Liebster Award Nomination

Today, I was nominated for a Liebster award by fellow blogger, Karen, of the blog Blue Sky Days 365 (https://blueskydays365.wordpress.com). I am honored by this nomination, and hope I am able to respond appropriately.

About Karen and Blue Sky Days 365

Karen is an inspirational blogger who started her blog as a way to share her thoughts, promote positive, healthy living, and chronicle her own personal story through her achievements and struggles. Being a survivor of breast cancer and living with ongoing depression, anxiety, and PTSD, Karen is no stranger to adversity. Her moods and emotions fluctuate, but where she is consistent is in her strength and genuine desire to see opportunity where others may see only despair. This is inherent in her nature as well as in the title of her blog, which is, as she puts it:

A reminder that the blue sky is ever present behind the dark clouds.

About the Award

The Liebster is an award given to new and upcoming blogs, as nominated by fellow bloggers, in order to give exposure and foster a community of recognition and appreciation. The award was first implemented in 2011, and has been in place each year since.

The official rules for 2018 are as follows, and can be found in entirety on the blog The Global Aussie, at https://theglobalaussie.com/liebster-award-2018/

Rules – Overview

• Link to official rules blog post in your Liebster Award blog post
• Answer the questions given to you (11)
• Create more questions for your nominees to answer (11)
• Comment on the official rules blog post with a link DIRECTLY to your Liebster award nomination post.

Entries start 1st Jan 2018 and ends on 25th Dec 2018. The winner will be picked on the 31st of December.

Rules – Detailed

Note: I modified these slightly for readability outside of the context of the original official rules post.

1. Thank the person who nominated you, and put a link to their blog on your blog. Try to include a little promotion for the person who nominated you. They will thank you for it and those who you nominate will also help you out as well.

2. Display the award on your blog — by including it in your post and/or displaying it using a “widget” or a “gadget”.

3. New to the 2018 Liebster Award: Write a small post about what makes you passionate about blog posting.

4. Provide 10 random facts about yourself. (Optional)

6. Nominate 5 – 11 blogs that you feel would enjoy blogging about this award the award.

7. List these rules in your post

8. Inform the people/blogs that you nominated that they have been nominated for the Liebster award and provide a link for them to your post or to the official rules post if you don’t have all the information so that they can learn about it (they might not have ever heard of it! Post a comment in the comments on the official rules post so others can view your post and check out your blog.

My Responses to Questions Posed

The questions posed by Karen, and my responses thereto, were as follows:

1. What is your favourite time of day, and why?
   

   Early Riser
   I am an early riser.

   I am called

   In the morning hours

   To trade

   Blankets of warmth for blankets of

   Stars outgoing, they are indifferent and calm

   To salute

   The rising of

   A new day-

   Clouds or clear skies

   Snow, rain, or golden beams

   Welcomed just the same

   Falling on

   My home/the Earth

   Absent judgment, not repelled
   –

   Know then, this

   That there will be days

   When I will wake before

   You can stir

   Your eyelids, corner of mouth

   Twitching, but calm

   And while you dream

   I may wander in my ways

   To places distant

   You

   Still hours to rise
   –

   Know though

   That though the sun may have already risen

   It is the light, the embrace

   Your warm and thoughtful glance

   Arms open

   Or at your sides

   That drive the shadows from

   My heart

   Waits for you

2. Which country have you visited most often?
   

   Beyond Borders
   Seldom stepping

   Beyond borders,

   Always America.

   Canada: cannot.

   Mexico? Maybe.

   Dominican dancing?

   Tanzanian travels?

   Lazy, layovers…

   Sweden; surprise!

3. What one thing would change your life for the better?
   

   Lines
   I am learning to draw

   Lines

   Not

   To be crossed

   Not necessarily by the rulers edge

   But by my own

   Hand

   Heart

   Mind

4. What decade did you enjoy most and why?
   

   Live for Now
   Live for

   Now

   For yourself

   A future

   Shining, brilliant rays

   Reflected

   In your eyes

5. What would you spend a £1000/$1000 prize on?
   

   Worth
   What is this life

   These currencies

   Worth

   If there is no-one to share it with?

   If no face

   Comes to mind

   In the small hours of the day

   If the heart

   Is all alone

   When it wakes suddenly in the night?

   –

   What keeps us here

   If not the knowledge

   Or hope

   That another is aware of our existence

   That another

   Exists?

   –

   I am so alone

   Yet

   So completely overwhelmed.

   –

   All that I ever really wanted

   Was to look out

   At all of the beauty that surrounds us

   Side by side

   With someone

   Who knows what I see

   And sees

   All of this

   For what it is

6. What was your favourite band as a child?
   

   The Rustle of Branches and Falling Leaves
   I am no longer

   Frantic and wild

   Searching for someone

   Or waiting for them to find me

   –

   I sit

   I watch

   I breathe

   –

   The clock is alive

   Motion is a poetry

   Only time understands

   –

   There is peace in solitude

   There is a musical hum
   I have always admired

   The rustle of branches and falling leaves

   –

   I tell myself

   The warmth of the sun against my lips

   Is a kiss from the sky itself

   Is just as satisfying

   As your lips against mine

   (But I don’t know if I believe that, yet)

   –

   I stare into the water

   As I used to stare into your eyes

   And what looks back

   Shows the same compassion

   –

   I am learning
   Once again

   To be alone
   To hear
   The rustle of branches and falling leaves

7. What could you not live without?
   

   Love Itself
   Is any single cloud

   In that brilliant, burning horizon

   Set against the setting sun

   More brilliant than the others

   To be cherished in isolation

   All others ignored?

