“Had I been put in a position to manage great affairs, I would have shown what I could do.” Have you been able to think out and manage your life? You have performed the greatest work of all.  —Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

Thank you for the harmony of berry blends.

Thank you to a hawk and an egret on a walk for pulling me back to the present. 

Thank you for two cornerstones of thriving relationships of all kinds: solid, loving communication and trust. Respect could be a foundation. And on them is built freedom’s shelter? I don’t know.

Thank you for an owl fly-by above an evening stroll followed, a few yards later, by a shooting star as The Power of Love fed into my earbuds. 

Thank you for an even more brilliant starlike spectacle during a walk last night as more random songs showered my ears with positivity.

Thank you for practice elevating others’ energy. Thank you for practice letting others elevate mine. (Smiles and such.)

Thank you for bouncy locks from a fresh trim. 

Thank you if there is something I feel called toward. I do well when I ready myself to meet it. 

Thank you for precision fermentation and cultured meat, not out of interest in engineered foods per se. Of interest is agricultural transformation.

Thank you for prayers that animal agriculture will be replaced with healthier models.

Thank you for relational savoring. 

Thank you for dreams outside the lines.

Thank you for serious silliness.

Thank you not only for the greater sense of control over my life (the surrendering to right powers) lately but also for eagerness to live.

Thank you for moments open to guidance.

Thank you for beauty and love in a world (even one on the brink of collapse).

Thank you for a dream of feeding loved ones at home. Thank you for simple basics.

Thank you for the stacks at the local public library (Mythology, Religion, Self Help, Sociology, Civil Rights…) by the comfy seats in the corner.

Thank you for cycles of hunger and fullness every day. 

Thank you again for more thoughts on healing. To move through self loathing involves not identifying with my problems. When I see my shortcomings as part of me, as how I am (“I’m a this or that”), it becomes much harder to rise. 

When instead I see my less healthy bits as not integral to me, then I can observe them like objects held in my hands. I can face them, talk about them from a removed stance, explore what they serve, make amends for damage they’ve caused, etc. I may be able to release them, to realize higher potential.

Thank you for a dream that compared karma to a law of conservation of energy. Maybe, in the overall picture, what I put into my life is no more or less than what I will get out.

Thank you for yoga and a Hindu temple visit with G and O before they deposited me at the train station. Thank you for listening and talking, and for laughter. Thank you for deer sightings.

Thank you for a loving send off from the cottage family. Thank you for their acceptance and warmth this past year. Thank you for when we all will be together next. 

Thank you for a quiet lady seat mate on the train. Thank you for a safe trip. Thank you for what may be a peaceful getaway until the C of O happens. 

Thank you for the Southwest Chief conductor. Rather than laying down the law at the start of our journey, he requested over and over that we be kind and patient with each other, that we treat others how we’d want to be treated. Thank you for leadership cultivating kindness. 

Thank you for reads that inspire. Thank you for Spinoza snippets, like this one, from a Goodwill find:

Of all things beyond my power, I value nothing more than friendship with people who sincerely love the truth, for I believe that of the things beyond our power, there is nothing in the world we can love with tranquility except such people. 

Thank you for a full heart from opening the text message app and scrolling down the roster of loved ones and acquaintances and business contacts. 

Thank you for chats (at the train depot).

Thank you for what’s seen as weird.

Thank you always for the times I try to choose the hard way, not because it’s hard per se, but when it seems wiser. Heeding the call enriches life. 

Thank you for discomforts embraced. Thank you for their gifts of patience and calm. Thank you for efforts to face reality head on. (May they grow in all of us.)

Thank you for sometimes seeing through illusions. Making days more convenient may appear to enhance them. The reality, though, is that often convenience isolates us: shortcuts may unburden us of the need to cooperate, and so we’re deprived of connections rich with meaning. The easy way also removes effort, a mechanism that, combined with rest, generates “ahas.”

Thank you for the value in added texture. 

Thank you for the right kinds of challenges (honest and patient, selfless yet self-respecting, upright with integrity…)

Wishing us the wisdom to exalt noble efforts and the mindfulness to savor them. 

Know you are loved <3

All this talk and turmoil and noise and movement and desire is outside the veil; inside the veil is silence and calm and peace. —Abu Yazid Al-Bistami

Thank you for full moon walks.

Thank you for a therapist’s wisdom on dreams, from a Jungian perspective. 

Thank you again for a life-changing book, Man and His Symbols, borrowed (stolen) from my mom at seventeen.

Thank you for us, we, and ours.

Thank you for disparate emotions you wouldn’t expect to coexist in harmony.

Thank you for mujaddara cravings. 

Thank you for humble meals. 

Thank you for the promise of a tailor-made kitchen. Thank you for culinary adventures. 

Thank you for lime plaster.

Thank you for the view from my future bedroom. 

Thank you for AV designing the house with love and RGJ setting it up with care. Thank you for kindness from everyone involved with the project.

Thank you for a first choice falling through (the tiny house). I see better why home matters: community, connections.

Thank you for visions brought to life.

Thank you for NM celebrating those on her path. 

Thank you for positive feedback from strangers on mats and saddles. 

Thank you for Kim bringing up “the power in the pause.” When I remember to pause, I gain control.

Thank you for women of color.

Thank you for the vacation feel when not on vacation. You’re relaxed. You have no agenda. You’re enjoying life—the weather, sights, people… Thank you for magic to summon such moods in daily life. Mindfulness helps. 

Thank you for kitchen chats with housemates.

Thank you for GC asking, “Do you enjoy your own company?” May you be a friend to yourself, too.

Thank you for GB’s first impression of kale during lunch at Follow Your Heart: “It’s very chewy.” 

Thank you for longtime friends sacrificing joyfully for each other. 

Thank you for focus on solutions.

Thank you for understanding problems to focus on solutions. Thank you for digging, carefully, mindfully, beneath problems to understand them. 

Thank you for underlying sources. Attention to them may preclude worries about more superficial stuff.

Thank you for my hidden insides making their selves known when I write without knowing what to say. Thank you for a pencil, a notebook, and a few minutes.

Thank you for outlets that give voice to the unconscious. Thank you for self study.

Thank you for the growing perception that I am in control lately. That’s not exactly accurate, though. I see that none of us truly has control. Maybe the control part is our freedom to choose, and to practice, what we surrender to.

Surrender is expansive when not oppressed by fear of suffering or driven by desire to escape. And I know that I’m surrendering to my fear and desire when I let them distort or hide truths.

When, instead, honesty guides me, when I let it have control, it brings fullness. It opens to gratitude and acceptance. I’m empowered. Thank you for control gained by letting go in the right ways. (Or am I better to let go even of the notion of surrender, somehow just to be in alignment with a higher self? I don’t know.)

Wishing us awareness that we have everything we need to release what doesn’t serve us, opening space for freedom in truth.

Be well <3

If you wish to make Pythocles rich, do not add to his store of money, but subtract from his desires. — Epicurus 

Thank you for alternate definitions of riches. Thank you for awareness of the (in some sense privileged) option either to perpetually grasp or to practice contentment, share privilege, invest in equality…

Thank you for these rambling jumbles.

Thank you for Sisters’ wisdom restoring wellness.

Thank you again for rides in the Santa Monica Mountains.

Thank you for butterscotch-scented flowers.

Thank you for a woodpecker fly-by across the oak canopy on Mulholland near Kanan.

Thank you for choices (not abundant but important).

Thank you for books transporting minds.

Thank you for chats with good friends over lunch, over the phone, on walks, with tea…

Thank you for chats with like-minded strangers across the country. 

Thank you for greater focus on values. 

Thank you for my values having a voice lately in multiple ways (meaningful conversations, house business, volunteering...). Thank you if it continues.

