morning gratitudes

July. That’s usually summery and hot, right? It’s 57.6º here today. Just sayin’…

Actually, I’m loving this cool weather. Any day it’s not sweltering hot is a good day for me.

I’m grateful the long, convoluted dream with my sister (betrayal!) was nothin’ but a dream.

I’m grateful that Heaven’s long wait is nearly over: water broke, she’s laboring away as I write this. Blessed be, Heaven, Aidan and Ian. (Aidan is the one who’s being born.)

I’m grateful for my new partnership with LB, who is going to do some outside sales for me. Hooray for teamwork!

I’m grateful for taking time to follow leads. For patience—a hard-won skill.

I’m grateful for faith. I’m grateful for knowing that I am just fine today. All is well. I have what I need and there’s *no reason* to think it will ever be otherwise. Hear that, you voices of doom in my head? Hear that, monkey mind? Jeeze.

I’m grateful for showing up. For willingness. For gratitude.

I’m grateful for chilly mornings. For (is it global warming?) this unusually cool weather.

I’m grateful for the way I have learned to treat people. For manners. For consideration. For generosity.

I’m grateful for friends and loved ones in my life.

I’m grateful — still — for the visit with my daughter on Sunday.

I’m grateful to be weaned off of newspapers. I read my newspapers online now.

I’m grateful for health and fitness.

I’m grateful for strength and flexibility.

I’m grateful for bills paid and abundance and plenty.

I’m grateful for my connection to spirit.

I’m grateful for my disciplines and my commitments.

All is well.

I am so grateful for helpful Twitterers. Really. I needed to know how to add sharing to this blog and I asked someone and now it’s done. If a reader (you?) clicks on the Comments link, you will find a button for sharing in Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Del.icious, Google…

So share! Share any post that motivates you. Thanks in advance.

I am so grateful for a wonderful weekend.

Visited with dad last night. Brought take-out dinner with me…We watched the Mets-Yankees game (the Yankees swept, nice; Dad’s a Mets fan—not so nice for him). I was glad he liked his dinner—I always feel weird about picking out food for him. The brisket, mashed potatoes and veggies went over well. Good job, Whole Foods.

And visited with my daughter in the morning. A 10am movie—Up—with Rose and Gus. It was great fun. And then we had a small lunch together. Glad I got to see my beloved daughter.

In between, I gardened. Yanked up tough, too-mature, tatsoi and mizuna plants and planted some seeds in their place. Harvested more snap peas. YUM!

And I did a stint of death research. Found out some of the Jewish customs—what is done with the body after death. So interesting. What I’ve found that resonates with me is anointing with oils, washing (wonder why it’s done in that order; think I’ll ask for it to be reversed), and then dressing the body in cotton/linen/muslin garments. I’ll ask for my red cord to be around my belly. And maybe my priestess crown and ring and wand to go with me to the fire. Lots of food for thought. Sobering. Really really sobering work. Crone’s work.

Saturday—a two–farmer’s markets morning. Picked up the next month’s worth of herbs. Then went and learned how to make lavender wands with Raven, Maenam and Sarah. Promptly gave my wand away to Shari as a gift later that day. I want to make more of them, I think there’s plenty of lavender here to pick. I’ll buy some skinny ribbon this week.

Tried to go to the Dyke March. Couldn’t park anywhere (well, I could have for $20; chose not to—duh). Drove around for an hour, enjoyed the spectacle. Avoided the crowds. Took the opportunity to go to Clothes Contact and buy $8 worth of by-the-pound scarves to wear in my hair, around my neck, around my hips. I love that store!

And had an evening with Shari and Hannah, Ben, Jesse (the triplets I’ve known since they were born; they’re now eleven). Carol and Shirley, Shari’s friend, were there too. Dinner, singing, a little hula. Lovely company.

I am blessed. I am of service. I embrace the week. Rock on!

I’ve been finding it hard to show up to my commitment to gratitude.

Probably because I’ve been feeling challenged in so many areas of life recently.

Back to basics, with a smile on my face.

I am grateful for life. I am grateful to be alive, healthy, fit, clean and sober.

I am grateful for gratitude practice, even though it’s my thrown-to way of being to dwell in darkness. This practice is my invitation into the light and I can accept this invitation over and over again.

I am grateful for loving caring people in my life. For women who listen and care and hold space for my greatness.

