Thank you for kisses from little Audrey (goldendoodle).

Thank you for dog communication—pawing, licking, jumping, wiggling….

Thank you for when forgetting one’s self, in a funny way, births bravery.

Thank you for the unaffected variety of daring after ego sees its place in the universe across time.

Thank you for the cuteness of a puppy hiking a leg to pee on a plant.

Thank you for the funkiness of pepitas (especially in pestos).

Thank you for a little happiness.

Thank you for meditation on impermanence.

Thank you always for letting go of cows. Thank you for the rolling hills, the full moon, the blue sky, the beach, the river…

Thank you many times over for unfortunate situations actually feeling that way, when the feeling prompts transformation.

Thank you for a therapist’s inquiry about core values leading me to a past journal entry. 

Thank you for how much easier it is to think about values when secluded in a mountaintop haven with a sweet pooch.

Thank you for when our values guide daily living. (I’m less aware lately, so recalling an ideal self is a great idea.)

Thank you again for sock searches and rescues in oceans of sheets. 

Thank you for the quiet of naked blinks and the swish of mascara-y ones.

Thank you for peaceful wordless sounds. 

Thank you for calm voices.

Thank you for living simply on homegrown pleasure. I used to outsource pleasure more. My brain got so accustomed to depending on externals that it cut back production of its own feel-good stuff. 

So maybe it took a while for my newly sober-ish brain (all those years ago) to accept that it no longer would have its “happiness” delivered like an Amazon package. Slowly, it did grow to accept the new normal. Domestic manufacturing ramped back up. The feels I’d been importing, my self began to produce on its own. Now, endogenous elixirs boost peaceful moods simply and naturally (at least more so than before). 

Thank you for secondhand goods’ worth being more than material. 

Thank you for energies that linger in the belongings of those who’ve crossed, etc.

Thank you for recent Goodwill magic. Like on the last thrifting run, a Peach song greeted me. This time, the first book I picked up—Blink—had a cookie fortune tucked inside: Your troubles will cease and good fortune will smile upon you. The tees were soft, and the people were kind.

Thank you if practicing wellness makes me better at practicing wellness. (And if it benefits more than me.)

Do you ever feel like you’re not really good at any one thing? I do. We all have gifts to offer. They needn’t be big-name items. Wellbeing invested in diligently counts. What’s unspoken or undervalued can be priceless: caring, forgiving, practicing kindness, staying mindful (intentional…present…), cultivating equanimity, creating safe environments, being honest, having tenacity, offering warmth.… 

Thank you for exploration of promise. 

Thank you for when we pursue our calling.

Thank you again for Dad having young me try a bite of his latest veggies from the garden. I didn’t like the healthier stuff then, and now I do.

Thank you for family jokes about Dr. Dad’s advice. It seemed whenever we struggled with a bodily ailment, a lump or rash or whatever, he’d say the same thing: “Put hot packs on it.” 

Thank you for the downfall of Louie (hematoma).

Thank you for neighbors to ride with and learn from.

Thank you for a winding, breathtaking backyard with countless paths.

Thank you for game-changing tips on technique.

Thank you for positive reinforcement building confidence.

Thank you for funny new ways to talk. I’m a masher—grinder?—aspiring to be less so. (Are you one too? Are you more of a spinner?)

Thank you for vegan pastries at the little coffee place at Calamigos Ranch, and for the sweet neighbor who works there.

Thank you for Brazil nuts as chewable supplements.

Thank you for SM’s loving guidance through the years.

Thank you for when I wasn’t talking to him a few years ago, and he kept calling and texting anyway. Finally, my stubbornness melted. Thank you for his forgiveness. Thank you for the ability to face him after that absence. Thank you for how easy he made it to reconcile—no questions; only acceptance. Thank you for his strength.

Thank you for the warmth of his daughter.

Thank you for courage to face what seems impossible, with grace.

Thank you for caregivers and healthcare providers.

Thank you many times over for “nothing is too wonderful to be true.” 

Thank you for all of us who send prayers and meditations to those fighting serious illness. Please join with wishes for well being!

Wishing you well, too <3

 
 

We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started . . . and know the place for the first time. —T.S. Eliot

Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly, and they will show themselves great. —Ralph Waldo Emerson

Thank you for growth from pushing outside one’s familiar bubble.