Thank you for mini-splits with lower-GWP refrigerant. 

Thank you for peeling out of a comfort zone to be more civically engaged.

Thank you for recording and celebrating efforts for good. What we focus on grows!

Thank you for gains measured against not future ideals but advancement (however gradual or non-linear) from pasts.

Thank you for shuddhosi buddhosi.

Thank you for thoughts about toaster ovens and other (less-essential) appliances. Maybe we accumulate all sorts of doodads because a few folks want to make money off of them. So they convince us that our lives will be better if we buy what they sell. The good news is, as long as we work to be happy with our proper lives, we’re more likely to take a pass on those offers.

Thank you for the whole world benefitting from our happiness with less. 

Thank you for the new roomie letting life be fun again. Thank you for the fun of friendships.

Thank you for years sort of in limbo to cultivate appreciation of home. 

Thank you for those who make our homes not just possible but safe, beautiful, comfortable.

Thank you again for the one who taught us that with each step “I have arrived; I am home.” Maybe I shared this thought before. Toward the end of his life, he requested a move back to the monastery in Vietnam where he’d started as a young monk. To me that’s telling (although I’m making unverified assumptions).

Home is in every step. And, for some of us, home is also a particular little nook that cradles us between our intimacy with the past and our vision of the future.

Thank you for environmental stewardship springing from that link with place over time.

Thank you for a reason to believe in transformation. Often instead of an extraordinary feat, all change requires is literally that: changing. It only seems big because it’s different. I’d like to focus on embracing different.

Thank you for oats in varied forms. Thank you for their scent.

Thank you for when my suffering uncovers my strength.

Thank you for the Your Brain On Introversion podcast.

Thank you for issues as unrecognized strengths—take the mind that is easily bored or craves stimulation, that when uninspired, spirals emotions down with it. That discontented mind may be the sign of lots of things, more or less healthy. For instance, it may belong to a healthy, deep-capacity thinker. What if some parts of you are less than satisfied simply because they crave greater and more profound meaning (with connection)? 

Thank you for moderate comfort.

Thank you for learning what windows to open and close at which times of day to keep our homes comfortable.

Thank you for a funny lesson about fear playing games. (Be nice about it, please…) Seeking a new outlet years ago, I was so afraid of what would happen if I caught a wave, that when I did go for one, my foot would unconsciously dig in the water to make it harder for my arms.

Thank you for wellness efforts focused on food, sleep, mindfulness, visions, goals, dreams… Thank you for trying little steps each day and celebrating progress.

Thank you for experience showing the humble treasure in “good enough.” 

Thank you for friends you’d like with you at a party. Thank you for friends you’d want near at a funeral. Thank you for the overlap. 

I wonder if, on the whole, I may be better at fasting than feasting. (Gandhi seemed a true pro at fasting, a historical hero, so it must have pluses.) What about you?

Thank you for the weirdness and wonder of being human.

Thank you for the documentary Eating for Tomorrow raising my appreciation for healthy fishies (not as food).

Thank you for a goofy scribble on a pizza box in the kitchen: “Nobody puts their shoes on the wrong feet on purpose.”

Thank you for an overheard phone conversation between an elderly, wheelchair-bound mother (at Kaiser) and her son. He kept repeating, “I love you, Mom, very much.”

Thank you for the answer to this question being the same no matter who asks it: Am I special, or am I just like everyone else? (My hunch, it’s always “both.”)

Thank you for signs that my health is increasing. I believe in your healing, too. <3

An optimist is a person who sees a green light everywhere, while a pessimist sees only the red stoplight... the truly wise person is colorblind. — Albert Schweitzer

Thank you for moments of clarity.

Thank you for when I focus less on myself and more toward the rest of the world.

Thank you for perspective from statistics:

Over 740 million people worldwide lack access to electricity. (That’s over 9 percent of the global population.)

Approximately 2 billion people around the world do not have access to clean and safe drinking water (around one in four people on the planet), and approximately 3.6 billion people – 46% of the world's population – lack adequate sanitation services.

673 million people have no toilets at all and practice open defecation.

2.3 billion people worldwide - nearly one third of the global population - still cook their meals over open fires or on basic stoves, breathing in harmful smoke released from burning coal, charcoal, firewood, agricultural wastes, and animal dung. A lack of clean cooking contributes to 3.7 million premature deaths annually, with women and children most at risk.

Thank you for big pictures.

Thank you for efforts at taking responsibility for my impact as well as my happiness.

Thank you for ahimsa.

Thank you for NM and MG nesting in their New England haven.

Thank you for reality, even if it hurts. Thank you for efforts to keep shining. 

Thank you for beach days.

Thank you for French rap to help me learn. Thank you for dreams of extended stays abroad after settled into new life and when there’s a cleaner (low-impact) way to travel.

Thank you for l’amour ne se divise pas. Il se multiplie.

Thank you for resting in faith that I’m never alone.

Thank you for spirit guides. They’re reaching out to us now. (Look and listen!)

Thank you for attempts to separate my ego from my suffering.

Thank you for my suffering. None of us is entitled not to experience an abundance of that normal, healthy part of life. To experience suffering is a little like studying a curriculum. When I do, I gain.

Thank you again for the extraordinary inner worlds that don’t always match up with external indicators. The weight that pressures. The inspiration that carries. The currents that drag and pull. Thank you for the hidden power of our deepness to teach and connect.

Thank you for channeling anger into positivity. Thich Nhat Hanh had a lot to say about it. What I gathered from his teaching is that using anger as a motivator may narrow our perspectives. Thus doing so is perhaps less than wise. Peace expands our view.

When I do have fire inside me, will I do well to put it to use just temporarily, or to pause instead? I think, pausing is still better. I’m not sure I stay on a good path when recruiting my anger to prove anything. Optimally, I will live for wellness without worrying about outside opinions.

Thank you for the man on the train to Cali listening to Bill Evans without headphones.

Thank you for S and C’s healthy grandson.

Thank you for the freedom app, even though I keep deleting it.

Thank you for difficult times growing up and for abusive relationships that led me to doubt what I’d assumed as true. Did I deserve to be treated in hurtful ways? Did I cause hurt? I wanted to understand. What’s underneath our pain? How do we become better?

Thank you for questioning with positive intentions, without judgement, as objectively as possible (also playing devil’s advocate). Testing propositions from various angles reveals and congeals understanding. I gain confidence from it.

Thank you for overthinking.

Thank you for distance from DM3 again. (I’ve only broken down and checked it 9 days in the past nine months.) Thank you for the faith that one day its curator will expand into new horizons.

Thank you for the art of suffering. “With the energy of mindfulness you are strong enough to be with your anger, to be with your irritation, to be with your loneliness. And the first function of mindfulness is to recognize things as they are. The second function of mindfulness is to embrace and calm it down, because mindfulness is a kind of energy” —Thich Nhat Hanh.

Thank you for the the sangha body. Thank you for Deer Park.

Thank you for help dealing with strong emotions.

Thank you for the mindfulness trainings offered with love.

Thank you for trying to be more mindful without expecting it to cure me.

Thank you for loved ones who fundamentally value kindness. Their belief in the good of humanity lights the way to my better self when I stray (over and over). They energize my love and hope.

Thank you for Sister love amidst turmoil.

Thank you for compassion for plus ones.

Thank you for BO’s (innocent) comment, “You wanna surround yourself with eagles and not vultures.” Thank you for the eagles circling my new home.

Thank you for abundant supportive, positive energy on delivery day. Thank you for the community making home possible. 

Thank you for DL from the Audubon Society visiting to help plan a native garden.

Thank you for a better quality of life through a WFPB diet that gives my otherwise uneven moods a little bit more balance.

Thank you for determined efforts to be present. Even a tiny amount is progress. Thank you for power to appreciate life in the midst of suffering.

