Origins of Opennessence

The seeds of Opennessence came from the avalanche of books I read in 2002. When my children were young (under the age of 5), we recited a good night mantra we created together — “Be good, be true, be you ...be open-hearted, be open-minded, and be open-2-happiness …you, me, everybody.” We opened each finger in our hands as we said it. It was a little like a girl’s recess hand clap/slap game or a mutual “insider” hand shake. After we did it, they would tell me a story about how they learned about one of the OPEN finger values that day or how they saw one of them in a new way. Sharing with friends at day care was a good way to share - “be good.” Patting a crying peer on the back while they are recovering was being open-hearted. Devising a new way to stack blocks was being open-minded. Celebrating/laughing with others because you lost a race because your shoe fell off was being open-2-happiness. The “OPEN hand” soon became “openness.” That turned into “openness” merged with “essence” as the portmaneau “opennessence.” From there, ambigrams of the word open, the OPEN cube, the golden cube, open2happiness (O2H), Curves and Corners, Frame, and much more emerged. Most of this has sat on a shelf for the last 10 years. Now, I have decided it is time to share all of these great ideas with the world. My hope is that they will help children, their parents, and everyone to think about and use these universal values/virtues more meaningfully and purposefully in their lives. It is good to grow happiness from within and to share it with others.