I confess I've never gotten close enough to a snail to watch it eat. But this is adorable (in my humble opinion of course). After seeing this video I started to think about how snails carry their homes on their backs and the fact that they have two two pairs of retractable antennae on their heads. One pair contains their eyes while the second is used to navigate through smell. They're pretty nifty critters, don't you think?

This is the third part of the story of how I learned to reclaim my voice in the workshop Susan Osborn offered in Japan. I still marvel at how our meeting and the lessons she taught me continue to resonate in my life today. Enjoy: https://open.substack.com/pub/whalesinmybackyard/p/singing-my-way-home

This video will grab you by the throat. Gotta wonder who was watching who and for what reason, right?!! https://www.facebook.com/share/v/18VnnMh26P/

This is Part II of the story of how Susan Osborn - a singer, songwriter, and voice teacher - helped me find my voice while I was living in Japan: https://whalesinmybackyard.substack.com/p/singing-for-my-life BIG NEWS It's also time to let you in on some of my evolving plans for my Skool community, which involve publishing some of my work - personal essays like this one, interviews with and stories by those working with animals and/or on environmental issues, and podcasts on Substack. The reason for this simple. I have been unable to find a way to present and promote these materials in a way that I feel does justice to them on Skool. This platform isn't set up to handle longer written pieces. They quickly get lost in the ongoing stream of posts that flow by on every page. On Substack, each post has a page and is easily viewed in its entirety. It can then accessed at a later date in the Stack's archive. The other news is that when you go to read something on Substack (such as the one I just posted above) you will be asked to join Substack and pay. Joining Substack is free but you will be asked to subscribe if you want to read my posts. Those posts will include my personal essays (published once a week) along with stories by other storytellers (non-verbal as well as word-based), interviews, and podcasts. As a way to ease the sticker shock, I've enabled the 7-day free trial on Substack. That will allow you to read the post above and any others for free for 7 days before you're asked to pay. All that was to say that you'll be getting a lot of bang for your buck, plus you'll still have access to materials here on Skool. ABOUT SKOOL I am keep Wild Dialogs on Skool free, except for the classes I will continue to develop and publish here. The first class, "Surrounded by Genius" is still free. You can access it by clicking on the classroom and selecting "Surrounded by Genius." The second "The Eighth Intelligence" and all subsequent classes will require you to pay $25 per class.

I BELIEVE IN MAGIC The video below is an inspiring and magic piece by Letizia Stagno about the work I am doing in Wild Dialogs. Here on Skool I host classes on nature and animals with a goal of helping us (humans) come back into balance with and heal our relationship with the planet. On Substack, I collect and publish stories of all kinds related to nature and post interviews with and profile about people working to heal our relationship with Earth. You can learn more and get guidelines for submitting your own work here: https://whalesinmybackyard.substack.com/ If you would like your work or the work of our organization to be considered for publication or to be interviewed by Jena, she can be reached at [email protected]