We love waffles around here but on a typical school morning, I don’t have the time to make up a fresh batch of waffles. We used to rely on store-bought frozen waffles during the week and only indulged in the much tastier homemade waffles on the weekends. That is until I discovered how easy it is to freeze and then reheat those waffles.

On the weekend, when you have plenty of time, make up a large batch of your favorite waffle batter. Bake up the waffles and use the last few for breakfast with your family. Allow the remaining waffles to cool.

After you’ve enjoyed your breakfast with the family, get out a large cookie sheet and line it with wax paper. Lay your cooled leftover waffles on the cookie sheet and stick it in the freezer. Come back after about 30 minutes to an hour and see if your waffles are frozen solid.

If they are, get out a large freezer bag and write Waffles as well as today’s date on the bag. If you’d like you can also include how many waffles you are adding to the bag. Remove your frozen waffles from the cookie sheet and put them in your freezer bag.

To prevent freezer burn, be sure to use a good quality freezer bag (I prefer gallon size for these)and squeeze as much air as possible out of the bag before you close it. Return the bag to the freezer and repeat layering and freezing cooked waffles on the cookie sheet until they are all frozen.

When you are ready to enjoy quick homemade waffles, grab a few from the freezer and tick them in your toaster oven. Toast them once or twice until they are hot and golden brown.

The key to enjoying your landscaping all year-round isn’t sexy, exciting nor secretive-it’s planning and design structure. To succeed in having a four-season landscape design, we will need to understand design, color, and form-and how the techniques apply to create your home landscape. How Design, Color, and Form relate to our desired goal of enjoying your gardens year-round will rely on staggering our flowers, shrubs, and trees so we can take advantage of their natural life cycle. The goal is to “stagger” our plants so we will have things flowering in the Spring, Summer and as Fall comes around, we will have colorful leaf changes and moving into Winter, we can rely on the plants shape or Form to create something beautiful to look at while everything has either died or moved into its dormant life stage.

Starting with Spring, we can break the season down into two sections, plants that flower in early and late Spring. That way once your early Spring flowers and blooms start to fall away, your late Spring plants will begin their ascent into full bloom. Because of this staggered approach, we’re going to need to spread these plants throughout the entire design because we don’t want one section to pop off while the rest of your gardens lie dormant. If we don’t look at the bigger picture, we might get lucky and have things look nice naturally, but with proper foresight, we can take advantage of the different life-cycles to enjoy the flowers for as long as possible without the need for new plants as the season changes.

Once the long days of Summer are upon us, we won’t be seeing as many blooms as we did in Spring because this is the time to enjoy the literal fruits of our labors. Flower buds turn to fruits and trees are filled with the deep green hues we associate with Summer vacation. Here we could have fruit trees or flowers and grasses that thrive in the high heat and long days of high summer start to show off their goods.

As the days grow shorter and Fall begins to descend upon our yards and gardens, we are hard pressed to find any more flowering plants; instead, we can focus on the turning of the leaves for our colorful focal point. Now, we can rely on the trees, decorative grasses and shrubs because they are the power players regarding leaf-changing beauty. These plants will be our last stand regarding color that we’ll see this season because we know that Winter Is Coming and we will finally see what I meant by “Form,” as discussed earlier.

Leaves will drop and start to turn into a colorful mess, littering our yards and gardens. No longer is the air filled with sweet-smelling flowers, the scent of fresh cut grass nor the hum of bumblebees toiling the day away. However, that doesn’t mean that we are at a loss, because we have an ace in the hole -just as we chose flowering plants for a staggered bloom cycle and our bushes and trees for their beautiful color changing leaves. So too did we plant a few “sleeper” knockouts that only start to show off their gifts AFTER the leaves have fallen away.

All we will have to look at now is the actual shapes or “skeletons” of the bushes, trees, and shrubs we planted way back in Spring. Referring again to the Planning portion of the process where the goal was to see into the future and anticipate what the plants would look like in their barren state, from there using those plants as a focal point for the colder months. After the snow has fallen (if we’re lucky), we will be able to look upon our yard and see the beautiful shapes the snow creates on our hibernating lawns, gardens, and patios.