I am grateful for this season of light, for sunshine and growth I see everywhere around me.

I am grateful for dwelling in possibility. For keeping that door open too. There is possibility everywhere I look.

I am grateful for affirmative prayer.

I speak my word right now for the easy easy easy financial abundance and security that is mine, already mine. I am gifted with wonderful clients and a growing coaching practice where I can be of service every day. I am blessed with dynamic, challenging and fun graphic design projects that pay very very well. Being of service in both of these practices allows me to share my gifts with others on many levels. I am of service, I am secure and supported. Being in this luxurious abundance offers me the safety and security to experience life’s truest gifts: most especially love. I know that the universe, and spirit, is loving and abundant and wealthy and that this love and abundance and wealth is already mine. Since I too am part of this creation, of this universe, I know that this love and abundance and wealth of spirit is also available for me. I know that I am already loved, loving, abundant and wealthy. That the things I need and envision are already on their way to me. I already have everything I need to be in this flow. The universe is love. Spirit is abundance. Spirit is wealth. The universe has given me this desire and with it everything I need to make it manifest, to let it all flow through me in perfect joy. I have nothing to fear, for I am one with this loving spirit. I am so grateful to be in this knowing. I am so grateful to be the recipient of this love and wealth and abundance. I release this prayer into this perfect loving wealthy and abundant universe. I am totally clear and unafraid and open to receive the gifts of this beautiful life, this moment, this day, and going forward. I am at peace. Blessed be.

I am grateful to be present to the gifts that are already all around me. And so it is.

Remembered earlier that today marks the 40th anniversary of my first wedding. Gulp. How did that happen? I was a child bride, in my teens. It was so long ago.

I am still full of joy from the solstice weekend. Three rituals.

Friday night: My first time high-priestessing a ritual. It went well, I am told. I was so preoccupied with the schedule and moving things along that I didn’t really know how it went. Got lots of wonderful loving feedback. I did deeply get into the craft activity and made a sock poppet (right)  that’s holding my intentions. She’s sitting on my altar.

Saturday night: an outdoor ritual, based on Mongolian shamanism, with a fire and wonderful magical chanting, offerings, and intentions. Brought a new friend to this ritual.

Sunday: Another outdoor ritual, making flower wreaths and showing our solstice flags which we had pre-made (my flag is at the left), in the sunshine by the bay at Marina Park. Much joyful singing and marching (we actually sang “We are marching in the solstice sun, the solstice sun, the solstice sun…” to the tune of, yes, “Marching to Pretoria.” So much fun!

I feel very very blessed.

And now, work.

Blessed be.

Slowly slowly slowly the sewage-y smell is receding from my bathroom. As is the horror-filled memory of the overflow. Wins as the most disgusting day of my life and let it be always so. May I never have a more disgusting experience.

I am so grateful for my daughter making her way in the world. She’s taking as many shifts as they give her at Starbucks. Good for her. I miss and love my beautiful Rosie.

I am grateful for the light. Solstice in a few days. Interesting as the light expands expands as the moon wanes. Energy bursting with life and going internal at the same time. Hmmmm…

I’m grateful for Stitch ‘n’ Witch night at The Sacred Well yesterday. Friends, knitting, chat. Although there’s no way I can knit lace and chat. Row 59 of my Crone’s Shawl will be the row with the most mistakse. Misteaks. Mistakes. Get it? No one is allowed to approach my shawl with a magnifying glass. Just sayin’…

Three — count ‘em — three Litha/solstice rituals this weekend. I will be wearing my beautiful solstice skirt to all three. I think.

I’m grateful for celebration, ritual, magic.

Blessed be.

Something I was taught when I was a young member of a spiritual cult turns out to be a crock of shit. I was taught that by age 33 you will have experienced every feeling you will ever feel; after that age it’s all repeats. I can tell you today that that is totally not true. Today I experienced a new level of grossness. Today I experienced the most disgusting day of my life. Today I was actually standing in a river of shit (I can hear Tuli Kupferberg droning). I have now lived long enough to have had the pisspoor luck to experience a toilet overflowing and then having to clean it up. (A toilet full of poop. In case that wasn’t clear to you.) Well, I guess I didn’t have to clean it. I guess I coulda just left and never come back (my first thought). Instead, I cleaned. And cleaned. And cleaned. And my house still smells sewage-y.

