I’m grateful for the simple, productive pleasure of knitting. I’ve just started the right front panel of the dream sweater. Allowing the flow of creative energy releases agitation and grounds me in this moment. Whether it’s with knitting needles or a camera, writing or in the kitchen cooking, focusing my attention on creating something or capturing a fleeting image calms thoughts and eclipses ego. Wren was grateful that I took her to the canyon this evening.
I’m grateful for ripe tomatoes (not grown here) and Olathe Sweet sweet corn, salt, pepper, mayonnaise, and homemade bread.
I’m grateful for a couple of days of reprieve from the smoke, and that the teams have most of the fires somewhat contained, and that they have stayed safe. Despite the heat, I’ve been able to get some work done in the garden mornings and evenings, including covering the remaining cabbages with screen cubes, and thinning carrots which grew even though their tops got munched.
I’m grateful it was cool and clear enough on Friday to leave the house open overnight, which made it cool enough inside on Saturday to cook. I threw together a potato-pepper-onion-garlic-cabbage-corn-black bean fry with Penzeys Arizona seasoning to use in burritos for the next few days, and dug out a specialty tool I bought last summer to slice the corn off the cob. My first time using it lacked precision but was effective.
It was cool enough to make a batch of apricot jam, but still too hot to process it, so I gave away a few jars and froze a few. I’m grateful to have learned that apricot jam freezes well.
Wren’s been a bit put out that she hasn’t shown up here for awhile, so she took a break from frog hunting to pose nicely this morning. So did a big frog, right by my feet, but then she sensed Wren coming!
It was hot early again today, so when the sweetest neighbor stopped by on her walk to pick up her jam, I invited her to cool off under the sprinkler. Then I went inside for breakfast, two little waffles with the last of the sweet cherries I picked up on Thursday, some yogurt, and of course, real maple syrup.
I’m grateful there have only been a couple of bird strikes against the windows this summer. But today the total doubled with two in a matter of hours. They both hit the south windows, despite the fluttering prayer flags. The first was a young female Bullock’s oriole, whom I set in the shady apricot tree; the second, a young house finch who might have been drunk on apricot mash. I put her in the juniper near the feeder where they all hang out. I’m grateful that both birds recovered.
I don’t live an exciting life. It’s not like I’m wallowing in active joy all day every day: far from it. I spent most of today inside, too hot to do much of anything besides read, meditate, and clean the kitchen. But I do cultivate contentment by practicing gratitude every day. I’m aware of horrors happening the world over: there are at least 35 wars going on which are devastating people, cultures, and the environment. The US government has lost its moral compass and spun off in an inconceivable direction. The planet is burning, flooding, quaking, drying, crying, aching from our species’ misuse of it.
And still life goes on. Everywhere, all the time, life is hatching and dying, growing, playing, eating, aging, changing. I’m aware of this, also, and of my good fortune to live this simple life, this rare and precious human life, immersed in nature. Sometimes it’s pretty hard. It’s been a rough ten days with the heat and the smoke, and the mental poisons that still trouble me despite mindfulness practice. In the midst of all that is naturally tedious or trying in this human life, almost every day I experience moments of joy. Maybe not many, and most of them small, but by remaining receptive and aware, I find them everywhere.
Though the reason for it is harsh, the smoky sunset light is lovely. On our stroll the rescue horses next door thundered up to the fence to greet us. After a mutually curious visit, they moved on and left us in pensive, contented silence, grateful for a weekend enriched by many bright and colorful moments of joy anyway.
It takes so little to excite me. When I saw apricots glowing in the lowering sun against the grey storm sky I dashed outside. Then it just kept getting better. Fortunately, the smoke wasn’t bad here today and the fire didn’t expand too much. I was grateful that the air was clear enough to spend sunset outside.
It was time for supper but it was too nice to go inside. Refreshed by a cool breeze and a smattering of raindrops, undaunted by the mellow distant thunder and feeble cloud to cloud lightning, I went up on the deck to enjoy the kaleidoscope.
Hungry, I almost came in, but saw a rainbow beginning to the south. A few minutes later a hint of color appeared in front of Saddle Mountain. So I waited.