Life can be stressful!

Every one reading this article, however, can enjoy a more stress-free life with effective home time management.

Think hard about the things that cause you stress at home. I’ll name a few that I can think of along with the corresponding suggested solutions.

Stressor: Spouse/Kids in Need of Attention

When a spouse or a child is desiring attention it’s particularly stressful because (1) We want to spend time with them, (2) We’d probably rather be doing that than whatever else we’re doing such as mopping floors, and (3) We feel like failures at marriage or parenting if we feel we don’t spend enough time with them.

We lay in bed later imagining our kids ending up in prison because we didn’t take time away from mopping the floor to look at the boo-boo we bandaged only 15 minutes before.

Solutions include:

1.) Have your spouse or child help in some of the things you do…like cooking. They need to learn anyway and it’s something they can learn at almost any age.

2.) Have your spouse or child take over some of your responsibilities which will free up some of your time which you can then spend on them. That’s what you call a win-win situation.

3.) Plan time for them into your day. Getting more efficient in other areas can help you make the time.

Stressor: A House in Need of Cleaning

If you’re anything like me a dirty house stresses you. Don’t get me wrong…I don’t need a perfectly cleaned house, but I like it clean and smelling good. It’s a reflection on my womanhood. (No hate mail please…I’m entitled to my thoughts even if they do seem dysfunctional to some.)

Many women…and men…feel the same way. There are several solutions.

1.) Ask for help from your spouse

2.) Give your kids chores and expect them to follow through (this is NOT hard when you find their motivators)

3.) Commit to weekly cleaning…before things get bad

4.) Learn speed cleaning techniques

Stressor: Meal Time Madness

You’ve seen the zombie-resembling people walking around in the grocery stores desperately seeking what’s for dinner…as if it’s hiding. I’ve been guilty of it myself. That’s how I knew I didn’t want to live that way. With effective home time management that’s never an issue.

Solutions can consist of:

1.) Creating menus

2.) Basing the menus on what the week looks like for your family.

3.) Creating some super quick meals for those days when things just keep popping up.

Today was a perfect example of things popping up. My daughter is a bookkeeper and today her computer wouldn’t turn on. Being the dutiful mother that I am, I finished up what I was doing and headed out the door…but the car wouldn’t start. BUMMER! After cleaning my cables, checking all fluids, and then waiting for a jump, I was finally able to go to my favorite parts store, have them hook up their little machine to the car, and found out I had a bad battery. Got that fixed and then headed over to my daughter’s house. After digging around with her cords I fixed the problem and a full two hours later was back at home.

Fortunately, a roast was already in the crockpot because dinner had already been planned and was being executed (pun intended) before I’d even left the house.

Many people listen to the theme song from Rocky, “Gonna Fly Now,” to make the most of a workout. Research has shown that music can help us work out longer with less pain. Others use it for some general, get-up-and-go motivation.

What do you listen to when you’ve gotten-up-and-going but find yourself under too much pressure and need some stress relief? Maybe you play a popular, relaxing song or your favorite piece of classical music.

Why do we do use music like this? How does it work? And is there a way to optimize the impact for stress relief?

It’s been said that music is the soundtrack of our lives. When you hear a song you heard when you were younger, it can bring back a tidal wave of memories and related emotions. These emotions can be good and relaxing, but they can also be upsetting and stressful.

A Soundtrack for Dogs?

The connection between music and an earlier emotion is probably the result of what psychologists call classical conditioning. You may remember from Psychology 101 that Pavlov, a Russian scientist, rang a bell before presenting meat to dogs. As one would expect, the dogs salivated to the meat, but after a while, the dogs would salivate to the bell alone. An association or connection between the bell and the meat was forged.

This discovery has led to our understanding of how people develop phobias after getting scared in situations that they later come to fear. In addition, it has led to treatments for a wide range of phobias and other disorders. It also explains why music we have heard at one time in our lives can bring back powerful emotions.

