I have been so curious about Lanterns and how it came to be - such an inspiring project!
So many people inspire me - but I've found The Bliss Chick has been throwing some serious light in my direction these days.

gwen bell has been a beacon for me lately. I find her inspiring and challenging.

I have spent my whole life searching for light and love, connection, God.... In my last three years I have been working toward spiritual sobriety, trying to move away from the addiction where I keep looking and looking for the answer, the light, the connection that would fix me, only to have whatever I find turn out to be temporary. So, even though there are some people that I am extremely grateful for, I feel like it's me--the self that I have hidden from for so long--who is actually the person that I have found the most illumination from in the last few years. Yikes, that sounds pretty narcissistic! But I mean it in the healthiest of ways, I swear :)

Jen,
The only way I know to express my current experience of finding light is to tell the story. It is startling and one I wish I couldn't tell; but, it is gold.

I have actually found light in a seemingly dark place lately. I have a friend back home who is in a hospital recovering from spinal meningitis and double pneumonia all the while also carrying her third child. I have known her to be the woman who knits by the fire as her kids literally play at her feet and she has the grace to enjoy every moment. She is the mom who doesn't mind taking her kids out in the rain for a fun romp in the puddles - she lives. She really lives. She enjoys baking special treats to engage her children in celebrations. She creates joy in the moment.

And now, all of a sudden, this crazy cluster of illnesses has paralyzed her and she is communicating by blinking. So many love her - family and friends. Even when I first met her many years ago, I found her grounded and courageous. And, you know, I am not even a close friend to her but I feel welcome. She is beautiful; and, I long to see her restored and strengthened. And so, I believe her story is NOT over and it gives me the opportunity to exercise faith and pray for her healing - whatever that looks like. And, to trust that LOVE is holding her tenderly and powerfully.
Practically, even as my heart has been broken for her, I was empowered to live more of the life I want to live and engage more fully with my own daughters - as I reflected on her spirited joy and connections with her children and husband and family. God bless her, restore her, keep her, and give her peace!
Maybe it is in these unlikely places that we need to hold on long enough to take a good long look to find Light.

You are tremendously inspiring to me these days... seriously... your blatant honesty about the struggles of trying to be blatantly honest and your steady committment to communicating all that and more to the world through your work... you blow my mind every time I stop by.
Thank you.
PS
If I lived in your part of the world, I would be at every workshop... as it is I can only hope that the stuff you're putting together for Squam will find it's way into a little book that can be purchased separately after... especially 'Care and Keeping of Creative Souls' :)

Oh my. Who has illumined my path? Christopher. He is a full five years of mischief, curiosity, joy, sparkle, intellect, laughter and love exudes from his fingertips and toes. The baby I have been on a questi for. I have been searching, venturing, trying, praying, working, talking and looking for her / him / they. I know there is a searchlight / spot light in a harbor for this little vessel to reach my port. I am still 'pregnant with possibility' that this gem will reach / find his/ her / their home which I am readying right now.

In the midst of these three going on four years of yearning my faith is still strong. If I clear the space something beautiful will be born.

Trish

A woman by the name of Mitzi. She listens and gently teaches me.

I am moved and comforted right now to have my way lit by the gorgeous words of Dani Shapiro's new memoir, Devotion. It's like she reached into my heart and excavated all of the things that trouble me the most. It's stunning.

julie daley over at unabashedly female is shining light on the path for me right now.

My father. He's been very sick because of a neurological condition for 27 years (I am 30). He's on a steady decline. I have always wanted to live, really live, because he can really only exist. And so I do. Because he is my inspiration.

There are many people who help light my way today, but your question immediately made me think of someone from my adolescence. I was an awkward, shy girl, living in a small town far from anyplace that mattered (or so it seemed to me). I was overprotected by my immigrant parents, and felt relentlessly out-of-place.

