It's been quite the holiday. We rented our apartment out on Air BNB to a family that is remodeling their home in Torrance. Barbra and I have been living in a small basement room a block from the beach for the last month. My cell phone doesn't come in too well here, so I walk around Redondo Beach downtown to make a couple calls a day in the cold or the rain, then it's back to the computer. By nightfall my eyes begin to hurt due to the florescent light from the LED monitors, yet I make another cup of coffee and push a bit further. The editing stages of A Golden Heart has been grueling. My top goal is to give readers inspiration through the characters of Brooke and Esiw and as I tidy up areas of the story, more comes to mind. And yet, I find less is more so the editing becomes making sure every word counts. Reading the book aloud has pointed out many areas the prose needs improved as well, because some things just don't sound right when read out loud. Drawing my own inspiration through music, audio books, and interviews with Og Madino's wife, as well as spending ample hours at the Malaga Cove library. 

Good news is we did finally settle on some art work, and thanks to an artist in Germany, and Jordan here in Playa Del Rey, we've settled on what we think will be the final art work. Let me know what you think. I appreciate you. Happy New Year and I'll talk to you soon. - Mike 

"You can build up your strength to the point where you are not influenced by your surroundings; in fact, you can influence the surroundings instead. You can change the environment if you have the strength of mind; but even if your mind isn't that strong, you can still have the strength not to be affected by the environment. Learning not to be affected is an important step. If you are influenced by a situation, how can you change it? If fifteen people are crying and you go there and join them in the crying, you have simply added one more miserable person; you have not done anything to benefit people. Instead, if you are really strong and can maintain your own equanimity, all the fifteen people will be benefited by your strength."

 Om Shanti, Shanti, Shanti —Sri Swami Satchidananda