Are Background Sounds Helpful in Relaxation Training?

Perhaps you have learned some skills for relaxation in yoga, Lamaze or other classes or from video or audio recordings. Maybe you learned to deepen and slow your breathing, tense and release your muscles or visualize peaceful scenes. Many relaxation recordings have instrumental music or sounds of nature to help you relax while you learn the techniques.

When I was studying to become a psychologist, the use of such background music and sounds on relaxation recordings was suspect because the relaxation techniques had been developed and then taught without backgrounds. In fact, research with recordings had mixed results until better ones were made in sound studios, but the use of backgrounds was still controversial.

The value of such backgrounds seemed self-evident to me, but to put the concerns of some psychologists to rest, I conducted a study comparing responses to relaxation instructions with and without backgrounds. The results clearly supported the use of background music and sounds of nature.

Not All Relaxing Music is Relaxing

In my psychology practice, I used a number of earlier relaxation programs with patients and found that music backgrounds were usually very helpful, but for some patients the music would bring back upsetting memories. To avoid this soundtrack stress and introduce some new methods for stress relief, I recorded relaxation instructions during therapy sessions and suggested patients play their favorite, most relaxing music as backgrounds when practicing at home.

I also bought a natural sound generator for my office. The device allowed me to play the sounds of rain, thunder, crickets, a brook, the ocean and the wind alone or in combination with other sounds such as thunder, a buoy and the cries of seagulls or loons. There is probably nothing more soothing than sounds recorded from God’s creation. I invited patients to choose their favorite nature sounds and played them while I recorded the relaxation instructions for them.

One patient picked a combination of wind and coyotes. Coyotes? I got the creeps from the howls of the coyotes but the patient was from the mid-west and explained that he listened to the wind and the coyotes when he was tucked safely in bed at night growing up on the plains!

Why are the Sounds of the Seashore So Popular?

Fortunately, I found that the most popular nature sounds were a combination of ocean waves with the call of seagulls. Years later I was asked why that combination was the most popular. Surprisingly, I had never thought about it, so I felt a bit foolish, because you don’t need to be a psychologist to realize that most people sunbath and relax at the beach where they hear those sounds.

The only patient who didn’t like that combination had been bitten by a seagull as a child! Here was another example of soundtrack stress. I told him that I was sorry that the soundtrack upset him and I gave him a voice-only version.

After eight years of getting feedback from patients and incorporating their suggestions into my instructions, I commissioned a new guitar piece from a composer. I told him that I did not want anyone to be able to recognize the melody or find that it reminded them of a song they had heard.

I voiced the program in a studio and then sound processed the recordings on my desktop PC, carefully blending in the guitar music and seashore sounds. One patient told me that it was very relaxing but wondered how I could record it without breathing. I explained that I had spent hours taking out any distracting sounds, including my breathing.

Soundtrack Stress Relief is Born

The program became an award-winning, seven-part audio relaxation program. One of the first patients to use it was a medical student. He wanted to know if I had a recording of just the background nature sounds and guitar music.

When I asked him why, he explained that he had practiced all seven parts and found the program really helped with his stress, but he couldn’t listen to it while studying. He used the rapid relaxation techniques he’d learned from the program but he still found himself anxious while studying certain subjects. When he had tried listening to the program while studying, the instructions were too distracting. He thought the soundtrack would give him another way to relax when his anxiety interfered with his studying.

This was so helpful for the student that I began offering the soundtrack to other patients who had used the program. For example, I recommended that an author with writer’s block play the soundtrack to decrease the likelihood of spending time staring at the computer screen. I also suggested that a man with obsessive thoughts listen to the familiar background sounds and music when he was doing household tasks to avoid getting into upsetting repetitive thinking.

The soundtracks saved time because it allowed these patients to relax while doing what they wanted to do. They did not have to listen to one of the parts of the program to get some of the benefits.

Beware: Soundtrack Stress Relief can be Too Relaxing!

