Why I Live for Ripples

Revealing what really happens behind the blog.

You know, I’ve been writing a ton of posts about cutting boards, and clotheslines, and black bean burgers and how great it is to watch a candle melting in the sun – but that’s not what’s really going on here.  Whenever Solo, my black cat best friend, looks at me with slinty-eyed wisdom, I know what’s really going on at Ripples.  When four baby raccoons scamper past the window…when Ryan and I collapse into giggles and form a ying-yang on the clean sheets…when I hang laundry on the line and notice rays of evening sunlight different than any sunlight I’ve ever seen before…when I see the results from the capacity building class and realize how much less suffering there will be in the world tomorrow, and cannot imagine a better way to spend every day of my life listening to the goats bleating out back – that’s when I know:

I’m pouring my life into Ripples because Ripples is saving my life.

In Colorado, gazing at the Rocky Mountains.

On Sunday, a stranger smiled at church and said how inspired she was with the posts.  Last week, a reader was grateful to have his hope back.  A few weeks ago, a website was built for a non-profit organization in Russia that didn’t have one before.  Last month, a trail maintenance group got better publicity online.  Somewhere in Arkansas there’s a straw hat that won’t be going to the landfill as planned.  Today 235 youth in Cameroon were trained in non-profit outreach work.  And right now, the girl writing this has something to embrace, to watch this list of ripples continue on and on.  Ripples had a small part in making all these things possible, (true stories) but that’s not really the point.  Ripples has a part in me.

Ripples is more than a blog…

It’s a lifestyle, a religion, a family.  Ripples isn’t actually just a blog – Ripples is the name of the blog that records all of this “stuff”, but it’s the “stuff” that Ripples actually is. The non-profit work, the native habitat project, the social entrepreneurship ventures, the sustainable lifestyle, the food and allergen-free cookies, the animals, the people, and Nature herself with stunningly complex simplicity.  And it’s not all about us writers, either – absolutely none of this is possible without the other organizations, teachers, leaders, farmers, artists, mentors, architects, cooks and so on.  Ryan & I, like cattle herders, simply corral the information into a blog called Ripples.

This is the scariest, most worthwhile and exhilarating thing I’ve ever done.  This really isn’t about tasty gluten-free pesto pasta, it’s about not giving in to an average life where dreams are more riddled with holes than swiss cheese.  Ripples is showing me the deepest and most meaningful part of who I am, which is crafting not only my life but a world I want to live in.  We have so much more planned at Ripples, and I can’t wait to share it with you!  How do you express the joy of touching a windowsill and knowing that what you’re looking at outside – the goats, the bamboo swaying in the wind, the hawks overhead – is even more inside of you than outside?  That’s what Ripples is.