Thank you for nirvana, when the ashes cool.

Wishing you deep, lasting happiness, the kind that flows out from within, tempered by suffering and mingled with equanimity. May your noblest dreams draw you to the peace you deserve. <3

Thank you for dreamers of the day (in all of us), with open eyes, realizing dreams of light.

Thank you for freedom from bucket lists.

Thank you for how feeling grateful and having contentment go hand in hand.

Thank you for Goodwill earrings.

Thank you for the sweet slushy crunch of watermelon bites.

Thank you for luxurious tub soaks.

Thank you for Andy Ramage on a recent Rich Roll Podcast. The two explored facets of behavior change relevant to so many areas (with a helpful breakdown of Prochaska’s model of change right after 40:00).

Thank you for birthday rainbows and texts and chats and treats. Thank you for feeling loved.

Thank you for the possibility that the universe is conspiring to teach us at every moment. Thank you for fun in finding lessons.

Thank you for cognizance of my blindness to others’ inner worlds, especially when temped to judge them for acting differently than I would.

Thank you for when there is awareness that I don’t know a lot more than I do know.

Thank you a million times over for reason compatible with intuition. 

Thank you for some intentionality about what images I feed my brain, since images (esp. moving ones) are extremely powerful.

Thank you for the gift of New Mexico skies fierce with brilliance. Thank you for the dark before thunderstorms.

Thank you for free lightning shows.

Thank you for open space.

Thank you for working to build positive karma.

Thank you for swallowing hurt and spitting good back out. Even if they seem cringey and self-righteous in some ways now, thank you for lessons from the younger me.

Thank you for the long. bumpy path (maybe lifetimes long) of learning through experience.

Thank you for the honesty that allows us to learn from experience. Thank you for my healing even the tiniest amount.

Thank you for thoughts on a jog. What looks like not much on the outside can be more on the inside. When you and I appear barely making progress, our insides may be climbing on soft earth at over 6000 feet, not acclimated to the surroundings.

That brings up another point: it may be silly to check our outside progress—which in many ways results from our insides—against anyone else’s. Because some of us have insides sprinting ahead at sea level on even and well-worn paths. Others are on steeper ground and higher up, less acclimated. Too many stealth differences factor in to make external comparisons. The similarity may be that all of us are infinitely different in unknowable ways. 

Thank you for wisdom from sisters with soul. Thank you for their sunshine.

Thank you for when we are kind, or anything else positive, the good comes not exactly from us but more through us.

Thank you for the thought that overwhelm is illusory. What makes it overwhelm is the label attached to a fuzzy feeling. I’d like to practice re-labeling it. 

Thank you for different perspectives, for new ways of seeing the world.

Thank you for our Home.

Thank you for neighbors at Seminole, on Crags, down Triunfo, and up Latigo. Thank you for all of us experiencing the fire. Thank you for shared understanding. Thank you for support. Thank you for compassion. Thank you for messages warm like hugs.

Thank you for several loved ones also transitioning to healthier living spaces. 

Wishing you a free and safe home. Wishing you ease to let go when you step inside your door. Wishing you space to laugh, to nourish, to grow and rest. Wishing you a refuge for vulnerability that invites exploration—a studio to practice the art of life, with tools to sculpt the miracle of your present self into the life force of your future self.

May we act on dreams of light with open eyes. <3

“I think the truth is the most wild adventure you could have in life… I just think it’s a really exciting way to live…. You just get to find out what happens…” —Ms. Milazzo

Thank you for going beyond surrender or trust in truth to enlisting it as a guide into uncharted opportunity. (It’s aspirational.)

Thank you for wise, creative, loving friends.

Thank you for a night stargazing on the deck with G and D before the trip.

Thank you for duos greater than the sum of their parts, like music and movement.

Thank you for Nellie and Charlie (French bulldogs). Thank you for the graciousness of their parents.

Thank you for warm sendoffs.

Thank you for road tripping with Eagle, Box, and Big Buddha. Thank you for the privilege to gather inspiration from how they view life. Thank you for their safe journey home.

Thank you for podcasts. Thank you for playlists.

Thank you for the grocery store in Seligman with the friendly bearded man who let us use his restrooms even though the signs on the doors said they were out of order.

Thank you for starry skies above the Grand Canyon.

Thank you for NM’s extraordinary care for others. Thank you for her magical tent-side dinner, for the smell of spices mingling in the pan, for the famished giddiness at mealtime, for every satisfying nibble and giggle together. 

Thank you for elk visitors. 

Thank you for Jersey girls and guys. Thank you for Mexi-cans. Thank you for juice goddesses with statuesque hounds. Thank you for brotherly Brits.

Thank you for humans with a strong measure of integrity.

Thank you for feeling safe.

When I don’t meet another’s expectations, thank you for it being okay sometimes.

Thank you always for self-soothing.

Thank you for the capacities to give and receive.

Thank you for sisters’ rising above. Thank you for their determination. Thank you for their healing. 

Thank you for the non-word “satisfactual.”

Thank you for a revised home delivery date closer to my birthday. Thank you for a dream team (AV and LS).

Thank you for relative solitude in ABQ to focus on the next chapter. Thank you for nourishment to and from family. Thank you for rest.

Thank you for strategies to decide responsibly in a world that bombards many of us with options. Broadly choosing less over more is one. Underlying it is the assumption that thriving prefers simplicity. Also helpful is whittling more obvious non-contenders—making early cuts based on wellness, sustainability, the golden rule, etc. Doing so opens space for careful attention to the options left. (To be considerate may take time.)

Thank you for freedom in simplicity.

Thank you for the fullness of emptiness.

Thank you again for those living differently.

Thank you for our liberation through health. Thank you for our clarity. Thank you for our peace.

Thank you for the foundations of love.

Thank you for when we release attachments amassed between us and genuine freedom.

Thank you for the adventure of truth.

Thank you for the prospect of clearer thoughts when sleep increases.

Wishing you unfettered truth, peaceful rest, clear thought, safe bonds, and exuberant wellness! Know you are loved <3

Thank you for the beauty of music.

Thank you again and again for folks at Kindred Spirits and other hubs of compassion who feed faith in humanity.

Thank you for the marshmallowy press of pedals up hills.

Thank you always for loved ones’ kindness when we don’t feel worthy. 

Thank you for firmness softening with time.

Thank you for praise (not gobbled by ego) that shines into hearts. Thank you for hearts radiating the warmth they accept.

Thank you for hikes in health from sufficient, high-quality sleep. Thank you for the hope to enjoy better sleep (and clarity) soon.

Thank you for an upcoming trip to ABQ.

Thank you for stumbling onto therapy. Thank you for focus channeled deeper than specific surface issues, down to the amorphous core of well being.

Thank you for attention to being well that effortlessly resolves un-wellness. Thank you for nutrients diverted from illness to feed health.

Thank you for a chic useable gift from MR (future next door neighbor).

Thank you for BO’s caring enthusiasm.

Thank you for KB’s smile. Thank you for her happy dance when she heard the house news.

Thank you for Monique and Joe, Helen and Floyd, Sidney and Marguerite.

Thank you for Father’s Day weekends filled with special people and moments.

Thank you for days tangled with excitement, fear, contrition, joy, learning, confusion, laughter, compassion, awe…

Thank you for easy conversations.

Thank you for family who feel like friends.

Thank you for when there is eagerness at the start of a day.

Thank you for overlap of what we “need” to do with what we want to do. 

Thank you for efforts to edit unnecessary phrases like “have to,” “need to,” and “should.” Do you notice those too? Often they simply can be deleted with no real loss. Other times, replacing them with “would like to” or “would do well to” works better. (Once in a while, they’re okay as is.)

Thank you for laughs over lunch with GB. Thank you for the black and white pic of him as a boy with his dad.

