Gratitude for Me

This past week we officially gave thanks for all that we have, as we celebrated our great country and its bountiful gifts.  Now it’s on to the harried holiday hoe-down!  If you celebrate Hanukkah, watch out because it’s practically on top of us; Christmas follows closely behind.  What gift will you give yourselves this month?

I highly recommend presenting your self with an hour of down time every day.  Sound impossible?  Try doing it out of your house to eliminate distractions.  Yoga is a good idea, of course.  Or visit the library and sit on a comfy chair under a window; you can read or just pretend to read.  Bundle up and take a meditative walk, leaving the dog behind so you don’t have to keep stopping (the kids’ll take him out later!).  Take a drive down a country road with the radio off. Wander through a garden nursery and breathe in the pine scents. Visit a local museum.  Again, you can wander and look, or just sit and relax.  Did I mention yoga?

Give it a go.  You will be surprised how quickly an hour goes by, and how refreshed and energized you will feel afterward.  The bonus realization will be that an hour of replenishing your soul won’t take time away from your busy day – you will seem to gain more time!  Need I say more?

All Blessings, Big and Small

Thanks a million; a hunderd’ll do!  Words of wisdom from Pop-Pop. 

We do have a million things to be thankful for, but let’s deal with a hundred instead – we’ve got turkeys to defrost and pies to bake, after all.  Oh, that’s the first two thanks, right there.  98 to go…..

I’m grateful for my teachers, both those I pay and those who lead extraordinary lives as an example to me.

I am thankful for peppermint tea and car seat warmers.

Namaste to my friends and fellow yogis.

I am grateful that garbage truck let me go ahead of him this morning so I didn’t have to follow him slowly down the street.

I give thanks for flannel pajamas and a husband who doesn’t object.

I shout halleluiah when my trick knee doesn’t play tricks on me.

… and on and on.  My list will include the usual – health, family, home – and the tiny things that bring a moment of pleasure each day.

What’s on your list?

Butterflies in November

I was watching the National Geographic channel last night -- a show about migrating animals.  Here is an interesting fact about Monarch Butterflies:

It takes four generations for monarch butterflies to complete their round-trip migration.  First batch leaves from Mexico in the spring, lays eggs and dies somewhere in the southern U.S.  Second batch hatches, eats, cocoons, emerges, and takes off for the upper U.S.; repeat lifecycle.  Generation 3 makes it to Canada, where they lay their eggs, and when Generation 4 emerges as butterflies, they head straight south, going the entire way back to the original starting location in Mexico before they too lay their eggs and perish. 

Why am I taking about butterflies on this cold and windy day?  Because their unfathomable migration echoes the mysteries in our own lives.  Things happen that we can’t explain, but that doesn’t mean they are less true.  And if we sometimes feel we are butterflies, being pushed by instinct instead of reason, maybe we should let go and take flight!

All is Ready

Everything you need, you already have.

Ever hear that before and say, yeah, well, I really need an iPad and I don't see it on my desk....

That's not what we're talking about, and you know it!  Everything you need, truly need, to live a life that is full and happy and kind and beneficial to all -- people, plants, planets -- is at hand.  The real question to ask is, how do I access these things, these tools for living?

A simple answer:  Open yourself to them and they will come in.

Ponder that.  We'll talk later.