A Deaf Woman Hears For The Very First Time At 40

Joanne Milne, age 40, from Gateshead, England, was born deaf, and during her 20s also began to lose her sight because of the rare medical condition Usher Syndrome. Last month she was fitted with cochlear implants and after 40 years of silence the procedure has meant that she is now able to hear.

Her mother captured the incredible moment on video when Joanne hears a nurse going through the days of the week - the first words or sound she has ever heard.

It really struck home to me about how we take so much for granted, like sound and sight. Just think how wonderful it is to hear the birds singing, the sea rushing to the shore, the wind and, for me, moments like my little grandson saying, "Hello Granddad," and seeing his huge sparkling smile.

Gosh, most of us are so very lucky but never give it a second thought. We have so much to be grateful for.

There Is No Teacher But Your Own Soul

You have to grow from the inside out.
None can teach you,
none can make you spiritual.
There is no other teacher but your own soul.

~ Swami Vivekananda

Other Sunday Thought of the Day Posts:
You Don't Have A Soul
Why The Devil Smokes
A Seagull Shows Us The Way To Fly

The Power Of Love To Cure

I have always believed that all things are possible. This doesn't mean I have personally achieved everything I have wished. Far from it, but I do feel I could have - if only I'd maybe had enough belief or brought other factors into play.

What put me on this track today was the story of Laura Binder who was diagnosed with breast cancer, had a mastectomy, and then found it had spread to her liver.

She was told by doctors in February of this year that they could not cure the cancer but would try and control it. Laura said, "I was so scared that I was going to die and leave my daughters without a mother."

Things were certainly looking grim but the cancer hadn't reckoned with Laura's nine year old daughter. Children don't know about the limitations that we adults put on ourselves.

Every day for over seven months Linzi wrote to her mother urging her to get better and not to give up the fight.

She wrote messages such as, 'You are like the centre of a rose and you smell just like a beautiful red one. You can fight cancer. You can fight it. I love you'

and

'I want your cancer to sail away mum, in a boat.'

Laura said of her daughter, Linzi refused to give up on me and wrote these wonderful letters every day. She was determined that I wasn't going to die and that I would get better.

So I took lots of photos of the children (she also has a two year old) and we went on lots of outings. I was desperate to spend as much time with them as I had left.

Linzi's letters brightened her mother's days as she lost her hair through chemotherapy and felt exhausted from the treatments. Laura said, "But her letters gave me strength to fight on."

Then a miracle happened.

At the end of September Laura went for a scan and fully expected to hear that the cancer had spread further - but it hadn't. The doctors were amazed: the scan revealed no trace of any tumours.

In Laura's words, "I just couldn't speak. I was in complete shock. To be told there was nothing that could be done for me and then finding out the cancer had completely gone was just incredible. The doctor just said to me that I was a miracle.

Laura credits Linzi with helping her win the battle over the disease. The doctors can't can't explain why the cancer disappeared.

Linzi sent one last letter to her mother:

'Congratulations! All your cancer is gone. I love you!'

A spokesman for Cancer Research UK said, The love from a daughter is a strong powerful thing. Positive thinking provides an incentive to get better. It's amazing how things like this can happen and there is no explanation for it."

No explanation? What about love - the most powerful of powers.

All things are possible.

The Inspiration Of The Paralympics And 7/7

Martine Wright believes in fate and that some events in life are destined to happen. Her reason for this way of thinking began on July 6th, 2005.

Martine, along with many other British people, celebrated the news that London had been awarded the Olympic Games for 2012. Her enthusiasm must have been excessive as the next morning, 7/7, she overslept. This meant she had to get a later train to work.

A terrorist bomb exploded on the train and this tragically caused her to lose both legs.

She now talks, however, of coincidences and is hopeful that she may be chosen to represent Great Britain in the 2012 Paralympics, in the Sitting Volleyball event.

Martine told the Daily Mail: "There are so many coincidences. Take the two places I train at in London, for example. Roehampton University is across the road from Queen Mary's Hospital where I spent eight months learning to walk.