Thank you for acknowledgement of all our challenges paired with faith in the goodness of humanity.

Thank you for Washington DC Air BnB hosts raising my awareness of what’s going on in their home country of Tibet. Thank you for everything being impermanent. Thank you for when S may have the opportunity to see her family again.

Thank you for the friendliness of the lady who sold me Hippeas at the Amtrak Cafe.

Thank you for the heart melt when J’s boy asked, “Can I call you my little plushie?”

Thank you for J sharing with me her and Z’s epic love story from the beginning, and letting me in on more of her past than ever. Thank you for the trust to confide in her likewise. It’s funny how you can know someone most of your life and still learn about each other. Thank you for her quotes, borrowed and original. (Problems really are opportunities in disguise!) Thank you for her and Z’s kindness uplifting others. Thank you for their success.

Thank you for their boys’ personalities and character. Thank you for the atmosphere of respect they’ve grown up in. Thank you for Pippin’s smile. Thank you for the privilege to be included in an extraordinary family, to be part of a loving home. Thank you for daily life with them. Thank you for laughing until crying. Thank you for hugs in abundance.

Thank you for “weird” folks like us.

Thank you for traveling light.

Thank you for sailboats on the Hudson.

Thank you for subway cars packed with colors.

Thank you for rainy days that give birth to rainbows. Thank you for rainbows not discriminating. They pop up in country canyons, on tropical islands, in the heart of Brooklyn… Anywhere!

Thank you for Bed-Stuy hairdos showcasing a beauty some of us have struggled to accept in ourselves.

Thank you for embracing my home-free inner gypsy.

Thank you for a hiatus from makeup.

Thank you for confidence expanding.

Thank you for what the “push your flaws” quote tells me. Certain things about me I’ve struggled to appreciate. If they’re alterable and the change seems positive, then I’ve been going for it. Other stuff I’m growing to embrace as-is. I guess what’s worth changing and what we embrace are really up to each of us to figure out for ourselves. IDK…

I do wonder if some or most “flaws” we perceive in ourselves are simply parts that stand out because they’re different. Really they needn’t be considered flaws but valuable rarities that were just misinterpreted.

Thank you for CBT articulating errors in thinking to spur insights into self and others. Thank you for online resources. Thank you for empowerment through understanding.

Thank you for the positive lifestyles in Dan Buettner’s new Netflix series on the blue zones. I’ve only watched the first two episodes so far. (Okinawa’s now added to the dream travel list!)

Thank you for the comfort factor in the Big Apple. Walkability may play a role. Plus New Yorkers live so much in plain view that there’s less room for pretense. Interactions otherwise behind closed doors or in backyards happen right in the open. (I think disarming may be a good word for it.)

Thank you for the City’s “this is who I am” style. Thank you for its attitude. Thank you for hodgepodge cohesiveness when heaps of colorful dots meld into a single entity unlike anything else. 

To be one of the dots is an honor. I guess we all are tiny dots all the time if we really think about it. We’re little pieces of a big picture, and we sustain the whole alive in us.

Thank you for the invigoration of adventure and the joy of returning home. 

Thank you for accepting family. 

Thank you for Sister journeys toward peace. Thank you for the work we do expanding us. Thank you for love from the universe along the way.

Thank you (again) for a move to Cali in a few weeks offering an unmet future and new friends.

May faith in your vision of happiness—of wholeness—keep opening paths for you, too.

May our acknowledgement of strengths and appreciation for progress encourage their growth.

Thank you for you.

Be well <3

 
 

“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

 

Thank you for Nick Drake’s Road.

Thank you for sing-alongs on bike rides not caring who hears.

Thank you for the creamy-hued (but green) Crosstrek with CA plates on Tramway bringing happy memories.

Thank you for focus lately on elevating energy, practicing kindness (trying to listen better), and surrendering. Elevating each other’s positive energy seems like a healthy way to approach relationships. 

Thank you for the mood lift from a night gathering pics online for a vision board type thingy.

Thank you for joyful, loving, resilient, mutually respectful and adoring couples who overcome odds to show the world what’s possible. 

