia. My dear friend Stacey Ballard is in the fight for her life right now awaiting a liver transplant. This 38 year old woman has touched the world with her art work for decades. When you see Stacey's art you realize that she plumbs the depths of her soul in order to show us where she has been. She has made enormous contributions to her home town of South Lake Tahoe where she is a cornerstone of her community. I had been worrying about Stacey knowing that worry is just a waste of perfectly good energy. I decided that as a way to channel that energy and as a gesture of my wishes for her to get well that I would begin to fold 1000 origami cranes.

Well, 1000 cranes is A LOT! :) I would like to see how many cranes we can get together over the next two weeks. I am planning a trip up to South Lake Tahoe soon and I'm a asking the arting community at large to help with the project of folding 1000 origami cranes. Now, I can already hear most of you say – I don't know how to fold origami cranes! Well, the truth is that I had no idea how to fold a crane until yesterday when I down loaded written instructions and a video from the internet. After about 3 pitiful cranes I found my rhythm with the art and I found the act to be meditative and enjoyable. I sat here drinking coffee and laughing with my friend, Alison, and before we knew it we looked up and realized that we had made nearly 30 in just a little while.

Please join us in our efforts. I would love to see the international art community take up the practice of making these cranes. Even if you can only make a few please send them our way. You can contact me through this blog for a mailing address.

a Buddhist meditation practice for developing loving-kindness includes the following phrases:

may you be filled with loving kindness

may you be well

may you be peaceful and at ease

may you happy

Namaste...

Jul