Habitual Gratitude

Today I am grateful for this Universe we live in, for the Earth's revolution  around  our life-giving Sun every 365 1/4 days. We are humble tiny parts in a vast whole we cannot even fathom.  I have been writing this blog for nearly 8 years, but this is only the second Leap Day I have encountered in that time, so I thought I would go back and see if and what I wrote on the last Leap Day. This is most of that day's post:  February 29, 2016  Though feeling considerably better, the virus that took hold in me hasn't made a complete exit, so I continue to make rest a priority. That is not always something I am good at. I push myself and fill my days from early in the morning until running out of gas somewhere in the evening. And that pace certainly could have made me vulnerable to viral attack. My body said "enough" and I literally was limited by my energy level. That makes it much easier to prioritize. Do I have to get anything else done before I res...

Today I am grateful for the opportunities that being a gratefulness gathering host have brought into my life. I appreciate speaking with others about my experience and theirs around this idea of living gratefully. I grow from each of these conversations. Breathe, just breathe. So short and simple. So hard for me to remember when I most need to remember. Practice makes progress possible. That includes practicing mindful breathing. It can bring a presence to the moment at hand and the day ahead, and help me let go of "stuff" that is a burden and would slow me down today if I kept hanging on to it. Let go or be dragged. Physically slowed, mentally stalled, emotionally stuck, spiritually empty.  These happen when the "stuff" stays. They disappear when I surrender and find myself fully focused on now and the hours ahead. When I open to what the Universe and Great Spirit offer to me. Here is a breathing mediation I have found helpful. I encourage you to try it. It i...

Living gratefully today, I appreciate the power of emotional healing and the simplicity of taking a drink of clean water. There is a clock that hangs on the wall in the house my parents and now my brother have lived in for nearly forty years. The clock moved with us from the home we all consider our true "home place" and where my other brother and his wife have lived since we moved from there when I was 15. The clock was a gift to my parents from another brother and his wife. It is a battery-operated chiming clock that sounds at every hour and half-hour. At the hour, it chimes for the hour. Eight chimes for eight o'clock. It is over forty years old and has remained reliable all these years. It has hung on the same wall, serving as a reminder of what was, what and who have passed, and what is today. Moment by moment. It is the same clock that woke me up from my Sunday afternoon naps as I slept off yet another hangover as a teenager, and that got me thinking to take a...

Today I am grateful for safe travels, the many ways I enjoyed time with family in recent days, and especially the little ways I spent time with my mom. I am grateful she seemed more content, less agitated. Witnessing that sense of peace in her offered a good buffer to the growing confusion and declining recognition Mom has. One of the numerous family members who gathered to help Mom celebrate her birthday was her younger sister Helen. Helen is approaching 84, and aging well from what I can see. She joined my siblings and I, along with Mom, later on Sunday afternoon after the "party" was over. Someone commented to her that she hadn't changed since the last time they had seen each other, and the question asked was along the lines of "How do you do it?"  Helen's response was "I get up each day and keep going." Thank you for that simple wisdom Aunt Helen! Getting up is easier on some days than others.  Keeping going sometimes seems effortless, ...

Today I am grateful for family and friends. Sure, that goes without saying. But, it's still good to say it, write it, feel it. Yesterday afternoon after work, I was sitting at our computer and my son Sam was laying on the couch a few feet away. Our dog Oliver jumped up on Sam and started loving him up, as these two like to do. Oliver was licking Sam's face and I said something about "doesn't his breath smell?" Sam said "Yeah, but you have to take the bad with the good." "Take the bad with the good." Life and living gratefully help me do that, hopefully at least some of the time and with some humble grace too. We can't avoid disappointments, frustrations, losses, challenges, changes.  Energy spent in denial or emotionally stuck becomes wasted energy. Looking for silver linings, lessons learned, progress made all help pull the benefits out of what felt nothing like beneficial at the time. Some friends and I were in a conversation last...

Today I am grateful for the reminders to be present and not take myself or life too seriously all the time. I am also grateful for my mom and the many lives she has touched.  My mom turns 89 years old today. She was born on February 20, 1931 and named Gertrude Helen.  This week's blogging is about pictures I guess, so here are a couple more. The first one is Mom, around age six. I can really see my young face in her young face.  The second picture was taken on my 54th birthday last July at my nephew's wedding. Mom with  the "baby girl" of her eight daughters. I have two younger brothers too, along with three older ones.  Needless to say, there are plenty of people around to wish Mom a happy birthday. Her sons and daughters, daughters-in law and sons-in-law, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, siblings, in-laws, extended family, friends, neighbors. Her life has touched and been touched by so many others in her nearly nine decades of living.  ...

Living gratefully today, I appreciate meditation time and where it takes me. I also give thanks for the walls and windows of our stable home. This weekend, we stayed in a cabin very near the Kickapoo Valley Reserve. Though I had heard the word "kickapoo" before, I could tell you little about it. We chose to watch a video available in our cabin, titled "The Kickapoo Valley Reserve: From Here to There." Watching it brings more meaning to the place and space, as well as our time there. Kickapoo is believed to be an Algonquin word meaning "from here to there." It's a fitting name for the river that winds through this area for about 125 miles before feeding into the Wisconsin River not far from where it feeds into the Mississippi River. Settlers had lived in the area since the mid-1800's, displacing the Native Americans of the Ho-Chunk (Winnebago) Nation who had lived there for many centuries. Flooding was a recurring problem and a dam was begun i...