Thank you for when seeking challenges the fear that one’s gratitude bank is empty.

Thank you for practice.

Thank you for the more we spend, the more we receive. I guess it matters what we spend on, too.

Thank you for trimming trees at the lot with BO. Thank you for PH and Nacho helping with the branches. Thank you for the care behind their practical advice.

Thank you for tools to communicate about the relative benefits of clean energy.

Thank you for hope in three-sister reunions. Thank you for healing power in numbers.

Thank you for parents alive in daughters and sons.

Thank you for big sisters.

Thank you for dads on the other side, smiling on us.

Thank you for fresh air in the Sierra Nevadas.

Thank you for efforts to sustain friendships—what does friendship mean to you?

Thank you for Socrates’ prayer to Pan in the Phaedrus.

May our outward lives enhance our inner beauty. May they be in harmony with the spirit inside us. May we see that our wisdom is our riches. May we enjoy all the resources that a temperate person needs.

Thank you for being here. Sending love and warm wishes <3

There’s a new day coming.

Thank you for D sending a Bernice Johnson Reagon song (Jacob’s Ladder) from ABQ. 

Thank you for a dream about a donkey the size of my little girl, scraping his butt as he scaled a fence. (I comforted him outside the pen.)

Thank you for NM’s “little sugar balloons,” AKA grapes. 

Thank you for a summer road trip with her and MG. Thank you for their life adventure.

Thank you for the mom at Whole Foods who asked about my Rowdy Mermaid before fetching one for herself and plopping it on the belt next to mine.

Thank you for caffeine-free fizzy, fruity booch.

Thank you for AV and LS (and so many others) making possible delivery of the house in a few weeks.

Thank you for congrats from the online banker, Michelle.

Thank you for visions. Thank you for loved ones to lessen the fear of walking through a new door. Thank you for confidence in deliberate choices aided by searching, fasts, meditations (prayer), conversations, brainstorms, weighed pros and cons, pursued false starts, happenstance... 

Thank you for new phases in motion. 

Thank you for the unknown.

Thank you for being and doing on planet earth. 

Thank you for land untouched by cars and trucks. Thank you for auto-free zones. 

Thank you for courage to be boring. I guess you could say interest is in the eye of the beholder.

Thank you again for our differences making us beautiful.

Thank you for simple activities to grow and connect in alignment with values. (Cooking and sharing meals. Movement in nature. Stillness in nature. Movement anywhere. Bonding with humans and non-humans. Reading and listening and looking. Exploring.)

Thank you always for acceptance of a spectrum of emotions.

Thank you for the oddity of legs viewed as massive arms sprouting from hips instead of shoulders, and arms as baby legs up high.

Thank you for infinite conditions for happiness in each moment.

Thank you for a day on the town celebrating AH’s birthday. Thank you for massages that tenderized us. Thank you for a sloppy Mexican feast. Thank you for a Skin Deep heart to heart, and a text afterward that read, “Thank you for your kittens” (autocorrect). Thank you for her friendship blessing my life.

Thank you for the empathy of friends and family. Thank you for their positive influence. Thank you for trust exchanged. Thank you for nourishing communication.

Thank you for willingness to be hurt and faith that we’re loved.

Thank you for belief in kind spirits’ access to our thoughts. Thank you for signs.

Thank you for reaching out on a happy whim to tie loose ends. I had clung to worries about past involvements—one with a gal pal in grad school in New York, and the other with a high school boyfriend. So finally I apologized in both cases, and expressed forgiveness in the latter. Thank you for catharsis after decades of silence. Thank you for BT’s reply warming my heart.

Thank you for words needlessly unspoken sounding out.

Thank you for SHM’s Cereus blooming.

Thank you for cutesy French terms like “messagerie.”

Thank you for the wind chime tinkling through the open door.

Thank you again for well-functioning bodies and all their parts. Thank you for comfort in my casing.

Thank you for morning meditations and stretches.

Thank you for JOMO.

Thank you again for re-reads of past entries. Why does it hurt to click “publish”? A latest guess, it’s the specter of those wee invisible boxes, mislabeled “Acceptance” and “Success”—the containers our society tries to smoosh our selves into. For some of us, the boxes are tagged “Normal.” For others, it’s “Different” or “Special.” Squishing into them clamps shut our hearts, yet straying from them flouts norms (even norms for being different). Thank you for commitment to our truths liberating us.

Thank you for paths of free selves.

Wishing you open doors to an expansive future. Be well! Know you are loved <3

Happiness blooms naturally in the hearts of those who are inwardly free. It flows spontaneously, like a mountain spring after April showers, in minds that are contented with simple living. — Paramahansa Yogananda

Thank you for striving toward inner freedom, toward contentedness with simplicity.

Thank you for a song about a dim light reminding that my attitude can unveil light for happiness to bloom.

Thank you for mulchinistas.

Thank you for donkey ear scratches.

Thank you for BO’s positive messages and passion for good.

Thank you for hillside poppies sprouting in perfectly balanced arrangements.

Thank you for garden sheroes visiting the Seminole lot to plan a safe native sanctuary with a newbie. Thank you for shade potential of back yard oaks. Thank you for sunshine from neighbors. Thank you for their acceptance. Thank you for how they feel like home. 

Thank you for down to earth. Thank you for real. Thank you for worthiness of trust. Thank you for belonging. 

Thank you for efforts to appreciate a winding path. (A latest perspective is that the universe has been sending me on open-ended field studies. How about you?)

Thank you for occasional strength workouts. Thank you for rests.

Thank you for silence enjoyed.

Thank you for when I accept all emotions, positive and negative, yet am not satisfied to remain less than happy or well. 

I mean, when okay with staying un-okay, often I’ve blamed the upset more on circumstances than on anything in my control. Then I may put in less (inside) effort to become better. (Or I may use quick fixes to feel better without actually being better.)

In addition to spurring efforts at inner happiness, refusal to be satisfied with ongoing unhappiness can motivate engagement with the world. Assuming the world beyond me is related to my inner issues, then it and I are linked. I may have influence through that connection. (Not sure if it means much.)

Thank you for Mom chats and Cosy updates, especially when the latter involve unusually small hamsters rolling al fresco in clear plastic balls.

Thank you for well wishes for half centuries.

Thank you for NM’s values-based questions. Thank you for her courage to be sappy adding beauty to the mundane.

Thank you for loved ones bold to share when they feel hurt and have doubts, and for their compassion to do so gently. Thank you for role models of healthy communication.

Thank you for doses of lightness injected into heaviness, and vice versa.

Thank you for tiny blurred watercolor renditions of life-sized scenes.

Thank you for real safety not involving avoidance of what’s out of our hands. Maybe an ideal is to seek safety that envelops in loving acceptance, that nurtures inner freedom, regardless of circumstances beyond our control.

Thank you for respectful, kind housemates.

Thank you for their sons’ visits. Thank you for the joy they bring the cottage. 

Thank you for kindness of the guys at Ventura County Building and Safety to assist with our solar snafu.

Thank you for delicious whole foods as evidence of nature’s harmony. Thank you for counterexamples to the myth that attractive options must have icky consequences. I’d guess, closer to nature, our senses’ enjoyment aligns with wellness.

Thank you for blueberry handfuls becoming mouthfuls. Thank you for the pleasure they burst through one’s being.

Thank you for the marvel of our bodies and minds healing us while we sleep.

Thank you for lessons, like this one, shared from near death experiences… 

For those who grieve or fear, I assure you of this: There is no death, nor does love ever end. And remember also that we are aspects of the one perfect whole, and as such are part of God, and of each other. Someday you who are reading this and I will be together in light, love, and unending bliss. —Beverly Brodsky (quoted in Lessons from the Light)

Thank you for knowing we’re not alone. 

