Every plant that grows and survives in the harsh environment of the desert produces thorns. The cactus is the fittest of those survivors and by brilliant adaptation to the conditions of the desert climate, the cactus clothe themselves in self-protective quills. Attiring themselves in sharp spines prevents them from being trampled and guards against animals stealing their water and eating them as food. Other plants produce stickers that ensure survival of their seed and a new generation of plants. Stickers enable the plants to spread their seed by sticking themselves on the feet and legs of other animals that tread over them. Their ability to stick also enables them to lodge in hard, dry ground and wait for the rainy season. Sometimes, that season doesn’t come for years at a time but the unpleasant nature of a sticker protects it from being eaten by even drought-starved animals and it patiently…

Adeline, a little girl raised in a world of dingy grey somehow, learned to dream in color. She was a talented child of limited privilege but gifted with creativity. Her talent to dream beyond her environment was her ticket to survival. Trapped in a home characterized by spiritual, intellectual, and economic poverty, Adeline escaped into the inner, colorful world of her dreams. That special place was the opposite of the deadly vacuum in which she lived and breathed. Adeline’s world was made of vast, rolling, emerald-green hills beneath an azure sky filled with cloudless rainbows. The sun was always shinning but never too hot, it gently, kissed and nurtured flowers reflecting the color of the rainbows above them, in the sparkling sky. Every animal on the planet that Adeline created in her mind was a pet, even bears and lions and the people were always loving and kind. Everything was…