Minute by minute the rainbow grew, intensified, first at one end then the other. A hint of double appeared first in the east and then in the south, and then nearly met in the middle. It went on and on. I was breathing colors.
Even in the last light, a hint of rainbow remained. And then I turned around.
It was a great day to be living inside the kaleidoscope. Off in Washington the party of pride and prejudice sold out the American people to kiss the feet of the billionaire class. I was grateful to be immersed in my little garden, and the big sky, and meaningful connection with two sanghas and several friends.
“We’re excited to get this done. If Hakeem would stop talking, we’ll get the job done for the American people. It takes a lot longer to build a lie than to tell the truth, so he’s really spinning a long tale in there, but we’re excited. The people will feel the effect of this bill….. The sooner we can get to it, the sooner the Democrats will stop talking, we’ll get this bill done for the people and we’re really excited about it.”
Speaker Mike Johnson lying through his greedy teeth to CNN this morning during Jeffries’ last ditch effort to stop the big bad bill. You bet the American people will feel the effects of the bill. Despicable. Excited, cheering, their ruthless delusion knows no bounds. I tried to call Jeff Hurd again this morning and when I chose the option to leave a message I was disconnected.
I had to run to the bank this afternoon and spotted this bumper sticker, which raised ironic thoughts, reflections on the prevalence and persistence of delusion, a brief spin into conjecture about how this pronouncement will be perceived in a year or four years, raised some bile: May you have the day you voted for. And then back to practice: May all beings be healthy and happy, may all beings be safe, free from inner and outer harm, may all beings live a life of joyful ease. May all beings be healthy and happy…
One can’t practice enough these days. Literally, I cannot practice enough to keep my gorge from rising, the bile from a constant burn in the back of my throat. But I keep practicing, because that’s what we do.
After meditation, and a zoom sangha with Upaya, we strolled up the driveway to savor the sky, the clean damp air; to ground in the clear truth of nature, ancient junipers, mutable weather, the fleeting grace of a doe, a tiny spotted fawn running through the field.
You do what you can, what you must, with hope, without clinging to outcome. You accept the truth that this is how things are right now, and then you adapt, reset, recuperate, and start again the next day. But for this evening, just for these precious few hours, you relax into whatever nourishes you, whatever sustains and restores you, and savor it like there’s no tomorrow. You step into the kaleidoscope and ride.
I was grateful to get home today knowing that I had vanilla bean ice cream in the freezer. But before that, I was grateful for so much more.
I was grateful to Pork Central for Wrensitting while I spent the afternoon in the dentist’s chair. They took such good care of her and I didn’t worry a bit, even knowing that the Mother of Topaz was in the same house and might take exception to a tiny dingo in her space.
I was grateful to the great team at Heritage Family Dental in Paonia for their kindness and skill. Even though I got home feeling like they’d punched me in the face. I appreciated the ‘tooth pillow’ for the left side so my mouth could rest open on a piece of foam instead of having to hold it open myself; and the dark glasses to protect my eyes from the harsh light and the tooth-dust mist from my open mouth. I was especially grateful for nitrous oxide, so that even though I could hear (and smell the burnt tooth smell from) the grinding, I didn’t care too much. I was grateful that part didn’t last much longer than an hour… and the next part was fascinating.
Once all the hard work was done, they packed something around my gum around the tooth they had ground down and refilled, then brought in a little beeping singing wand that scanned the lower jaw, upper jaw, and the bite, and from these scans the amazing technology created a model crown, and more amazing technology ground it right there in the next room, and then fired it at 3000 degrees and it came out smooth and shining. Much brighter white, I might add, than any of my natural teeth. Oh well! A small price to pay… though in actual dollars it was pretty hefty.
I missed hanging out in the yard this afternoon, but I was sure grateful to get home in time for sunset. And to be able to swing by the Arbol Farmers’ Market in town park and pick up a few tomato starts, and to pick up Wren from next door, and to come home and zoom with a Grateful Gathering, and to plant tomatoes after that, and then watch the moon rise. Oh! and the ice cream? That was dinner. Much of the day spent largely outside of my comfort zone, stretching in the Growth Zone, and a whole ‘nother twenty-four hours ahead of me tomorrow, if I am fortunate enough to wake up alive.
