Years ago, men would take these sweet yellow birds that love to sing, and send them into dark tunnels. If they stayed alive, they knew they could go into the tunnels and mine for coal. If they died, they couldn’t go.

What’s a birds life worth?

Not more than money.

We are all canaries.

How many of you remember hearing about someone getting cancer when you were little? It was rare.

Now, everyone knows someone.

Why?

Greed.

People used to grow their own food. Keep storage of their food and eat what the land gave them.

Now?

If you look at pictures of farms, you’ll see men in hazmat suits pouring chemicals into barrels that will be sprayed onto plants. Then? We eat those plants…that are covered in chemicals that the man had to wear a biohazard suit when growing them.

People used to have to kill their own livestock for meat. The animals were treated well, fed grain that wasn’t genetically modified, and killed as humanely as one can kill something. Now?

Animals are fed chemical food, they sit in their own feces, some never see the sun, and are slaughtered.

When we were little, we only had two or three vaccines. Now?

They keep coming up with more. Yet we all keep getting sicker.

Kids used to be able to play and be kids. You would get outside and run with friends until mom called you inside.

Now?

Kids are sitting in seats taking tests which make companies a lot of money, while their childhood is stolen. They don’t play games, or run, but sit like robots when they get home, devices in hand, staring at a screen by themselves. Their brains are making connections. I shudder to think what this generation of children will deal with medically as they grow. I was the microwave generation, but that was when I was a teen. These children are constantly bombarded with radiation.

Men are making money hand over hand, and we are all dying slow deaths while singing.

We are the canaries.

I spent the morning yesterday teaching my children how to sit and breathe free. Instead of spending the snow day cooped up, we flew the coop so to speak and went to The Giving Room. Paula taught my kids yoga, and we laughed as Quinn gave commentary all throughout. He said he may want to be a yoga teacher. We all ended with meditation and Paula read a prayer over us. We were filled with peace, and I know that yesterday I gave them a memory that they can go to when times get hard. They learned that simply by being still they can be happy and feel happy.

We came home, and Morgan and I went to the grand opening yesterday afternoon of the new Marshall’s and Homegoods. I am off chemo, and feeling better, and Morgan wanted to check out the new stores. We walked around as the DJ blared music, trying to get our cart around. Here’s the thing.

Everyone looked angry. Not one person was smiling. We said, “Excuse me”, and a woman who was standing in the middle of the aisle turned around and glared at us. The energy was horrible. We got out of there quickly.

We didn’t buy a thing.

As we walked to the car, Morgan said something so profound.

“Mom, all those people were mean and unhappy because they think they have to buy things to be happy. They don’t know you have to choose to be happy. You can’t buy it. You have to feel it.”

And that, my friends, is how to be happy.

You choose it.

Greed. Some people can have all the money in the world and be miserable, be healthy and unhappy.

And others can have so little, yet feel so rich.

It’s a choice.

Will you be the canary who sings for others as you go into the tunnel and make others rich?

Or will you break free and sing your own song, as you fill your life and others with happiness by just seeing the beauty in front of you?

Today I choose happiness.

I pray for my friend Paula’s dad who is having a procedure done. I pray for all of those who haven’t learned how to be happy. I pray for all of my friends who need healing.

May we all breathe with ease, sing with joy, and share our love.

In Jesus’s name, amen.

Xoxo

Keri