Happy New Year!

Happy 2009 to all of you! It's been a long and wonderful year preparing to share with you our new magaletter (magazine + newsletter format). We are so blessed to have many wonderful and caring women writing for us. We are interested in women and their spiritual journeys from all around the globe. We are all sisters and invite our brothers to read and share with us as well.

We are accepting submissions for our Spring, 2009 issue now. We accept personal journey journals, poetry, book reviews, and much more. Our magaletter is free as a PDF online. For those who wish to subscribe, the cost is $10 per year for all four issues, including shipping and handling. We just want to help one another in this journey we call life!

My name is Lola and even though I have been on this earth for decades, I have been Lola for a year now. After retiring from public school teaching, I ventured onto a new path - art therapy counseling. With my friend, Brenda, I began trying to help women and children become happier and more productive in their journey as well by creating discussion groups, retreats, and what not. What makes us different is that we are not about money. We are nonprofit and trying to stay that way. We know that those who m0st need our help are those who can least afford it. We understand the struggle. We respond to it.

Anyway, back to my name change. My first art class ever was Jane Mays' drawing class at the local community college. Somehow I managed to miss the first week of class and appeared the second week. A nice young man named Mario came up to me and offered to catch me up to speed. He asked my name. I replied, "Vye," to which he said, "I dont' like zees name. Vat ees your real name?" After telling him Viola (vee-oh-lah), he said, "In my country ve call you Lola." So there it is, folks, I've been rededicated to this world as Lola.

Names are important. My family hate my new name. It's my art name, I tell them. I love it and so do my new colleagues in art and writing. So, tell us about you. What is your name and how were you named that? Or did you change your name, too?

With greatest affection and love and peace, we hope to hear from you very soon! If you want to subscribe via the Internet to our magaletter, all we need is your name and email address!

Today's Spiritual Women
Lola, Brenda, and Hap