I was a bookish kid: a reader and writer with, not surprisingly, an after-school job in the town's public library. I went to a parochial high school to which I'd won a scholarship (by winning a state spelling bee, natch). My sophomore-year homeroom and English teacher, Sr. Theresa Cecelia, loved theater, particularly musicals. We read plays in English class, and she encouraged me to take parts in the readings; she took us on field trips to the nearest big city to see road shows of Broadway musicals, and taught me the words to the songs on the bus ride home. She made me feel that I was special, not strange, because I loved books and stage music.

When I was a senior, she encouraged me to apply to a college in that "nearest big city" and helped me fill out scholarship applications, something my parents, speaking little English, were not equipped to do. Once I was accepted, with a scholarship, and started college, she wrote me encouraging notes reminding me that I could do anything I set my mind to.

It's hard to imagine my life today without her presence then. I know my love of theater and my collection of Broadway cast albums is her legacy to me, but she gave me so much more: sparks of confidence and ambition, and the understanding that I was neither odd nor alone. Thanks for bringing her back to me today.

Got it! Reading it! It's beautiful. Jennifer's also a fabulous, contemplative writer--like you.

Many people have lit my path along the way, and I am so grateful for them. At this moment, I think I must look to myself to do the most significant part of it. I am stumbling along, knocking the light out, re-kindling it, not believing in it, believing in it, and on, all the while lit from some small fire that never goes out. I want to find my own unique light.

Chris Guillibeau has been a light for me this winter. I'm finding so much inspiration and practical help from his work as a non-conformist.

my best friend inspires me to tell it like it is, be brave, and shed the past in order to move wholeheartedly into the future. she is a gift.

This collection sounds amazing!

Cheesy as it may sound (please don't throw tomatoes at me), my mom continues to be a beacon of light and hope for me. Her willingness to step forward into the darkness is encouraging. She knows me better than anyone on the planet. I am truly blessed to have her in my life.

Okay, this might sound cheesy but whenever I'm in a really dark place and pray to God for help, He shines light on my path and sends me the awesomest people and ideas and feelings....

♥

Hi, I've only recently come across your site Jen and have watched all videos and started art journalling this year. I guess the person who has brought light into my life would be my friend Margaret. She has been my anam cara (soul friend), someone whose wisdom, generosity, kindness, thoughtfulness and creative energy I have so admired and received. Although 20 years older than me, her life and countenace have radiated light, peace and joy even in the midst of great sorrow when last year she heard she had inoperable liver cancer. She only lasted 4 months after the diagnosis but right up until the very end (and I was with her the night before she died), the light shone from her to those around her in the hospital and whoever visited.

my light is reflected by many sources - i am blessed by that i know - but there have been times where i ahve gone looking for reflectors in all the wrong places... big periods of darkness...but now the reflectors i have around me - the women in my life who are so different from me on the outside but kindred flames...the same divine spark calling out the best in us.... but the foundation of that fire, the kindling and the ignition come from my grandparents, the kindest people i have ever met - they lived frugally but no one ever left their house empty handed (or empty hearted) they were funny and wise and my grandad was the best story teller i have met (maybe if i meet you one day Jen i may re-evaluate...) and as my Grandma said the first time she saw me with my shaved head "I'll love you even if you go to jail..."... their unconditional love has lived in me, shining at the darkest times, firing the brightest times....

The blogging community as a whole...such inspiration, generosity, creativity, humor, honesty. I love it.
Thanks for the generous giveaway.

i'm just here to say i enjoyed reading what lights up the lives of others...truly lovely...

the lights... i think adrienne rich was one the the first... yoko ono... assia djebar... arundhati roy... the therigatha... lousie erdrich... megan monday... my mom.. trinh t minh-ha....women full of wisdom, questions... love.

My 5 children have brought more love and light into my life then i could have ever imagined. What I've come to know is that being in the light is so much about moving through the darkness

These days, God is lighting my way.

thank you for this generous offering. my children have been archeologists of my soul, excavating my darkness with their luminous spirits.

my friend Kathryn is a goddess. when I was separating from my partner, she bought the plane ticket and flew me out to her, she prepared a room for me with flowers and warm blankets, she fed me healing food, she poured the wine, she held me when i cried, she listened until i had no words left. she is a love fairy.... sprinkling goodness wherever she goes.