   Or is the beauty

   Not contained within any one

   Floating ocean

   But

   Each drop within

   The sun itself

   That warms

   And separates

   The bonds between

   The time it takes

   To fall to

   The Earth below

   The stars above

   Rising

   Fixed in place by

   Love itself

8. What is your favourite play/musical/theatre show?
   

   Improvise
   Life:

   A stage

   You, the lead

   Supporting cast(e?)

   Director: “Action!”

   Lights dim

   Line?

   Script: erased

   Improvise.

   End scene.

9. Which movie character do you identify most with?
   

   A Quiet Camaraderie
   Boom, seen.

   Scene: Hero speaks valiantly from atop…

   Overlooked/underappreciated.

   Credits roll.

   Names: larger than

   Life:

   Fiction still.

   Applause, toasts.

   In backrooms:

   A quiet camaraderie.

10. Which person living or not, would you invite to dinner?
    

    My Father
    My father smelled like horses

    Like grains

    Like clothing tossed as a tool in a truck bed

    My father looked like patience

    Like yearning

    Like ambitions held back by a world run dry

    My father was a pioneer

    In a day where there was nowhere left to go

    An adolescent tasked with a fruitless art

    I am the son of a coyote.

11. What is your favourite ice cream flavour?
    

    Call Me Vanilla
    Call me Vanilla,

    But I prefer the classics;

    Give me water over lemonade

    Any day.

My Nominees and Questions Thereto

Nominees

I hereby nominate the following blogs for the 2018 Liebster Award:

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Author: Anushkalovestruck15

Blog: Lovestrucksatire (https://lovestrucksatire.wordpress.com/)

Description: Lovestrucksatire is a lovely, frequently updated blog filled with short stories, poetry, and bits of wisdom carefully arranged within thoughtful and intentional posts. Despite the name, this blog covers a range of topics, though love and relationships are a central theme.

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Author: Grateful Single Mom

Blog: Thriving not Surviving (https://gratefulsinglemoms.com/)

Description: Out of the tragic end to a marriage, this author forged a path forward through the creation of this blog, where she documents her journey through single motherhood. There are a variety of posts, ranging from delicious recipes, personal stories in a journal format, prompt responses, and various others. Each post generally contains an appropriate photograph as well.

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Author: Various

Blog: Morality Park (https://moralitypark.wordpress.com/)

Description: Mortality Park is a self-described “Art and Lit Collective”, full of brilliant minds posting a menagerie of poetic flows straight from their hearts to yours. The posts are very broad and varied in topic, often requiring some patience and knowledge/research to parse, but ultimately very fulfilling and thought-provoking, both in terms of content and subject matter. Posts are generally accompanied by visual media that compliments the writing.

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Author: Thought for Change

Blog: The Rendezvous Club (https://thinkingclearly483645316.wordpress.com/)

Description: Though this is a very new and developing blog from a young writer, there is a great deal of potential in the words, style, and content of posts. Posts are typically short journal entries, but there is poetry, social commentary, and visual media as well. The most powerful element of this blog, for me at least, is the genuine nature of the author’s approach. The posts speak directly from the author’s heart, and carry with them great wisdom, insight, and a pursuit of truth/justice.

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Author: A.B. Guy

Blog: A.B. Guy Stories (https://abguystories.wordpress.com/)

Description: A.B. Guy Stories is another very new blog that is still developing and finding its legs. But that is really what made me nominate it… The author is straight-forward and honest in their growth, with many of the posts detailing the writing process and seeking to drive the author further along. I am impressed with the commitment, passion, and overall writing skill of this blog.

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Questions

The following are the questions I request that the nominees answer in their acceptance post, should they choose to do so.

1. What/who provides you the highest level of inspiration and why?
2. What is your passion; what makes you do what you do?
3. What do you desire most in life, and what are you doing to achieve it?
4. If, upon death, you were to be forever captured in human memory as a single piece of writing, what form would that writing take and what would it be about?
5. What are the most pressing concerns you have regarding barriers to a more positive future?
6. If you could choose between sleeping forever, lucid but unable to control the context of the dream, and awake forever, unable to dream but never tiring, which would you choose and why?
7. Think to the moments just before falling asleep and just after waking. Generally speaking, what is the biggest difference in your thoughts, in your presence, in your being?
8. You are presented with the opportunity to rule the world, knowing without any doubt that in doing so, you will bring about a small period of total peace and tranquility before you ultimately become corrupt, leading to much loss of life and followed by a return to the status quo. Should you decline, you are aware with the same level of certainty that the world will go on exactly as-is; nothing will change in the slightest and you will eventually dismiss the memory as a delusion. Do you accept, and why?
9. You have the option to forgive any one single person completely of all their misgivings, famous/infamous or personal, alive or dead, good or evil, and in doing so, those misgivings are undone and that person is fully restored to a positive/neutral standing with everyone they ever wronged or were wronged by. Who you do forgive and why?
10. What excites you most about the current advancement of technology and what makes you most wary? Why?
11. If you could remove or alter any one natural law or human behavior, what would it be and why?