AMTIFY™

  ≈ The Dirt on Spring: A Philosophical Guide to Gardening and Life ≈ ∞ Because Every Important Life Lesson Starts With Dirty Fingernails ∞ Spring isn’t officially here, but for gardening, it’s here There is something deeply meaningful about the start of gardening season. Every year, particularly up in the Northern parts of our Country, we begin again. In a world that’s often looking for perfection and penalizes mistakes, (“I can’t believe I didn’t clear the water”), gardening is refreshingly forgiving. It expects catastrophic shots, hands you a shovel and says, “Go ahead. Fix it, no strokes applied”. This is the time of year a garden begins to reveal itself. When the Forsythia are “good morning” yellow, and the periwinkle’s purple flowers join the plants natural bed of green, and the daffodils daffodil and the hyacinths hyacinth in so many shapes and colors, that's all telling us that it’s time to get back to work, sorry, fun… The Audit. So, let’s get down to business. The ...

  ≈ Dogs. Can’t Live With ‘Em, Can’t Live Without Them ≈ ∞ The More Things Change the More They Stay the Same ∞ I was born in Doctors Hospital in Manhattan, which opened in 1929, a year that carries a certain… reputation. It was a small 14-story private hospital known as a "fashionable treatment center for the well-to-do." Sitting across from Gracie Mansion on the Upper East Side, overlooking Carl Schurz Park and the East River, a beautiful oasis in a busy city. Elegant, historic, and, judging by its patient list, Michael Jackson, Marilyn Monroe, Jackie Gleason, Clare Boothe Luce, and then me, pretty good company for a newborn. Gracie Mansion. If you visit NYC, visit Gracie Mansion, take a walk along the Hudson River My parents weren’t of the “well to do”, but the baby doc there served with my Dad during WW II and were fast friends, and friendship, it turns out, can occasionally outrank income brackets. So, I made my grand entrance into the world with a spectacular skyline ...

≈  An Interesting Four Week Stretch of Lunar Influence on Our Lives  ≈ ∞  A full-blown spiritual medley of religious traditions  ∞ The “just before Spring” Season isn't only about finally being warm enough to start yard work , this year happens to host an accompanying full-blown spiritual medley of religious traditions that speaks to togetherness. And honestly? The timing feels… helpful. From mid-March through April multiple major religious holidays overlap in a way that feels less like coincidence and more like the universe over booked humanity to force a fundamental gut check.  In order, in that period, Ramadan, Passover, Easter, Vaisakhi and  Ridván  are observed, including many other meaningful observances woven into the season.  Different faiths. Different beliefs. Different histories. And yet… oddly familiar. If you step back just a little, it starts to feel like everyone brought a  meaningful  dish to the same basic table. Th...