Wren wouldn’t stop licking her forearm where she got the IV during her dental, so last night I had to wrap it. It was quite the struggle, involving a medicated wipe, ointment, gauze, vet wrap, and me briefly holding a dog jerky treat between my teeth. She resisted, walked afterward like she had a thorn in her paw, kept trying to lick off the wrap. Once I got her in bed for the night she settled down.
In the mornings if she gets up before me I don’t even open my eyes, just pat the bed, and she jumps up and rolls onto my hand or curls up in the crook of my arm. This morning I patted the bed with the back of my hand, and she did something she’s never done before. I felt her little paw settle softly in my palm. She lifted it and set it down again like a feather. Moving only my fingers I felt the bandage down around her ankle and gently slipped it over her foot. She flung herself down and curled up on top of my hand.
Today she got ointment and the Donut of Protection, and it was much easier. Neither sore nor donut kept her from her job at the pond.
For lunch today, fresh bread and homemade tomato soup from the freezer. I’m grateful for a tip I got decades ago that avocado is the perfect garnish for tomato soup.
I’m grateful that I’m still meeting old trees for the first time sometimes when I walk in the woods. I noticed this piñon from a distance the other day and assumed these were branches broken down over winter. Today we went to investigate and discovered that they’re growing down like a full skirt, having bent when young in deep snow and kept growing that direction. Bent, not broken; resilient.
Though all the blossoms that had opened are frozen brown and wilted, there’s a suggestion of life in the remaining buds. Where there is courage and resilience, there is hope. Hope is a verb that may yet bear fruit.
How did I not notice this extraordinary pattern in Wren’s blue eye? This is one reason I love photography. I see better sometimes through a different lens. I can zoom in or out for a fresh perspective. My aging eyes can’t see this detail when she’s got her face in mine and we melt looking into each other. I’m grateful for this delightful surprise today.
I’ve looked back through images of her to see if this was just an artifact of the camera, or the light, or whether it’s been there all along—and it has! Even in one of first pictures I took of her (above) in May 2022 when I’d had her only a few weeks, you can see the starry darker blue in her iris, but not with the striking clarity of the new phone camera. I simply didn’t look closely enough back then.
Today was classic March in the mountains, windy, cold, with stinging snow flurries, and occasional fits of tepid sunshine. It was a great day to stay inside. Lunch was a grilled Havarti, mushroom, and shallot sandwich. On breaks I continued to puzzle in the sunshine. More about this one later, just a taste today.
I long for the halcyon days when there was nothing more urgent to do with my spare time than enjoy the beauty around me. The causes and conditions of this new era we’re in demand that we all participate in the fierce tapestry of resistance growing daily. I’m grateful to be among many who see clearly; and grateful for the many others who work to strengthen the warp and woof of the weave, the good lawyers and good politicians and good journalists who get paid to defend democracy. Our local Indivisible chapter met this afternoon on zoom and held the full range of each others emotions on this terrifying roller coaster.
Though tonight’s sunset was flat grey, last night’s was ethereally stunning. I’m grateful for a new tripod attachment that let me shoot some short timelapses, and anticipate much joy in coming months from acquiring this single implement. No matter what else you do, make time to do the things that bring you joy. Choose beauty wherever you can.
Today I’m grateful for spending time in the forest. After a walk shortened by muddy conditions, I carried a lawn chair out into the trees and simply sat for awhile. Wren snuffled around amusing her nose, nibbling juniper berries, playing imaginary games; I sat and listened and looked; I breathed clean spring air.
I got back into the fray today, catching up on Today’s Edition with sound advice for sanity, making calls to my Senators, reading a few specific articles including this one about the thousands who demonstrated at state capitols yesterday across the country. But I paced myself. The day started with a member of Telesangha who lives in DC telling me that most residents in his building are federal employees who are panicking. So I led a meditation in which I repeated some sound advice recently shared with me from a talk by Oren Jay Sofer, on how to deal with news overwhelm:
As I wandered through the woods I thought about how many of the Usurpers’ edicts have already been challenged or held up by the courts, by protests, and by legislators; and, how many outrageous pronouncements have already been diluted or walked back by the Usurper in Chief. We don’t really know what’s actually happening. The sowing of chaos is an intentional strategy to overload our cognitive capacities. As Hubbell writes, “Not everything that Trump and Musk have announced will actually occur or will be easy to implement. And we will have time to resist, fight back, slow walk, and seek injunctive relief from the courts. We can blunt some of the damage but cannot prevent it all. Still, we must do our best to protect as many people and programs as possible.”