I should mention that early on, I got the same request as I got from the medical student from a patient who was anticipating a lot of anxiety in a couple of weeks because he had to drive into New York City. He knew from the introduction to my program that it was dangerous to drive while listening to the program because it might be too distracting or it might put him to sleep. He used the soundtrack I gave him and was very pleased with the results.

Unfortunately, a later patient found even just the soundtrack made him too sleepy to drive, so I no longer recommend its use while driving. Just like medications that offer powerful relief from symptoms but can be misused or have unwanted side effects, the power of soundtrack stress relief to relax must be used carefully and responsibly.

Sex and Stress Relief

Sometimes my patients have problems finding time to listen to the stress relief program as often as needed for it to be of help. Many times I suggest that they ask their spouse to practice with them. One of these patients admitted sheepishly the next session that the two of them were so relaxed that they made love for the first time in months!

Another patient who had struggled for years with erectile dysfunction used the program and had made steady progress in resuming intimacy. When he found himself having difficulties again, he scheduled a “booster session.” I used hypnosis to help him resume his progress but I also suggested the use of the soundtrack during lovemaking. He has not called back for another appointment and I am hoping he is doing so well that he does not need to see me anymore.

Public Speaking and Golf

For people with a fear of public speaking, the soundtracks are also a great way to extend periods of mental rehearsal before giving a speech. For those wanting to use imagery to improve their golf game or performance in other sports, the soundtracks give them more time to envision mastery and success during a “practice” session.

I hope this information will help you relieve your stress in new and effective ways.

Copyright © 2018 by Ronald G. Nathan, Ph.D.

Life is not just about discovering beautiful experiences, it isn’t always sunshine and daisies. Life can be disappointing at times, and during those difficult times, it can take an extra effort to remain optimistic and hopeful.

However, amidst all those positive and negative experiences, life is a wondrous journey, for those who know how to get the best out of everything.

Just enjoy each and every moment of your life to the fullest. Memories are built with these happy moments, which will follow you wherever you go. Material things give momentary joy and happiness, that will fade away after a while. Therefore, on this wondrous path of life, enjoy every moment with your loved ones, your surroundings, and with yourself. Start your day off on a bright note. A positive beginning is very important to build the momentum for the rest of the day. Visualize your goals every morning, and be pro active to make your dreams come true. Cherish your relationships, as they are some of your best assets.

I read once, “Mountains and valleys are a part of life, going through them smilingly is the art of living”. Accept the fact that life can be like a roller coaster ride, and you have to go through ups and downs. Life is not just about enjoying happy moments, it also gives us challenges that teach us lessons, as we go through the tough times. But remember, you are in charge of how you feel, and the actions you take in those difficult times. Life is a wonderful journey, in which we are given choices and options, to become whoever, and whatever we want to become. At times, we may make the wrong choice. Does that mean the end of our journey? No, of course not. These challenges, or our bad experiences, act as stepping stones on the journey to our success. Don’t waste another moment of your life… get up, and take charge of your life. It is a wondrous journey!

Old Winston Churchill was credited with the quote, “Never, never, never give up.” A quote that should be engraved on our foreheads, especially when we are pursuing our goals and dreams. Dreaming is what gets us started on our way to success. If you’re not dreaming, it means you are not living, you are existing. One of the biggest gifts we have, is the ability to dream and pursue our dreams. Giving up on your dream should never be part of your vocabulary, since every one of us is destined for great things.

The famous writer, “unknown” said, “When you feel like giving up, remember why you held on for so long in the first place.”

Time and again, challenges, dilemmas, disputes, and outside daily pressures, make people lose focus, and they stop to think about what they really want. When the dream seems to slip away, they play with the idea of giving up.

October finally brings relief from summer heat, allowing both gardeners and gardens to enjoy a temperate climate for planting an array of cool season vegetables, trees and shrubs.

Plant Bedding Plants: Plant now for colorful blooms by Thanksgiving. Use nursery six-packs instead of costlier annuals in larger containers. In fall, smaller plants grow bigger and will flower longer than their larger counterparts.