Thank you for, despite constant slip ups, returning to belief in love. Thank you for times and ways love guides us.

Whatever our situation, may we embrace the adventure with love <3

Sometimes taking time is actually a shortcut. — Haruki Murakami

Thank you always for the four elements of true love.

Thank you for gardens of hope.

Thank you for meaningful talks with future friends.

Thank you for a chat with a stranger over Thai noodles. 

Thank you for her advice “to be the best you are and be safe.”

Thank you for her tip on a new way to look at the golden rule—treat others (and self) the way a benevolent higher power would treat you. 

Thank you for the latest read (on NDEs) explicitly reinforcing her messages.

Thank you for funny coincidences and novel encounters. 

Thank you for the opportunity to meet role models, wave at them…

Thank you for problems that spur me to think more deeply.

Thank you for emptiness in the abstract.

Thank you for empty headspace opening room for stifled emotions to heal.

Thank you for emptiness in the concrete.

Thank you for empty drawers, closets, counters holding space for senses to calm.

Thank you for black sheep.

Thank you for solidarity in knowing that if we are disliked, we are in good company.

Thank you for nighttime chats in the kitchen with D and G (over {THE AND} cards).

Thank you for deep snoots discussions.

Thank you for productive hours with peppermint tea.

Thank you for commonplace books.

Thank you for efforts at routines. Thank you for routines not as fences to trap monotony, but as scaffold to support climbs.

Thank you for the many ways to look at life. Thank you for choices to see differently.

Thank you for self love.  Enjoying how it feels to smile at strangers is self love of the inner warmth variety. Uncorking a sappy compliment rather than bottling it is self love of liberation. Apologizing can be self love of integrity. Being vulnerably, unapologetically open can be self love through acceptance. And all have possibilities for connection as a bonus.

Then there are the more practical self-love varieties, like using the bathroom when the urge hits and heading to bed when tired. Eating when hungry until full, counts. Same with drinking when thirsty. Prepping tasty meals for one’s self is another… (What are ways you show yourself love?)

Thank you for care for ourselves inseparable from care for each other.

Thank you for “Isn’t She Lovely” playing on shuffle to remind of sisters.

Thank you several times over for relationship bids.

Thank you for NM letting me in on the Soft White Underbelly (YouTube).

Thank you for gratitude practices feeding enthusiasm.

Thank you for visons of home keeping me afloat. 

Thank you for your growth and mine, and the challenges that spark them. Thank you for when persistence is in lockstep with wisdom. Thank you for turning tides. Thank you for life’s gifts each moment of every day and its wonders in store for the future. Thank you for you. <3

God wants nothing of you but the gift of a peaceful heart. —Meister Eckhart

Thank you for a pink moon soon.

Thank you for efforts to be excited about what I tend to worry over. The new house is one worry to flip right-side-up. It’s a creative project. It’s environmental activism. It’s a mini social experiment. It’s (hopefully) a sanctuary, a future hub of peace, an investment in community and self…

Thank you for light. Thank you for human light receptors (aka peepers). One without the other wouldn’t be the same. So thank you for the combo. 

Thank you for dishwashing thoughts interrupted in surprising ways. Scrubbing while thinking how alive Dad seems to me, a hummingbird flew up to the kitchen window and hovered. 

Thank you for the opposite of paranoia: pronoia.

Thank you for hair undos.

Thank you for times we respect that little voice. It’s so quiet and doesn’t at all insist, so we can easily ignore it. Honoring it, no revolution would be necessary. I mean, if we respect that voice, it will save our world just by pointing toward wellness that softly mends... 

What sort of stuff does it say? In me, it urges a more sustainable lifestyle in all sorts of ways. It also may whisper compliments to hand strangers. Or suggest I tell a loved one they’re in my thoughts. I often find myself embarrassed by its messages, like the receiver will find them sappy and get embarrassed too. Yet in every message is a tip on where to step next (toward a higher path).  

The biggest deal about it is, inner whispers never seem like big deals. They’re easily quieted without resistance—at least temporarily; I can ignore them unchecked. Usually though, when the voice stays unheeded, trouble at some point follows. When heeded, things go better.

Thank you for “little things” like whispers making a loud difference.

Thank you for NM’s safe trip here and back. Thank you for lady time, reading from that one magical book. Thank you for laughing to tears and belly aches.

Thank you for gentle reminders: “We can do hard things.”

Thank you for productive days that don’t land like work because of the company.

Thank you for shared papayas with lime in the cottage kitchen.

 Thank you for Sisters’ grace in adversity and for their strength, wisdom, and kindness to continue to rise.

Thank you for Kaiser promoting whole foods, plant based.

Thank you for the inventions of Mr. Jacuzzi.

Thank you for recurring soul hug dreams.

Thank you for a sunny Sunday ride to Old Topanga after a good bit away—thank you especially for the view of oak trees along the little climb on Mulholland past Malibu Canyon.

Thank you for simultaneous dual Rick sightings at Seminole. (Bookends!)

Thank you for the little boy next door wishing me a nice bike ride.

Thank you for EV info to counter misinfo.

Thank you for a new way to look at something familiar. Conversations inside our heads—questions asked, attitudes expressed, criticisms, encouragement—are influenced by conversations that happen outside our heads (talk out loud that our ears absorb). The inside stuff learns from the outside stuff. It copies or mirrors it, without us trying. The reverse happens, too. I mean, the way we talk inside our heads seeps into communications we have out loud. What and how we practice thinking, the company we keep, shows we watch, lyrics we listen to matter. Thank you for mindful consumption. 

Thank you for making friends with non-humans. (As with human-to-human bonding, snacks help.)

Thank you for donkey butt scratches. 

Thank you for pulling nettle with KB and Linda at Kindred Spirits.

Thank you for a new therapist covered by new insurance.

Thank you for the peaceful atmosphere at Sapientia to help with focus.

Thank you for so many different options (dictionaries full of words, etc.) to communicate our insides.

Thank you for a recurring awareness worth repeating. Say you were suffering and unable to handle it, so your suffering spilled onto others. (It happens.) Maybe I was one of those others. The neat thing is, now that I hold your ouchie, I have power. I can process it. My healing transforms the pain from you. If I become well, if my injury recovers, then part of yours—the part that spilled onto me—shrinks. Making myself better helps you to be better.

Thank you for step-back weeks like these, when a return to baseline is an accomplishment.

Thank you for tenacity to persist in routines for wellness.

Wishing us faith after every setback to rest and heal. Wishing us faith in itty bitty steps—even when we’re blind to where they lead. Wishing us faith in what we don’t know and in the promise of questions. May our faith embolden the vulnerability that connects us—we accomplish great things together!

Thank you for caring. Be well! <3

I see skies of blue and clouds of white, the bright blessed day, the dark sacred night,

and I think to myself, what a wonderful world. — Thiele and Weiss

Thank you for positive influences.

Thank you for the dogs of Oak Park.

Thank you for fragrant air on neighborhood walks this time of year.

Thank you for mottled sycamore trunks.

Thank you for (un-westernized) ikigai.

Thank you for thoughts about where the stuff I buy ends up, especially the tech gadgets.

Thank you for Luddites.

Thank you for loved ones (like you). Thank you for feeling seen and valued. Thank you for trusting connections. Thank you for senses of belonging. 

Thank you again for, there’s always time to change. It’s worth repeating that well into my 40’s, social connections have grown more fulfilling than ever, not from effort to connect per se but thanks to tragedies and amazing luck coinciding with personal wellness practices.

Thank you for a reminder to self: when you assume there’s little room to grow, like you’ve “succeeded” at anything, that means there’s plenty of growing to go.

Thank you for sister wisdom.

