Community discovered or is that acknowledged? You've been here all along!

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COMMUNITY - Sharing, participation, and fellowship. [Community week begins here. Click for this week's Bliss initiatives.]

Welcome Magic Carpet Riders! Looking for my One World One Heart Giveaway? Click here to go to my open house post and the giveaway! 


Suddenly 60 people out there in blog land are following me! More then 300 people have stopped by my blog as a result of the One World One Heart blog fest and many of you have elected to stay. Previously my followers have been a group of close friends  (you know who you are, we are even friends out in my real life and yesterday I confessed I don't even take your phone calls!) and a few friends of friends, which tickled me beyond belief! I have been plugging away at my little experiment and now suddenly I have all you new fellow bloggers to add to my little Everyday Bliss family. It is positively exhilarating! Thank you all of you! 


What has suddenly occurred to me is that we fellow bloggers are a community! We have been since the beginning but I just haven't reached out to you! We understand what it means to come up with something new to say each day and toss it out to the cosmos. We live our day to day lives and choose to share our exploits with the world. Up until this point I have been operating in a very small bubble and now so many of you have kindly invited me into your world and you have elected to be an ongoing visitor in mine. Fabulous! I am really looking forward to seeing what develops between us over time. 


My dear friend Jaye, who I have known for decades and is also a OWOH participant blogger (visit her blog here, read about our friendship here) took time out to comment on this blog yesterday and she said regarding community participation, "FB (Facebook) has really helped. I can participate in a lot more friends' lives because of FB. I think it creates better connection even if it doesn't replace the entire relationship." I could not agree more and as someone with more then 500 friends on Facebook I realize I have a few different types of communities growing and thriving there. 


On facebook, there are a group of my closest friends who I have dubbed "best buds" and I check in on them on a daily basis. I have also grouped people into the geographic areas where we met (not where we may live today) so I can check in on whole groups, like high school friends, when the mood strikes. Another community that is developing, thanks to my dear daughter Jessie is what I would call "Jessie Fans." Ever since Jessie started talking I've been posting her one liners as my status updates. People I haven't spoken with in years write to tell me how much my Jessie quips make their day.  Here are some examples for those of you who do not know me on facebook:

"What we doing here?" Mommy is getting a flu shot. "NO!!! I don't want them to shoot mommy!"

On his way out the door daddy said, "Goodbye everybody!" Jessie replied, "Goodbye onebody!"

"Play hide and seek with me momma. I hide behind the door. Find me. I know you can do it!"

"I'm going to kid work, not boy work like Daddy" What is your work Jessie? "To be cute and funny."

"This is my job" Jessie says as she smears oatmeal on the table. I thought your job was to be cute and funny? "That was that day, this is this day."

I also loosely participate in a couple of on line groups like Ken Wilber's Integral Institute, Gretchen Rubin's The Happiness Project, and Gratitude Log.com. All of which provide me with as much or little community interaction as I wish. Certainly on line relationships do not substitute for real life relationships but not acknowledging the significant fellowship they provide would be a complete oversight in a week that acknowledges community. My life is full and rich because of EVERYONE in it. Thank you for sharing it with me!


Next post: Romance week comes early

My 13 bliss virtues: joy, order, creativity, passion, whimsy, serenity, inquiry, community, romance, gratitude, moxie, humility, surprise