Stripe & Yellow & I thank you! Hope is going global! My stars go to the authors of the encouraging reviews? I am moved and inspired to do more with my life because of each of you. I am grateful that you have found more hope with Hope. After 26 years of quiet, steady sales, it seems Hope is suddenly going global! Just this year it's Japanese. Coming soon Korean, Chinese, KiSwahili (East Africa) and Italian. They join Spanish, German and English. For those who love Hope, I think side 2 of the Hope Audio may be of special interest. It's the story behind the book and explores the mystery of life moving through apparent death to new life. This is the continual focus of my past and particularly my present concern for the environment. Just today I built a huge compost pile, and marvel at the almost immediate new life happening as moist old leaves got together with grass clippings and old food scraps. What looks more dead than old leaves? And yet, this is the living food of new life as the grand life cycle continues through the work of the composting microbes. They are so quickly busy they raised the temperature inside my new pile to 138 degrees F. in 8 hours! 'Life is changed, not taken away.' I also raise Monarchs who annually lay their eggs on the milkweed (their caterpillar's only food) planted in my front yard in urban New Jersey. As you have realized, transformation is the key to Hope and for me the answer to most of the world's most vexing problems. Transforming life toward the more local, simple and natural, like eating and growing organically, composting and helping butterflies survive is our millennium task. That is why I am supporting all things organic andstruggling mightily against the pollution and control of our food supply by just a few transnational corporations. May we EACH believe in the butterfly ALWAYS. WANT MILKWEED SEEDS?
— Trina Paulus (compostgal@aol.com), The author/artist