Landscape Trees and Shrubs: Plant drought-resistant trees and shrubs so they have the long, cooler winter months to establish themselves before summer heat. Avoid frost-sensitive plants and those best suited to summer planting. Drought-resistant trees and shrubs include Eucalyptus, California pepper, California sycamore (drought tolerant once established), coast live oak, Italian buckthorn and oleander.

Let Roses Rest: Stop fertilizing roses, water sparingly and don’t cut dead flowers. This will let plants make rose hips (fruits) to allow a smooth transition to winter dormancy.

Plant cool season vegetables: Pull out summer vegetables that have stopped producing. Buy six packs of seasonal vegetables including cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, garlic, peas, spinach, Brussels sprouts, lettuce and rutabaga. Plant them in well cultivated and amended soil.

Spruce up perennials: Thin out perennials including Shasta daisies, callas and yarrow. Prune overgrown and dead stems, preferably almost to the ground. When the plants grow back, they will fuller with a less straggly appearance.

Herb season: Hardy herbs that can be planted in fall include garlic, oregano, parsley, rosemary, chives, cilantro, dill, fennel and thyme. Basil goes to flower in fall so harvest and dry the leaves and use them for winter cooking.

Cut back on watering: Unless we experience unusually strong and prolonged hot Santa Ana winds, gardeners can reduce the amount of water for their lawn, garden, trees and shrubs. Make sure water timers are shut off when it rains.

On their own, Aronia berries are extremely tart. They are certainly not a berry most people want to just pop in their mouth. Typically, sweeteners are used to produce a good flavor and a sweet-tart combination.

The best sweetener to use is stevia, not sugar. From a health standpoint sugar is your enemy. Stevia is an all-natural alternative to sugar and artificial sweeteners. When reaching for the Aronia berry products chose 100 percent or mixed with other juice such as apple juice with no added sugar. By using stevia as a sweetener you produce a healthy product that even those with diabetes find helpful and healing. The use of stevia will limit the calories that otherwise come from using sugar.

The big question is: Are Aronia berries good for your health? The answer is, without question, definitely YES. They are the new super berries gaining in popularity because they have more antioxidants than any other fruit grown in North America. They have many health benefits. The Aronia fruit is a great source of vitamin C and antioxidants. It also has properties that may be protective of cholesterol levels, heart disease, kidney stones, gum disease, bone health, blood clots, cancers, and stomach ulcers.

An important benefit of Aronia fruit, like cranberries, is they protect against bacteria that cause bladder infections and urinary tract infections. Since they have many health benefits, include them in your diet and enjoy the many benefits of this fruit. However be cautious if they are sweetened with sugar instead of stevia. Sugar is your enemy when it comes to your health. Taking refined sugar out of your diet is one of the best things you can do for your health.

• Introduction

Aronia fruit products you can enjoy:

1. Juice – Use 100 percent Aronia fruit juice or Aronia berry juice mixed with other juice, such as apple juice or some other fruit. Results from some studies suggest you take about 1/4 cup of sugar-free 100% aronia juice three times a day to help reduce blood pressure and help lower blood sugar levels for diabetes patients.
2. Make your own juice. – Fresh Aronia juice can be easily made from the Aronia fruit. If the fruit is not masticated in a juicer, the juice made with fully ripened berries will have little of the astringency of the fruit. Using a cider press is the recommended method to make juice. The fruit should be frozen before making juice to produce more liquid and reduce the astringency of the juice. It takes about 16 pounds of fruit to produce 1 gallon of juice. The juice should be sweetened with stevia, not sugar. From a health standpoint sugar is your enemy. Your juice will ferment into a hard Aronia cider within a week if it is not frozen or canned right after it is made. The juice is often mixed with apple or other fruit for improved flavor. Freeze your juice concentrate in small freezer containers. Or seal it up in pint jars processed in a water bath canner for 10 minutes.
3. Use aronia berries on entrees – Aronia berries can be added to your salads, yogurt, cereal, or any entrée. Aroniarisins (dried Aronia berries) can be used in trail mix.
4. Aronia fruit jelly – Make your own healthy Aronia berry jelly and jam. Again be sure to control the sweetener by using stevia, not sugar. One type of pectin, low-methoxyl pectin, is required to thicken jams and jellies with little or no sugar. This pectin makes it possible to create jams and jellies sweetened with stevia. Use Pomona pectin, not regular pectin. Pomona pectin has been proven to gel well with stevia.
5. Sauces- Make your own sauces such as Aronia Berry Salsa, and Aronia Berry BBQ sauce. When using Aronia berries for sauces on meats and fish.
6. Baked goods – Bake fresh or frozen Aronia berries into your homemade baked goods using stevia instead of sugar. Also use coconut oil or real butter not margarine in you products.

