"Life Is Full of Sweet Spots" Author Creates Unique Award to Honor Tragedy Victims

HARTFORD, Conn., June 25, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Prompted by the all too prevalent sense of devastation and loss encountered in today's world, Connecticut author Mary O'Connor is establishing a Sweet Spots in Glass Awards program. Designed to hearten, appreciate and honor those who show courage, strength and hope in the face of terror, natural disaster and tragedy, specially created glass sweet spots will be awarded throughout the year on a spontaneous, as-circumstance-suggests basis.

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"Joy," says O'Connor, "is generally found all around us—right here in the sweet spots of the earth, the sea and sky, our bodies, minds and souls." Actual and spiritual places such as these, about which she writes in her book, Life Is Full of Sweet Spots, basically provide the seeds of peace and contentment that are the underpinnings of healing and joy. "But sometimes," she says, "especially in times of such heartbreaking devastation as what we have been witnessing lately, it helps to be able to hold joy in our hands, put it in our pockets, even to wear it near our hearts."

Each hand cut, fashioned, and fired glass sweet spot award was created through a process that combines the ancient technology of glass fusion with the space-age dynamics of dichroic glass, resulting in a piece in which the colors shift and change as one moves. Designed to be worn as a pendant around the neck, close to one's voice and heart, or as a polished glass symbolic meditation stone that may be held in the palm of one's hand or carried in one's pocket as a center of comfort, the small, but emblematically powerful, sweet spots carry a message of encouragement and of keeping the vision of joy alive.

Glass fusion artist Barbara Shulman-Kirwin of BSK Design, Guilford, Connecticut, was commissioned to create the award. Drawing on her fascination with light and the magic of glass, Shulman-Kirwin selected cobalt and turquoise blues, green, and a touch of rose for the awards. Colors were chosen for their emotional energies and psychological correlations with healing, hope, peace of mind and harmony of spirit, as well as for their influence on one's ability to cope with the sadness of a loved one's loss.

O'Connor's hope is that these miniature, but emblematically powerful, glass sweet spots will offer a simple but heartfelt expression of the internal strengths and energies that are needed to nourish and renew an injured spirit and soul. "If it can provide just one tiny reflection of the elements of peace and tranquility that are so essential to the revitalization of a shattered soul," she says, "it will meet its purpose of helping to keep the vision of joy alive, both in the recipient and in others."

For information on how to nominate an award recipient, see www.lifeisfullofsweetspots.com or contact the author at [email protected] with details of why the proposed individual should receive a Sweet Spots in Glass Award.

About the Book:

"Life Is Full of Sweet Spots" by Mary O'Connor is a surprising travel guide to the places in which joy resides - the earth, the sea and sky, our bodies, minds and souls. Filled with research, reflections and narratives by people who have found joy in their lives, it provides both ideas and inspiration for ways to make joy a central part of live. Published by Abbot Press, © 2013, ISBN: 978-1-4582-0803-3.

CONTACT:
Mary O'Connor
860-434-7112 
www.mary-oconnor.com

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SOURCE Mary O'Connor