And I am here to tell you that I have never experienced anything like this before. Or the feelings of utter disgust, helplessness and unbelievable desire for someone, anyone to take care of this for me. I thought 400,000 ants in my refrigerator was bad. Which was the grossest thing I had ever dealt with before this. (And that happened way after age 33 too.) Pshaw. Those ants were nothin’. Simply nothin’ by comparison.

So, Oscar Ichazo, you were wrong. You were so wrong. Life continues to have new and previously unimagined (unimaginable!) experiences in store for me. I guess that means it might even have unimagined pleasurable and wonderful and blissful moments coming. At this point, I’d take a sweet-smelling house.

Jeeze. Just sayin’…

Dreams and memories of Lansman’s and the Main House. I bet I’m one of a very very very small group of people who remember that building. I must have been nine or ten—eleven tops—when it burned down. I remember it vividly. My Grandma Mary (my dad’s mother) stayed there. It was (in my memory) a three-story rooming house with a gigantic kitchen. In my mind’s eye it had a ginormous stove (like a six-burner church stove).

Wonder why I’m having these memories now.

I’m grateful that the 2:30 am mosquito wars only lasted about 45 minutes. After two bites to the orbit of my eye and one to the flesh on my arm, I lay awake with the light on until the mosquito came out of hiding enough for me to kill it.

Can’t help but wish I wasn’t a mosquito-killer. I would love to never kill any living creature. But then there are mosquitos. And ants in my home. Guess I’m no Buddhist.

I’m grateful for my sister’s smiles. I enjoy my time with her.

I’m grateful for my date with my niece—we saw the Taking of Pelham 1-2-3 remake. I was surprised by Travolta. He was rivetingly good. Never thought I would say that about a performance of his. Denzel was as always amazing.

Also took myself to see the new Eddie Murphy movie. Double meh.

I’m grateful for eating the first three snap peas from my garden yesterday. Wow! I am predicting that they will never make it from the garden, up the stairs and into the pan. Unless a whole bunch are ready to pick at once, they are gonna be eaten out of hand.

Met with Raven and Rabbit to plan how my body will be handled after my death. Sobering discussion. Very interesting to take this on. An empowered death…

I’m a grateful gal. Blessed be.

I’m so grateful for the loving energy offered to me yesterday post-share at an AA meeting. My second of the day.

I’m grateful that I can talk about what’s going on, even when the craving to use strikes. Better than talking about it after I’ve gotten loaded, huh?

I’m clean and sober today, still, and for that I am immensely grateful.

Had an interesting memory hit me this morning, remembered coming home at age 17 or so out of my mind on acid, and being asked to play cards with mom, dad, and a sister or two. I couldn’t get into the game, I was totally ungrounded—the first of my many major disconnects with the world and the people around me. [shaking my head in wonder; how the hell did I survive?]

I’m grateful. Stressed. Grateful. Stressed.

The stress is going to to kill me.

I’ve started meditating again. And doing t’ai chi again. Desperate measures.

Blessed be.

Yes, I’m grateful. Even when it’s hard.

I’m grateful that I know that I have given up the right to suicide. And that I know I know I know that things will only get worse if I start using drugs again. I know this. So I find myself doing long internet searches about life in Ireland. Or Greece. Spending hours planning a giant geographical cure.

I am grateful to know that my tendency to have big stress reactions to financial realities and financial worries is hurting my health.

I am grateful to have enough willingness to start meditating and practicing t’ai chi again. I clearly have run out of reserves.

There is a part of me that hates that it all comes down to regular practice. Just like when I found out that cleaning the gutters (having them cleaned, actually) of the one and only home I ever bought wasn’t a permanent condition. I was appalled, really, to find out that the gutters filled up with leaves again and had to be cleaned regularly. Jeeze!

Same way, it seems, with meditation. With T’ai Chi. With exercise. With everything in my toolbox that provides me with the life I desire. Even with rolling out my IT bands—if I skip a week it really really hurts; if I do it once or twice a week there’s no pain. Regular application is critical. Sigh.

Someone once told me that my willingness will save me. Guess so. Lucky me.

I’d really rather be saved by a lottery win and the ability to pay people to create the space for me to do all these wonderful things. Self-generation is not as appealing as being handheld. Oh well. I’m here, I’m present, I meditated and I did t’ai chi. And I will do so again. And so it goes.

I am a grateful gal. Glad I’m not dead. And some days this is where I get to start.