January 2004

I hope you had a happy, healthy holiday season, full of love, light and laughter. We spent some time in Washington, D.C., visiting our grandchildren Nicholas, Anna and Lily. I love all the rituals, the music, the lights, flowers, decorations, food, friends – above all, being together as a family, by the fire, holding children, reading, playing, being – being at the kitchen table, in the car, in the grocery store. The sheer joy of being together is a powerful blessing that is life transforming.

Sharing time together intensifies our love of life. I’m happy the month of December was celebrated with family and friends. I’m inspired as I move forward into this new year so filled with possibilities, so available to us to plan, to choose wisely, to know what delights us, what fulfills us, what makes us stretch ourselves to use our time well.

I’m glad to be able to remind you that at the end of January the Inn at Stonington is having another Alexandra Stoddard Happiness Weekend. The first one in November was sold out before I could announce it, but there is now room available at this charming inn for you and your friends. Peter and I will be with you throughout the weekend, beginning Friday, January 30th, through Sunday, February 1st. We invite you to visit our cottage several times, I’ll give a talk at the Inn on Saturday afternoon, and Saturday evening we’ll all go to a wonderful restaurant in nearby Rhode Island. For those of you who came last fall, we do hope you will come again!

January in Stonington Village will be quiet. This will be an opportunity for us to be together, to have meals together, to get to know each other and share our lives. We love sitting around cozy fires, sipping warm drinks, going for vigorous walks. Plan to come. I’m sure you will return to your daily life invigorated, renewed and full of energy, refreshed by a few days of vacation the end of January.

Please call the Inn at (860) 535-2000 for further information or check their website, www.Inn@Stonington.com, or email Innkeeper@Innatstonington.com. I am looking forward to this fun weekend with you, beginning with a cocktail reception at the Inn on Friday night at 6 PM.

More good news! HarperCollins is redesigning the covers of four of my books in paperback – Gift of a Letter, Tea Celebrations, The Decoration of Houses, and Living a Beautiful Life. This makes me extremely happy because it will give new life to these books that are precious to me. While each has a unique point of view, together they add up to a message of living life graciously, fully, and happily.

OMEGA WORKSHOP

Here is an introductory comment on my program at Omega: Alexandra will welcome you and explore in her unique style subjects of mind, body, heart and spirit that will reveal the path to living a beautiful life today. You will experience illuminating interation, both profound and stimulating, and will leave the workshop with a whole new level of awareness and pleasure in your life, full of surprising ideas for increasing enlightenment, vitality, and beauty. "Nothing looks or feels beautiful if you are not happy," Stoddard says. She opens our eyes to see all the beauty around us, the deep quality of meditation and of movement, some brilliant poetry and many uplifting rituals. Stoddard's teaching methods will give you the tools and the skills to access your awareness and your intuition for bringing beauty and joy into your life everyday.

I had such an amazingly life-transforming experience at the Heart of Happiness conference in October ’03 that I'm anticipating a great experience for this Labor Day Weekend workshop. Please make your plans now to come and participate with us. Let us be on a quest together, to be truth students, to seek and find beauty and happiness because of our enlightened choices. For easy registration, please call (800) 944-1001 or check their website at www.omega.org. This will be a most intimate, illuminating and fun growth experience for you, your friends and me. I asked you what I should talk about for 3½ days: One reader wrote me and said she wants me to reveal what I do to make my life more beautiful and happier day by day. This is what I intend to teach and discuss.

Thank you for your support, kind words, love and affection. I don’t want to think what my life would be like without you. Some of you I’ve gotten to know as friends because we’ve met personally. For others, you know me through my books. Please try to come to Omega for this rare opportunity for us to share the best we have within us with each other. Bring your spouse, a lover, a sibling or friends. I’ll greet you with open arms.

Love & Live Happy,

PS: May I ask you a favor? A few requests for various things have been misplaced. I’ve lost a fax and a phone number. Please call me again or fax me with your questions. I’m all ears, and I apologize.

PSS: Also, we’re planning my book tour for Things I Want My Daughters to Know to begin directly after the Omega workshop September 6th. Please think of your favorite charities, groups or people where we can do a fundraiser, where I can speak about my new book. Organizing events takes time. Let me know your thoughts. Thank you.

Grace and Alexandra in Stonington, November 1, 2003

Alexandra with Woody and Grace Belangia at The Inn at Stonington.

Many of you have expressed an interest in this great artist’s work. I’ve been collecting Muhl paintings for 42 years. If you are interested in becoming a proud owner, please let me know. The prices range from lithographs to oils. Fax me at (212) 996-4625. Tell me your price range (lithographs are $1,400 and oils are $6,000 to $36,000). This one artist has brought great joy to the lives of hundred of collectors.

Living a Beautiful Life has a new cover. A memorable book to read, to have and to hold. This book has sold a million copies in hardcover. Now available. The new cover shows a tea celebration in Alexandra's charming cottage kitchen. Hardback $25.00 plus $5.00 s/h. Please send book orders and checks for this book to 87 Water Street, Stonington, CT 06378.