Thank you for shuffled songs matching life in silly ways. Like the other night on a walk, reminiscing about Dad’s offer to buy me a Cadillac after I started grad school in LA… I didn’t accept—it felt important to show that my love wasn’t contingent on material provisions. Plus, I was thirty, and it was a Cadillac. I’d sworn off car ownership back then, too.

Anyhow, seconds after those memories bubbled up, a random song launched in my earbuds: “I wanna be free. I wanna just live, inside my Cadillac, that is my shit. Now throw it up. That’s what it is. In my C-A-D-I-L-L-A-C bitch…” 

(Thank you for not judging my songs and shares.) Are you tickled by coincidences too?

Thank you for the universe’s sense of humor. 

Thank you for G’s surgery a success. 

Thank you for “cheers m’dears.”

Thank you for the pooch at the park setting a frisbee down at its person’s feet and looking up for another throw. 

Thank you for a dad playing peek-a-boo with his toddler on the sidewalk.

Thank you for everyday playfulness. 

Thank you for baby leaves on houseplants.

Thank you for California poppies in bloom.

Thank you for the purity of childhood shining in adults. 

Thank you for the needlessness, in some sense, to try and be good. Our true selves are good. Thank you for trust in your goodness and mine. 

Thank you for I Believe (Ziggy Alberts) added to the playlist for morning-in-bed listens (outlook training), along with What A Wonderful World and Three Little Birds.

Thank you again for how much more valuable and valued I feel since moving on from a desk job in academia, for the freedom to trade in a sort of hoity-toity title for an uncharted adventure.

Thank you for connections that give it all meaning.

Thank you for soft train-ride tees. 

Thank you for animal sightings through windows (horses, ponies, cows, geese, egrets…)

Thank you for not long after boarding the Amtrak, a rainbow. At Merced, a red star-shaped balloon floating to the clouds. On the bus to Fort Bragg, another rainbow.

Thank you for forests dense with redwoods.

Thank you for hugging tree hugging friends and for hugging tree friends.

Thank you for well-stocked food banks.

Thank you for N and M’s gracious acceptance. 

Thank you for N’s podcast. Thank you for the amazing coincidence to meet a gratitude devotee. Thank you for her presence bubbling with inspiration. Thank you for her faith in humanity. 

Thank you for N and M’s bean jars. Thank you for their gratitude exchanges. Thank you for our “Team Time” cleaning the kitchen. Thank you for their date jar.

Thank you for future visions as the sun set.

Thank you for casting what doesn’t serve us into the river.

Thank you for a cute sea lion couple barking outside my bedroom door.

Thank you for kaleidoscope connections.

Thank you for Perfect Days.

Thank you for another Seneca nugget:

Nothing is more successful in bringing honorable influences to bear upon the mind, or in straightening out the wavering spirit that is prone to evil, than association with good men. For the frequent seeing, the frequent hearing of them little by little sinks into the heart and acquires the force of precepts.

Thank you for your honorable influences little by little sinking into my heart and straightening my wavering spirit.

Thank you eternally for when we don’t feel worthy of gratitude or love, and grace gives it to us anyway. 

Be well! <3

“Dare to be mediocre.” — Pam Grout

Thank you for unabashed imperfection.

Thank you for radical authenticity—for bravery to be ourselves.

Thank you for simpletons, dummies, weirdos, and bores.

Thank you for when unconventional feels normal. Thank you for the swaths of humanity that not-normal resonates with.

Thank you for disrupted living situations. Alien settings nudge us from thinking loops (like discussed in E-cubed), so we’re forced to envision tomorrow as unlike yesterday.

Thank you for a Cuisinart from Goodwill. Thank you for funky coincidental thrift finds.

Thank you for a tarot reading from G’s little guy. (Past: eight of swords. Present: two of swords. Future: death. Advice/path/action?: emperor) 

Thank you for Dad, the “white-haired guru” (the emperor? IDK).

Thank you for SHM’s determination to gain strength. Thank you for his passion to be a positive force.

Thank you for Seneca’s letter on the lesson to be drawn from the burning of Lyons: “Perhaps its destruction has been brought about only that it may be raised up again to a better destiny. Oftentimes a reverse has but made room for more prosperous fortune.”

Thank you always for healing from another’s injuries as a gift of forgiveness.

Thank you for Mindy (Mandy?) offering her pooches, Bolt and Sadie, for me to love on at the coffee shop on the lake St. Patrick’s Day.

Thank you for the opportunity to visit the beautiful NM (and her plus one) up north soon. 

Thank you for sisters and their plus ones’ inspirational real life love stories.

Thank you for a new morning practice of listening to a happy song or two—e.g., What A Wonderful World, Three Little Birds…—before getting out of bed. (That idea is also from E-cubed.)

Thank you for a new catch phrase or mantra to focus on. For several weeks, it was “coherence.” I’d imagine being in a state of coherence while meditating or just breathing. After that, the focus moved for a couple weeks to “rest, hydrate, fuel,” which heavier workouts had been requesting. Now it’s “pause; express”—I’m hoping this new one will add awareness and calm to communicate authentically what’s difficult.

Thank you for Manzanita Mama taking me under her wing, teaching about natives, introducing me to her garden gang, exploring grant options. Thank you for inspiration to share with others as she has with me.

Thank you for sumac buds, toyon berries (Hollywood!), ceanothus flowers.…

Thank you for oak trees catching embers.

Thank you for L’s Lobo paradise.

Thank you for Louie the Komondor (a leaner).

Thank you for the colorful history of our community. Thank you for its protectors.

Thank you for a few small creativity practices from Pam Grout’s Ted Talk (e.g. dream up three adventures you’d like to take, formulate three subjects you’d like to photograph…).

Thank you for a deeper acceptance that the paths we choose may be the ones we have the capacity to travel. And even when joined paths separate, the journey still brims with love and beauty and wonder.

Thank you for your superpower of making others feel seen. Thank you for your strength as a caregiver. Thank you for the warmth you radiate. I hope you feel worthy of love in all caps. I hope you give yourself grace.

Thank you for healing.

Thank you for a well-meaning thought coming from a position of privilege that assumes beyond basic needs are met—healthcare is attainable, food is on the table, and home is safe, peaceful, clean, conducive to health…

It’s the notion that true contentment may be less like the rare or pricy splurge and more like the tchotchke on a clearance rack. Only happiness isn’t bought. We have access to it free, in some sense, as much as we tap into nature in and around us, cultivate connections with life, forge autonomy and purpose...

(That thought came from a memory of grad school days walking through the neighborhood around Westwood—Bel Air—and wondering how happy were the people who lived in all those fancy mansions. It sort of puffed me up to know I could be content with a small fraction of what they had, like I was in on some big overlooked truth.)

Thank you for questioning with playful curiosity.

Wishing us the courage to explore worlds within and beyond, with love. Be well!  <3

Thank you for the past behind, the future ahead, and us in between.

Thank you for a chance to love on Oliver the donkey at Kindred Spirits, after he dropped the flannel button-down he’d been taunting its owner with.

Thank you for Pedro (alpaca) toofs.

Thank you for nasturtiums and beet greens in the garden with KB, and for the ladies who introduced us to their floral munchies.

Thank you for BO taking several of us to visit Gordy and Peanut.

Thank you again for outliers like Karen and Nate who dedicate their existence to noble causes.

Thank you for (quasi) logical thoughts that resolve emotional turmoils. For instance, think of people (like you or me) disliking others (like me or you). How could anyone dislike you if they don’t know you? Then they only dislike an image of you. And how could anyone who truly knows you, dislike you? Once they understand, even if you’re deeply troubled, they’ll see your struggles while recognizing your value. They’ll see, the same challenges that render us “prickly” at times also render us worthy of compassion (albeit in some cases from a safe distance). So, positive regard is the only true option.