In another post he points out, “Do not collapse the future into the present moment. The future comes at us one day at a time no matter how much we worry. The invariant pace of time gives us space and opportunity to plan, react, and adjust. Find community. Support others in distress. Lead by example….” And so in addition to Sofer’s advice on avoiding media overwhelm, I would add, just pause… When you hear or read the latest outrage, pause and breathe. Don’t react from your gut right away: that will quickly wreck your gut. Take a breath, wait for followup information to determine the actual urgency (and truth) of the situation, and then determine whether and how you can in alignment with your values and your abilities. And do not forget to nourish yourself so that you have the energy to engage in resistance.
Rebecca Solnit wrote the day after the election, “They want you to feel powerless and to surrender and to let them trample everything and you are not going to let them. You are not giving up, and neither am I. The fact that we cannot save everything does not mean we cannot save anything and everything we can save is worth saving.“
Joyce Vance writes another excellent newsletter that gives wise and helpful legal perspective and interpretation on the coup and its ramifications, which she ends with the phrase “We’re in this together.” There are SO MANY informed and determined defenders of democracy out there working on the front lines. You and I do not have to know everything or do everything. I am one among many, and we are strong and resilient. More will join us every day as their lives become uncomfortable. Anything we do that is helpful, or kind, or compassionate; that is wise, that is true, that stands up to oppression and corruption, ripples out into the world in ways we may never know. Thinking about this, I recalled a poem I wrote years ago, early in my mindfulness journey. What we do matters.
I’ve decided to take at least one day off from external influences each week. Whatever fresh hell today brought, I can learn about it tomorrow. Body-mind-spirit all require relief from the stress of knowing what the usurpers are doing. Seriously, if they don’t break our spirits first, the stress alone could break our bodies. Every day this week I’ve engaged in several forms of activism, and today is a day off to nourish my resilience.
Another warm, springlike day motivated me to open both doors for some fresh air in the house. With music to help me move, I was in and out all day, cleaning the mudroom, the patios, carrying some things to storage in the yurt, feeling grateful for the wildlife and the woods, and for the emergence of the first tender crocus leaves in the yarden.
On the evening I finished this puzzle, Changing Light, Changing Seasons by Brad Gorman, I stepped outside to a similar sky. A moment of layered joy.
I’m grateful for fresh, homegrown Florida grapefruit. I saved some seeds from the last one to try to sprout, but then I learned that citrus seeds need to stay damp in order to germinate. So I opened my second-to-last Christmas grapefruit today and carefully supremed it so I didn’t damage a seed.
I’ll save and dry the peels, then use them in a variety of ways from tea to cleaning vinegar. Or maybe I’ll just compost them, we’ll know more later. I harvested four perfect seeds and planted them in four pretty little pots, after clearing space for them on the second shelf on the grow rack.
I’m grateful I was able to keep my attention in my home today: no outside influences, so that I could focus on housekeeping, spring cleaning, fresh air, music, movement and playing with plants, with joy and gratitude, without distraction or distress.
And then I baked. Another project that’s been on my mind for awhile like planting citrus seeds has been maple-pecan scones. This time I added a few dried tart cherries in with the toasted nuts, and remembered the egg wash before I put them in the oven. These turned out perfectly! So simple, so delicious. Then I glazed them with Mount Mansfield maple cream, which sets with a firm shell but remains melty soft underneath. I can hardly wait to wake up alive tomorrow and enjoy one with coffee.
Wherever you are, whoever you are, I hope that you find a way to nourish yourself today: pause occasionally to take a few deep breaths, get outside, move to some music, indulge in a treat; be kind to yourself, and be kind to someone else.