Thank you for cloud shadows speckling the city landscape viewed from the foothills.

Thank you for a surreal walk right before a thunderstorm, with the most vivid patchwork of massive dark and bright clouds you could imagine.

Thank you for dancer’s pose.

Thank you for once-in-a-while early mornings to get centered and nourished before the day starts.

Thank you for bedtimes conducive to early mornings. Thank you for freedom from caffeine aiding early bedtimes.

Thank you for what a recent vegan cupcake taught me about addiction.

Thank you for the mundane thrills of life. Granola and oat bars for snacking on adventures. New recipes for experimenting. Presentations to give. Books to read and classes to take. Friends with pups to visit. Walks to the store for chocolate bars and such. Birds flying all around. Their songs sweetening the air. Homes to build. Gardens to grow. Dreams to mull. Family and friends to practice loving and mess up and learn from and practice some more.

Thank you for the success and inspiration of BO’s latest endeavors.

Thank you for Everybody Loves the Sunshine.

Thank you for the bird rehab lady in ABQ and our chat today on animal rescues, vegan food, and the nestling goldfinch she’s nursing to health.

Thank you again for memento mori. One day my options will close down, maybe gradually or with a bang. Enjoying moments now with the aim of living well may up the chance that I’ll accept however and whenever those options narrow.

Thank you for the magic that surfaces when we believe in possibilities.

Thank you for Mother’s Day with Moms, TNT, JC, and September on their new deck. Thank you for harmony and laughter. Thank you for no dearth of poop jokes. Thank you for their new fruit trees and more plants to come, and for the opportunity to be a sous gardener.

Thank you for a dream of angels resembling birds if birds were jellyfish, diving from the night sky into a cold dark sea.

Thank you for dreams as a compass to guide our path.

Thank you for the new mindfulness center at Harvard and the donor who funded it. (Think of the contributions headed our way!)

Thank you for a high school boyfriend who used to be obsessed with the Beatles and for the name he called me that I didn’t much like back then.

Thank you for successful thrifting to prep for Paradise. It was more fun than expected rummaging through five-dollar shirts and six-dollar pants at St Vincent de Paul. Plus the only song that played there reminded me of my little girl.

(Here comes a long one…) Thank you for a tool, from Laura Lynne Jackson, to relieve stress-induced procrastination: reassurance that we don’t act solo. It’s related to surrender. When I think I have to solve a problem or do something hard, the outcome appears to rest on me alone. I’m usurping control; the pressure can be paralyzing.

To surrender, on the contrary, is to accept that nothing really rests on my shoulders. I’m not doing what I do on my own. I don’t have to (nor can I) figure it all out. Ideas are one example. We can work like crazy to strengthen our minds and increase knowledge. But ultimately, new ideas—creative connections and insights—float down to us.

So it helps to remember that I’m not solely responsible to solve problems or accomplish goals. I always have help. Or the universe, nature, or whatever, is the doing and I am merely the help, the channel toward a greater end. The resulting ease of mind ironically welcomes solutions. It leads to work accomplished in creative ways. 

Related to that, thank you again for Thich Nhat Hanh on inter-being. We’re made of our ancestors, our environments, our social circles, everything we consume… We are more than individuals. Thus we’re never alone. And we never act on our own. Our doing is inter-doing. What we accomplish with love is the universe’s love manifesting through us. 

Thank you for this snippet from Al Ghazali’s Path to Sufism (Translated by R.J. McCarthy, S.J.). Feel free to replace the God talk with whatever works for you (for me, it’s the universe or nature):

“I believe with a faith as certain as direct vision that there is no might for me and no power save in God, the Sublime, the Mighty; and that it was not I who moved, but He moved me; and that I did not act, but He acted through me.”

And for his prayer: “I ask Him, then, to reform me first, then to use me as an instrument of reform; to guide me, then to use me as an instrument of guidance; to show me the true as true, and to grant me the grace to follow it; and to show me the false as false, and to grant me the grace to eschew it!”

Thank you for another post. Despite worries, I feel freer. It’s a bonus if you gain from it.

Thank you for being there.

Thank you for your dreams. 

Thank you for your wellness and healing.

Thank you for transformation through love happening all around.