Thank you for linguine with garlicky tomato sauce.

Thank you for gratitude bombs. That’s when we pause a moment to think of as many things as possible that we’re grateful for. It can be little stuff in the immediate surroundings, like the long tapered hands of a clock, the color of someone’s yoga pants, the posture of a passerby, the caress of a breeze, the feel of toes inside shoes, the sound of birds chirping, the air expanding lungs…

Thank you for RA showing me around the canyons. Thank you for a breathtaking ride up Piuma and down Stunt.

Thank you for D teaching me how to use the machines and free weights at the Y, and for C giving me the rundown on her tabata workouts.

Thank you for picking oranges in C’s backyard, and for her hubs suggestion to give them to neighbors at the park.

Thank you for G manifesting a road bike and buying a helmet.

Thank you for a borrowed book on manifesting (even though I’m less into certain types of petitions). To be open and positive, it makes sense, will attract more of the same. Thank you for abundance mindsets.

Thank you for popcorn and movie nights with D and G. Thank you for their humor. Thank you for the chance to share a space with humans I may never have known under other circumstances. Thank you for their sons. Thank you for our extraordinary landlady and friend. 

Thank you for the kindness of our little community. Hopefully we’ll stay bonded even when circumstances change.

Thank you for safe feelings in social settings.

Thank you for health and wellness coaching that bestows more intention on life.

Thank you for chats with Sisters and “sisters.” Thank you for the inspiration, empowerment, warmth, and uplift of women respecting each other and themselves.

Thank you for big sisters’ big sisters understanding their sibs with compassion.

Thank you for our love being perpetually imperfect. I mean, that may be a good thing if you like to grow, because there will always be chances for it.

Thank you for learning as a cure for boredom.

Thank you for soft cozy throw blankets.

Thank you for life teaching me it’s okay to be more open. The right support networks probably make a difference. Who in my circles is likely to hurt me for expressing myself? How compassionately I communicate matters, too. If I feel hurt, I can take responsibility for my feelings. I can address the issue with care and respect—for all involved, myself included. Doing so will hone communication skills, establish boundaries, reinforce gratitude... It’s also useful to trust: progress flows from persistent, honest (kind) effort.

Thank you a million times over for our diligent attempts at wellness in tiny ways everyday.  

Thank you for optimism gained from experience. Witnessing transformations, others’ and one’s own, grows hope. 

Thank you for enjoyment of lying in bed listening to silence, breathing.

Thank you for nights in coach on Amtrak last month to enhance appreciation of the cushioned, horizontal snooze.

Thank you for strangers’ kindness to strangers for no apparent reason. (Do you notice it more lately, too?)

Thank you for memories of peaceful nights in the tiny house on the hill. Thank you for intimacy with nature.

Thank you for Audrey the fluffy goldendoodle letting me pet her. Thank you for when her sweet mama drove us on an outing, and Audrey climbed onto the center console from the back seat. Her cute little nose sniffed my face. 

Thank you for the light of dogs in our lives. 

Thank you for awareness that my perspective is a bit narrow lately. It hasn’t always been this way, and this won’t continue forever. (Maybe staying a little bit nearsighted is beneficial, sometimes.)

Thank you for one day at a time.

Thank you for nature’s healing power.

Thank you for your faith in that universal power outside and within you. Sending you love!

Thank you for the crackle of a vacuum grabbing debris.

Thank you for the high spirits of birds flitting at the feeder on the end of the block.

Thank you for the iphone randomly deciding to play a morning song (I just called to say I love you).

Thank you for more happy-making relationship advice.

Thank you for runs and rides, etc., to focus on. Thank you for meditations that relax from their jitters. Thank you for the sleep, drink, and food they request. Thank you for calm alertness when they go well.

Thank you for friends to play with.

Thank you again for freedom from a caffeine habit lending balance.

Thank you for coherence.

Thank you for civil shout outs from anonymous drivers. 

Thank you for expectations of ups and downs. Unevenness, accepted, evens out—so a good cry here and there doesn’t spiral down. Dips pass. Insights may replace them. Equanimity has a better chance.

Thank you for sensitivity as a superpower. Thank you for mindfulness to cultivate calm amid sensitivity (sometimes).

Thank you for the compassion of the coaching program facilitator.

Thank you for a first 12-step meeting that took me out of my comfort zone. Thank you for the feat of attendees’ steps to change their/our lives. Thank you for individuals uniting in courageous efforts. 

Thank you for NM sharing with me her journey and the support groups she’s trying.

Thank you always for growth, healing, and inspiration. 

Thank you for hard work to look at ourselves when we’re scared of what we’ll see.

Thank you for those who encourage us along the way.

Thank you for porch swings, rocking chairs, tree swings, hammocks...

Thank you for cozy nights safe from storms.

Thank you for Murphy falling asleep on my lap as AV and I went over house design stuff. Thank you for our progress.

Thank you for Seminole neighbors’ pooches.

Thank you for fluffy white fur-muffin puppies.

Thank you for the honor (and joy) to be included in a NorCal house dream.

Thank you for offers accepted. Thank you for open doors.

Thank you for GC’s gift of a book with tools to hone a positive mindset. Thank you for NM’s, too.

Thank you for DS, GC, BO and others not fitting woo-woo stereotypes despite openness toward spirituality and unconventional paths to wellness. 

Thank you for Dean and Anne Ornish improving lives with lifestyle medicine.

Thank you for respectful relationships.

Thank you for heartfelt mom chats. 

Thank you for, I don’t have to do the dishes. I get to do the dishes, etc. The latest version is, I don’t have to pay the bills. I get to pay the bills. Those bills reflect the blessing of a place to live, a co-op to belong to, a phone that connects to loved ones and teaches French and plays music, access to medical care, storage for belongings, groceries and clothes and toiletries—all the stuff that meets basic needs (and beyond).

Thank you for diligent little efforts to recognize life’s infinite blessings. 

Thank you for awareness that you are one of those blessings.

Wishing you well <3

Gratefulness is the experience of the great fullness of our lives. —Lynne Twist

Thank you for snowy Colorado landscapes.

Thank you for falling back in love with bits and pieces of life… 

Warm friends and family

Fellow cyclists climbing canyons

Strangers working it out at the Y 

Plant munchers

EV drivers, street walkers, subway surfers, bus riders

Deniers of convention

Seekers of health

Reconcilers and forgivers

Healers

Healed

Non-humans that bark, wag, chirp, honk…

Shady trees

The French language

Sourdough baguettes with crackly crusts

Beats that move

Snacks

Pillowy mattresses, wrinkly sheets

Conscious breaths

Drizzly mornings….

Thank you for the pain of thinking about animals (human and otherwise) at CAFOs, dairy farms, slaughterhouses—only because it keeps me eating just plants.

Thank you for contemplation of populations threatened by rising sea levels, of animals losing habitats and species facing extinction, of lives defenseless against elements… Those thoughts may motivate action too.

Thank you for when the pain we are able to hold in our hands morphs into a compass.

Thank you for a goose waddling up the sidewalk by the local elementary school.

Thank you for soaking in the foliage on snack breaks from cloudy rides.

Thank you for bodily health bestowing freedom.

Thank you for rainy day mellow moods.

Thank you for speaking up for truth, even if the communication could be more skillful, regardless of consequences. Thank you for faith that trial and error will increase my skillfulness.

Thank you for good memory triggers. Thank you for freshly baked spinach pies. Thank you for home cooks rolling grape leaves and lining them in big pots to cook on stovetops.

Thank you for more Seneca. Hopefully these snippets are of value to you, too:

The addition of friends does not make one wiser, nor does their taking away make one more foolish; therefore, not happier or more wretched, either. As long as your virtue is unharmed, you will not feel the loss of anything that has been withdrawn from you.

