Art expresses emotions without words, and poetry, is, as someone said, "feelings through a crack pipe." While I haven't experienced anything through a crack pipe, I get analogy, which is what poems, with their metaphors and analogies, are all about. It could also be said that good poetry “disturbs.”

Music also goes where words can’t. "Music is," said Ludwig van Beethoven, dominant figure between Classical and Romantic eras, who composed his Ninth Symphony when totally deaf, “the mediator between spiritual and sensual life.”

"Music should strike fire from heart of man, and bring tears from eyes of woman,” he said. To me, it has done both. I have turned to Beethoven’s “Eroica” for inspiration in hard times, and put on a John Philip Sousa march when I didn’t want to do housework.

Yet it was Beethoven who also said, “A great poet is most precious jewel of a nation.”

“If you want fear on purpose, get a future.” Byron Katie

Have you ever noticed what you spend hours or days, or your lifetime for that matter, worrying about is never as bad when it comes to pass, as you imagined it would be?

I come from a long line of worriers. Maybe it’s genetic, maybe its cultural, who knows. I consider myself an expert on matter. I remember being a little girl and worrying about everything, what if I got sick, what if nobody wanted to play with me, what if I died!

I managed to carry art form of worrying into my adult life often projecting myself into situations, wondering “what if?” and having to dealing with stress and anxiety of what I imagined was going to happen.

A few years ago I had a powerful experience that turned this all around.

I took myself on a pilgrimage to Hawaii. I was at a pivotal time in my personal growth and I was cultivating a deeper relationship with myself. I left my husband and family for two weeks and set off by myself to find Helaine.

I was registered to take a five-day workshop studying interspecies communication swimming with wild dolphins in beautiful waters off of Big Island. For rest of trip I would be on my own, with no plans exploring magical island of Hawaii.

On one of workshop days we were all to swim across Kealakekua Bay, which is about a mile wide. The bay is a famous dolphin hang out. The prospect of meeting up with a pod of dolphins was pretty exciting, yet I was a bit worried if I had stamina to swim a mile. What if I got tired, what if I get left behind group. What if I drowned?

About a quarter of way into swim I did get tired; and even though Hawaiian waters are warm I was getting cold. I knew there was no way I could make it across bay so I decided I had better swim back to shore.