If you have never played poker online, you may not be aware of the benefits it offers. For instance, it can help you earn money, especially if you like to play this game online. Aside from this, poker helps you improve a lot of your skills, such as emotional control, money management, and patience, to name a few. Also, it’s considered a glamorous game. Let’s take a look at some main benefits of playing this game.

1. Improves your Focus

As far as playing poker is concerned, one of the most important abilities you need is concentration. Primarily, you need to focus on details, which include cards as well as your opponents.

Besides, you need to pay attention to the body movements and the facial expressions of the player. This will help you get a better idea of their moves, which will help you defeat them.

2. Better Emotional Maturity

While playing poker, you go through a lot of emotions, such as anxiety, excitement, stress and emotions. These are some of the emotions you experience. Also, you should try to understand your emotions and try to hide them.

Actually, poker is on the list of games that test your ability to control your emotions. Keep in mind that you won’t be able to win every time. So, keeping that factor in mind is also a great idea.

3.Better Observation Skills

Another great benefit of playing poker is that it helps improve your memory significantly. In other words, it helps you develop a logical approach as far as solving problems is concerned. In this game, poker players need to observe the body movements and facial expressions of your opponent.

4. Improved Decision-Making

We know that poker involves stiff competition. If you are confident and ambitious, you can be a successful player. While playing the game, you have to make fairly quick decisions. In fact, the most difficult thing is to control yourself under pressure. Even if you make a single bad decision, you may lose your bankroll.

Therefore, it’s important to make the best decision no matter how much pressure you have to tolerate. For the best decision, make sure you have patience and use your observational skills. Regardless of how much you try, you may not be able to win every game. So, you should learn to be patient when you lose.

5. Better Money Management Skills

Since this game involves money, you should have money management skills. If you run out of money, you won’t be able to continue playing. Actually, you should have enough funds in your saving account. It takes quite a bit of discipline to spend your savings. Therefore, you should do it after a lot of careful thinking. If you are sensible, you will never run out of funds. With bankroll management, you can get a better idea of the importance of money management.

Long story short, if you have never played poker in your life, now is the right time to do it, especially if you want to enjoy the benefits described in this article.

Ca’c Cirerol is a fantastic villa located on the outskirts of Portocolom in south-east Mallorca. It is a comfortable country villa that offers everything to enjoy a wonderful vacation with your family or friends. The villa has a private pool, lots of space, access to all the modern facilities, and breathtaking sea views from the front and terraces over the adjacent orange grove to the Mediterranean. It is a 3-star villa.

You can enjoy the sunshine throughout the day. The pool terrace is wide, spacious, and peaceful. You can sit under the shaded corner to relax and admire the beautiful sea views. You can also take a dip in the cool water in the private swimming pool. The villa has an in-built barbecue on one side of the pool terrace where you can prepare meals for your family and dine together in the brightness of the moon. There is a large shaded dining terrace perfect to enjoy your meals with family and spending quality time with your family.