The other place is on Commercial Road in East London which is behind the Royal London hospital (where she had physio).

My first international (at Sitting Volleyball) was last year at the World Championships and we flew out on July 7. I chose the No 7 jersey."

She believes that her path may have been mapped out for her to do something similar to what she is now doing. In her own words: "If I get to London 2012 as a competitor I will feel as if I've gone full cycle. All I remember thinking when London won the bid was, 'how am I going to get tickets, I need to get tickets!'. Now, in a weird twist of fate I might be taking part."

Martine has a full life, she trains for 25 hours a week and is married with a two year son. As to why she chose Sitting Volleyball as 'her' Paralympic sport she said, "Sitting volleyball is one of the most inclusive sports you can play. You don't need a wheelchair, just a bum, a net and a ball."

Martine will have to wait until next year to find out if she is chosen for the Paralympics - fingers crossed for her.

Twelve Thoughts On Inspiration

The Inspiration of the Poet by Nicolas Poussin 1630
Wherever we are, God’s in that moment, God’s speaking to us, and if we’ve just got our ears open and our antennas up, there’s no lack of inspiration. He’s not silent. We just have to be listening.
Steven Curtis Chapman, Press conference after 2007 GMA Music Awards

Inspiration is not the exclusive privilege of poets or artists. There is, there has been, there will always be a certain group of people whom inspiration visits. It's made up of all those who've consciously chosen their calling and do their job with love and imagination. It may include doctors, teachers, gardeners — I could list a hundred more professions. Their work becomes one continuous adventure as long as they manage to keep discovering new challenges in it. Difficulties and setbacks never quell their curiosity. A swarm of new questions emerges from every problem that they solve. Whatever inspiration is, it's born from a continuous 'I don't know.'
Wisława Szymborska, The Poet and the World

Inspiration is a slender river of brightness leaping from a vast and eternal knowledge, it exceeds reason more perfectly than reason exceeds the knowledge of the senses.
Sri Aurobindo, Thoughts and Aphorisms

There'll be what you might call a moment of inspiration – a way of seeing or feeling or remembering, an instance or a person that's made a large impression. Like the sand and the oyster, it's a creative irritant. In each poem, I'm trying to reveal a truth, so it can't have a fictional beginning.
Carol Ann Duffy, Interviewed in The Guardian, December 4, 2005

I believe in intuition and inspiration. Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution. It is, strictly speaking, a real factor in scientific research.
Albert Einstein, Cosmic Religion

I'll get an inspiration and start painting; then I'll forget everything, everything except how things used to be and how to paint it so people will know how we used to live.
Grandma Moses, As quoted in her obituary in The New York Times

My inspirations don't come from outer space, they just come to me. I have no idea why they come when they do.
Joe Satriani, As quoted in Guitar Magazine

I decided that it was not wisdom that enabled [poets] to write their poetry, but a kind of instinct or inspiration, such as you find in seers and prophets who deliver all their sublime messages without knowing in the least what they mean.
Socrates 469-399 BC

While I was held prisoner, sweet inspiration educated me and laws were imparted to me in a speech which had no words.
Taliesin, The Tale of Taleisin

Who knows where inspiration comes from. Perhaps it arises from desperation. Perhaps it comes from the flukes of the universe, the kindness of the muses.
Amy Tan

I invented something called The Oxford Muse. The Muses were women in mythology. They did not teach or require to be worshipped, but they were a source of inspiration. They taught you how to cultivate your emotions through the different arts in order to reach a higher plane. What is lacking now, I believe, is somewhere you can get that stimulation not information, but stimulation where you can meet just that person, or find just that situation, which will give you the idea of invention, of carrying out some project which interests you, and show how it can become a project of interest to other people.
Theodore Zeldin, About The Oxford Muse Foundation

When inspiration does not come, I go for a walk, go to the movie, talk to a friend, let go... The muse is bound to return again, especially if I turn my back!
Judy Collins

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