Does it sound harsh? I like that it makes me wonder if greater integrity in terms of how I treat another (and how I accept his or her treatment of me) may be a source of peace when he or she is taken away.

Just one more for now:

It is better . . . to get no return than to confer no benefits. Even after a poor crop one should sow again; for often losses due to continued barrenness of an unproductive soil have been made good by one year’s fertility.

What are your impressions? My big takeaway is, continue to trust others. After a let down, we can shield ourselves from future disappointments or simply accept that being let down sometimes is part of the process. Refusal of cynicism opens space for new opportunities and relationships along with transformation of existing ones.

Thank you for the housemates ganging up on me with positive affirmations and hugs.

Thank you for folks like that—supportive beyond what seems deserved—in your past, present, and future. Thank you for when you and I are that person to others.

Sending you love and gratitude <3

Thank you for safety from the elements.

Thank you for challenges bringing us closer.

Thank you to BO for giving Tallulah a protected space at Kindred Spirits.

Thank you for time with DA on his quick Cali visit. Thank you for how funny and thought-provoking he is. Thank you for borrow-able comments like, “I don’t have advice, only opinions.” Thank you for the joy his spouse and daughter have brought his life.

Thank you for Joy, a birdie at Namaste, letting my finger love on her head.

Thank you for flowers bearing witness to nature’s majesty.

Thank you for days packed with meaning. It’s like G says about work—things somehow always come up.

Thank you for love being a do word. That’s not a new thought. What’s kind of new for me is generalizing the do-word notion to forgiveness, optimism, healing, etc.

Thank you for Laura Lynne Jackson’s loving craft. Thank you for the chance to see her in action.

Thank you for a wellness coach to work with. (Goals are to elevate energy and transform self talk…)

Thank you for a healer to learn from.

Thank you for big sisters as role models.

Thank you for G’s invite, to (my first) kundalini yoga class.

Thank you for Inner French pointing to Stromae, leading to Bigflo and Oli’s Sur La Lune…

Thank you for repetition. Thank you, thank you (jk). Repetition reinforces what I’d like to keep in mind.

Thank you for the coaching program and facilitators’ tools to accept others where they are and how they choose to be, to grow.

Thank you for what and how questions turned back on our selves. In turmoil, they offer insight. 

Thank you for life lessons from undergrad studies in psych. Thank you for awareness that inoculates against less positive influences while it promotes healthy ways.

Thank you for literature on liking.

Thank you for vulnerability to express sadness (hurt, shame…). I would like to be more vulnerable. Thank you for awareness that certain emotions (like anger) put up a front when vulnerability isn’t ready to express the more delicate stuff. Thank you for airing truths naked beneath silence and anger. And when the response to our vulnerability is unkind, the experience fortifies us all the same. It mends us if we let it. 

Thank you for an insight about stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. I’m still trying to notice my self narratives throughout the day. I’m still working to replace less positive stories with kinder ones.

Thank you for another solo NY trip going well so far.

Thank you for thoughts while peeing in public bathrooms (to appreciate their positives—the tiles, the sounds, etc.)

Thank you for birdsongs from performers tucked in jacaranda foliage at the Union Station courtyard. Thank you for a chlorine scent bubbling from the fountain. Thank you for multi-story windows pouring light on travelers bustling about. Seen through the oversized panes, they glowed. I wondered if they weren’t humans but souls in baseball caps, hoodies, jackets, and jeans. It could have been not a downtown train station at all. It could have been a depot in the afterlife, where everything “bad” is an illusion. Everything good is real—love, peace, unity, balance… (a goofball thought)

Thank you for life full of wonder.

Thank you for Seneca’s advice to Lucilius: We are weak, watery things standing in the midst of unrealities; therefore let us turn our minds to the things that are everlasting. Let us look up to the ideal outlines of all things, that flit about on high…

Thank you for the Amish lady who’s friendly chatting lifted my spirits. Thank you for groups like the Amish, the Order of Interbeing, the devotees of Turiyasangitananda, where participants cooperate in values (some, anyhow) nobler than convention.

Thank you for a switch to a different seat on the Lake Shore Limited. I couldn’t change the (upsetting) environment, so I moved to a healthier one. Do I live that way when it comes to big stuff? Will I give up a harmful seat in life to seek wellness, even if a better option isn’t foreseen or guaranteed?

Thank you for a flock of pigeons rounding the narrow airspace down 8th avenue east onto 57th street.

Thank you for more of Seneca’s wisdom. I hope it inspires you, too! <3

Bring it to pass that I shall cease trying to escape from death, and that life may cease to escape from me. Give me courage to meet hardships; make me calm in the face of the unavoidable. Relax the straitened limits of the time which is allotted me. Show me that the good in life does not depend on life’s length, but upon the use we make of it…

On friendship: “But the fact is, the same thing is advantageous to me which is advantageous to you; for I am not your friend unless whatever is at issue concerning you is my concern also. Friendship produces between us a partnership in all our interests. There is no such thing as good or bad fortune for the individual; we live in common.” —Seneca 

Thank you for unconditional love from fathers, mothers, siblings, partners, friends… 

Thank you for practice to be more loving with fewer conditions.

Thank you for mundane interactions to improve us at kindness and warm us with gratitude.

Thank you for caring less how others may judge when there’s understanding where those judgments come from.

Thank you for power to help those who have hurt us, by healing from their hurts.

Thank you for recoveries. Anger and bitterness (no one else is the source) seem to be subsiding in me again. Journaling, meditation, support networks are catalysts of peace. 

Thank you for laughter spilling from D’s room every other weekend.

Thank you for an insight about my baby lady. Journaling showed me, she diffused my darkness on the surface, which allowed me not to deal with some of it hiding deep down. I don’t fault her for it. The positivity she elicited was just that. It’s not a lesson about her but one for me, to face issues before they feel pressing, when I’m in a good place. Doing so takes awareness, self-honesty, and courage (with much trial and error). 

Thank you for her visits in dreams.

On aspirations: “It is the quality of a great soul to scorn great things and to prefer that which is ordinary rather than that which is too great. For the one condition is useful and life-giving; but the other does harm just because it is excessive.” —Seneca

Thank you for ordinary lives and loves.

Thank you for good rest after being unwell.

Thank you for productive bounce-backs after setbacks.

Thank you for passions for reading.

Thank you for mountain air feeding long held breaths.

Thank you for hormesis.

Thank you for satisfaction in gazing at the kitchen after the dishes are cleaned and put away.

Thank you always for exploration of dreams logged in journals to further insights.

Thank you for sunny wake ups.

Thank you for nature. Thank you for mindfulness to appreciate it. Thank you for us all, in it and of it.

Thank you for the Pacific Ocean.

Thank you for worlds that dance beneath impassive bounds.

On soul-sufficiency: “No past life has been lived to lend us glory, and that which has existed before us is not ours; the soul alone renders us noble, and it may rise superior to Fortune out of any earlier condition, no matter what that condition has been.” —Seneca

Thank you for diligent efforts to rise.

Thank you for seeds of courage.

Thank you for hope resting on faith in good. As goofy as it may sound, hope may be appropriate without knowing much—without even knowing exactly what it is hoping for. When I am diligent to do and be healthy, I can have optimism that positives are cultivated. Doing the best at my little (or growing or big) part in the world aligns me with a greater good. It doesn’t matter that I can’t fully comprehend how its power works. I believe it’s there because my being points to it. Maybe the cooperation of trifling me with the great other reflects its unity, balance, peace. Rather than pursue or direct specific outcomes, I can trust in doing my bit as well as I can. And when my death is an “outcome,” I still can be hopeful in the furthering of good, if when it arrives I’m genuinely striving to be and do well. (Not sure if that makes sense.)

May you do and be well, with faith in your power for good <3