The villa has two bedroom and two bathrooms. The rooms are well connected and the rooms are spacious to accommodate six people easily. The interiors of the villa are simple and stylish with beamed ceilings, original woodwork and oversized, ancient glass jars. The interior décor of the villa contrasts nicely with the modern fittings of the kitchen and bathrooms. The living room has Wi-Fi, TV, DVD, and a wood burner. The kitchen also has all the modern equipment including an oven, microwave, and a dishwasher. The double bedroom has an air conditioner with a dressing room, en suite shower room, and a door that opens to the terrace. The twin bedroom also has an air conditioner, and a shower room with a washing machine.

Beach lovers will love staying in the villa because many beautiful beaches are located at a small distance from the villa. There are many pretty sandy coves that lie within a few kilometers from the villa and all are worth visiting while staying in this villa. The beaches have one beach bar that serves drinks, snacks, and light meals. You can also rent sunbed and sunshade while lying on the beach and enjoy your vacations.

You can also enjoy watersports such as scuba diving, pedalos, kayaking, and parasailing. If you want to enjoy golfing, you can visit the Val d’Or golf course that is located at a fifteen minutes drive from the villa, enjoy horse riding, and visit the popular restaurants that are just a few kilometers away from the villa.

If you are planning for a perfect beach vacation with your family or friends on Mallorca, then Ca’n Cirerol is the perfect place to stay. It is perfectly positioned to enjoy the wealth of fabulous beaches and sandy coves.

The beautiful fishing village of Portocolom is situated near the villa where you can catch a boat and travel up and down the handsome harbor and enjoy meandering around the village’s streets, lined with traditional pastel-colored houses. Porto Colom center is situated at a distance of half an hour from the villa. There is about an hour drive to the villa from the Son Sant Joan airport.

According to Native legends, the hummingbird is the joyful messenger and healer. When the hummingbird appears in a time of great sorrow and pain, healing will soon follow. It is said that when a hummingbird hovers near, you will receive a message of healing. Wearing hummingbird jewelry will make you feel happy and peaceful. Many people will compliment you on your handmade jewelry so here is a story about why the hummingbird holds a special place in our hearts.

A literal messenger of joy, this beautiful tiny bird, also called Sah Sen, represents friendship, playfulness, and is a symbol of good luck in Northwest Coastal Native art. It is a positive sign to see Sah Sen prior to a major event such as hunting or traveling to another village. Hummingbird’s ability to hover back and forth at great speeds is believed to be a skill for guiding the people; if they fall behind Hummingbird can easily back up to keep pace.

One story of Hummingbird tells of a warm, spring day. Summer was coming and the wild flowers were in full blossom. A young girl and her mother waded through the green grass, enjoying the bright colors. They stopped as Hummingbird joined them; buzzing and darting from flower to flower.

The little creature fascinated the child. She asked, “Why does such a tiny bird want to fly so fast? Why doesn’t it just stay at one flower instead of visiting every one?” Her mother sat down on a hill overlooking the field and said, “Let me tell you the story of Hummingbird.”

Many years ago there was a fragrant flower that rose every spring to display her beautiful petals and bright colors for all the world’s creatures to enjoy. The people and animals waited anxiously each spring for this special flower to appear. On that day they knew the warm, kind rays of summer had arrived. Raven saw how much joy this flower brought to the world, so the next spring when it appeared, he transformed it into a tiny bird. The bird had the colors of the green spring grass and the flashing red of a setting sun. Raven gave the bird a special gift to fly like sunlight flickering through tall trees. He also gave it a message to take to all the flowers. That’s why today we see Hummingbird buzzing from flower to flower, whispering a message. Hummingbird is thanking each flower for making our world a more beautiful place.

The mother looked at her child and said, “As you grow up, remember that like each flower, each person has gifts to give the world. In return that person will be thanked by the birds, animals and flowers for helping to make our world a better place for every one.”

The above story is as told by Robert James Challenger in the book Eagle’s Reflections and other Northwest Coast Stories available at Hill’s Native Art in Tofino, British Columbia. They have been our valued wholesale jewelry customers for many years and carry a wide selection of  art work including hummingbird jewelry and Native American jewelry.