A Cup of Golden Sun

Erika Petrelli
Erika Petrelli

One of my two-year-old son’s favorite songs to sing recently is “Do-Re-Mi” from The Sound of Music. You know, “Doe, a deer, a female deer; Ray, a drop of golden sun; etc.”  He belts it, and also gets it all mixed up. My favorite adaptation that he has made is that he will yell “Ray! A CUP of Golden Sun!”

I mean, why stop at a drop of golden sun when you can have an entire cup?!

So I’ve been thinking about what it means to have a cup of golden sun in your hands, and the image has been speaking powerfully to me. I imagine holding this oversized coffee mug that simply glows as the sunlight spills out from over top of it. Can you picture it? It makes me smile as I think about what makes up my cup o’ sun. What actually makes life sunny to me? What makes things shine a bit brighter? What don’t I want just a drop of, but a whole cup? Here’s part of the list that started running through my head:

  • My husband
  • My kids
  • My parents and family
  • Flowers
  • An unexpected breeze
  • A good book
  • A glass of wine
  • Getting under the cool sheets at the end of a long day
  • Driving with the windows down
  • The sound of real laughter
  • A fountain diet coke with extra ice
  • Sweet tea
  • Pictures of my loved ones, especially when we’re making funny faces
  • The color yellow
  • The big blue sky
  • This blog
  • Indiana
  • New York City
  • The sound of a fiddle or a banjo
  • Glitter
  • A real hug

I could go on and on… honestly, the more I think about my cup of golden sun, the more I realize all that’s in it. Soon it will have to be a thermos and eventually a cooler and perhaps even a truck-load. When I look for it, it’s all around me.

Golden sun, it turns out, expands the more attention you give it. Sure you could stop at a drop-full. A drop-full of sun is a pretty okay thing. But if you invite in a cup-full, soon it will fill every nook and cranny of your day, with things you didn’t even realize or expect.  Go on, give it a try.

What is in your Cup of Golden Sun?  

Erika-Brand

Interested in having Erika’s blog come directly to your e-mail each Tuesday? Have comments to share?  E-mail her at erika@tlpnyc.com.
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Erika Petrelli

By Erika Petrelli

Erika Petrelli is the Senior Vice President of Leadership Development (and self-declared Minister of Mischief) for The Leadership Program, a New York City-based organization. With a Masters degree in Secondary Education, Erika has been in the field of teaching and training for decades, and has been with The Leadership Program since 1999. There she has the opportunity to nurture the individual leadership spirit in both students and adults across the country, through training, coaching, keynotes, and writing. The legacy Erika strives daily to create is to be the runway upon which others take flight. If you enjoy these blogs, you should check out her interactive journal, On Wings & Whimsy: Finding the Extraordinary Within the Ordinary, now available for sale on Amazon. While her work takes her all around the country, Erika calls Indiana home.

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