I’m grateful for so much today. For friends reaching out or responding… for the desperately compassionate work of people like Robert Hubbell and John Pavlovitz among so many others who are trying to help us navigate these dark global days and darker nights. Honestly, it’s hard for me to get done in a day the few things I want to get done, and not because I’m overwhelmed with holiday festivities.

But I’m grateful I did manage to get bread baked today, and what a perfect loaf it was. I’m grateful for all the usual things; and grateful for incrementally longer days, and only two months or less until I can be gardening again. I’m grateful a lost cat I don’t even know returned home safely after weeks away. I’m grateful I’ve learned an antidote for empathy fatigue, and that is compassion. I’m grateful friends are healing well from injuries and surgeries, and grateful they have good medical care. I’m grateful I have backup internet access. I’m grateful my puppy, though her eye condition fluctuates, is healthy in all other ways. I’m grateful that daily exercise with my cousin seems to be keeping physical pain at bay these days.

And I’m grateful for perseverance. I set myself a monthly deadline to publish a podcast, and I’ve failed to meet it as often as I’ve succeeded. I’m more than a month overdue this time, but I’m grateful today that I finally managed to overcome inertia, to write and release episode 8 of ‘Suffer Less with Mindfulness,’ available now on your favorite podcast site. This episode is called Letting Go is a Diamond. Check it out when you’re somewhere you can get still and meditate for half an hour.