“To the world you may be one person but to one person you may be the world.” —Laura Lynne Jackson

Thank you for being the world to me.

Thank you for a deer sighting the first morning at Deer Park during a pause from walking meditation. 

Thank you for the opportunity to move back to CA this October. It’s hard for me to believe that it’s actually going to happen. Thank you for the new friends making it possible. Thank you for women who build each other up.

Thank you for freedom to have faced fears and broken out of my comfort zone at least for a bit. 

Thank you for the freshness of life beyond one’s bubble.

Thank you for the word “heal” being inside “health.” I guess it’s obvious, but to be healthy spurs healing. We heal when we focus on healthy little habits.

Thank you for a future neighbor met at the Old Place while waiting for a Lyft. Thank you for her vulnerability. Thank you for our hug. Thank you for her sharing contact info of a Native American healer.

Thank you for allies protecting each other and recovering together.

Thank you for “The bread in your hand is the body of the cosmos.” 

Thank you for interbeing.

Thank you for sweet, friendly tent neighbors at Clarity Hamlet.

Thank you for the birthday sign I requested, a yes or no answer, that came through in a very short time. The answer was yes, so I peeked into the place where I haven’t felt all that safe to visit lately. Checking seemed confusing but gave happiness even though I’m not really sure what it meant.

Thank you for communication and other practices of love that further understanding.

Thank you for chances taken. 

Thank you for seeing the good in another because it can show her the good in herself.

Thank you for when I take responsibility for my anger and suffering. 

Thank you for the power of our presence to aid a beloved’s healing and for the power of a beloved’s presence to heal us. 

Thank you for the best parts.

Thank you for the kindness of sisters and lay folks at Deer Park (Clarity Hamlet) boosting optimism. Thank you for their warmth that enlarges love. It’s not utopia but felt like a community of compassion. The stay did enhance clarity! I feel more peaceful and less stressed, and hope to carry this with me. It’s probably wise to return there over and over again…

Thank you for the existence of places like Plum Village and Deer Park, and for the generosity, dedication, and very hard work that makes them possible.

Thank you for when joyful gratitudes overflow.

Thank you for sights, smells, and feels of plants on evening hikes. 

Thank you for a break from cooking. 

Thank you for fresh greens from the sisters’ garden. 

Thank you for oversized bites of watermelon bursting with juice.

Thank you for sunrise meditations. 

Thank you for a clean, cozy tent.

Thank you for heartfelt conversations with strangers indistinguishable from friends. 

Thank you for the bracelet J gave me that will remind me of her. Thank you for her hugs and company. Thank you for her cheerfulness brightening up everyone around her. Thank you for her time off to care for herself.

Thank you for environments safe from what otherwise shuts us off or makes us feel small, for environments where acceptance thrives. 

Thank you for time to read on a shady swing with lizards and flies and bees and birds and oaks and poppies and cacti…

Thank you for insights into relationships from Sister D’s Q&A session, and for those daring to share their life traumas to benefit us all. 

Sister D seems right, however sappy it may sound: to be in a solid relationship it’s important first to be a soulmate to one’s self. To deal with my own issues builds my capacity to love others.

Thank you for Sister Popsicle approaching me one morning at the start of walking meditation. She held out her hand with a friendly request, “Walk, together.” So I took it and we headed down the hill. Thank you for her warmth. 

Thank you for hugs from sweet little R. Thank you for little girl voices that sound like a song whatever they say.

Thank you for udon soup for dinner. 

Thank you for cold bean soup for dessert.

Thank you for building better lives based on practices like mindfulness. 

Thank you for Sister D sharing that mindfulness is like a bird (is that right?)—its two wings are stopping and looking deeply.

Thank you for better options to nurture kind regard. When I used to drink, just as the alcohol seeped in, anger and fear dissolved, and I’d feel so loving. I wanted to hug the whole world. 

It wasn’t a real feeling, of course. It didn’t uproot negativity in me. It only inhibited my darkness for a moment (and made it worse when I sobered). 

The good thing is that it’s possible to achieve that loving feeling without chemicals. I think we can work so it’s actually a genuine kindness that lasts. It’s like Plum Village wisdom—the Buddha in me can learn to recognize and bow to the Buddha in you. 

We all have the seeds of enlightenment in us. Seeing each other like that melts our negativity and, even when we’re not tipsy, we can feel love for the world’s goodness and promise despite its imperfections. 

Thank you for exposure to harsh realities on the trip home. Pretty unhealthy stuff happened on the bus, metro, and train, all in succession. Yet humanity stood amidst it. “Criminals” involved in scary acts, clearly suffering, also displayed human decency.

Thank you for SHM giving me Thich Nhat Hanh’s book, Anger. Thank you for its advice on healing relationships of all kinds.

One recommendation is to listen deeply. And according to the book, “Everything is possible when the door of communication is open.” Expressing the desire to make peace with the other matters, too. But first comes making peace with one’s self. “Helping yourself is the first condition for helping the other.”

Thank you for another read during the retreat. At Home in the World especially resonated because “home” has seemed missing from my life. I guess it’s true, “Home is not something to hope for, but to cultivate.” 

Mindful sitting, breathing, eating, and walking are all ways to touch peace and heal. Mind and body together in the present sort of bring us home wherever we happen to be.  We “find ways to bring our body and mind back to the present moment so we can touch what is refreshing, healing, and wondrous within us and around us.” Then life starts to fall in place with less effort.

Believing this is helping me to cultivate home. (It’s not an empty belief—my faith bears real fruits that sustain efforts.)

Thank you for sunset walks in the ABQ foothills enjoying birds and sky, feeling the breeze and walking tall to happy music. 

I hope your days have special moments like that. I hope you’re absorbing nature around you and connecting with it inside you. 

Thank you for steps forward on the path of love.

If you’re lost, if you keep going in circles, seek trustworthy guides for help. Therapy was a huge blessing for me when I struggled with depression. Twelve-step programs are another option that transforms so, so many who otherwise have been powerless against their dependencies. And places like Deer Park are within reach.

Thank you for advice to self when I haven’t given the space asked of me and became involved in a situation that I should have steered clear of: Love yourself (I guess it’s like Sister D’s advice). Sometimes the best way to love another is to give space indefinitely and focus on one’s own well-being.

Thank you for healthy doors that have room to open when less-than-healthy ones close.

Thank you for Dad’s 100th (August 3, 2023). Happy Birthday, Papa! I love you. (If your dad is still around, please cherish him!)

P.S. Hero!!!!! :D