morning gratitudes

As of yesterday, I have nineteen years clean and sober. Consecutive and current. I am a different woman. I have some things in my life that I never had before. I have

joy
friends
love
a positive attitude (much of the time)
faith
the ability to notice and appreciate beauty
generosity
humor
a spiritual life
community with wonderful witchy women and men (mostly women—where my magic lives)
a relationship with my daughter that is amazing
family, strong family connections
no financial debt

I am so grateful for every single one of these attributes. Just sayin’…

I am grateful for a loving heart. Always and ever plumped up and restored by the loving loving loving embrace of my friends and cherished family. It’s a true thing, I am not a loving person all by myself. I respond, like a sunflower. I have learned to turn my face to the love, to the light, to the joy. And that’s a good thing.

Did the annual magnolias photo shoot with Rose yesterday. As we have done since she was a toddler, we found the best peak-blooming magnolia trees (on people’s front yards—very different from Brooklyn Botanical Gardens and Sacramento’s Capitol Park, but we adapt!) for our shoot. And Rose still climbs into the trees.

I asked her yesterday to please keep doing this with me until I die. And she agreed; said she’d wheel me to the trees if/when necessary. Funny.

Here are a few of the pix:

I am grateful for cold sunshine. And warm beds.

I am grateful for delicious healthy food and for mindfulness when I eat.

I am grateful for good friends and being fascinated by people.

I am grateful for fitness and flexibility.

I am grateful for humor and laughing out loud.

I am grateful for technology that supports my work and my curiosity.

I am grateful for my sister and her generosity, humor and friendship.

I am grateful for the love in my heart and the light in my eyes.

I am grateful for being a witch, a spiritual woman, a priestess.

I am grateful for pedicures with Rabbit.

I am a grateful woman, a grateful grateful woman.

Imbolc has come and gone. And I gratefully declare Spring! I’ve seen magnolias all over and I’ve seen fruit trees abloom. I see bulbs coming up and buds on every tree. That exquisite amazing color of new-growth green is everywhere. This is the time of year that inspires me so much. That life force bursting in every living thing rushes through my heart and cells. A good good thing.

I’m grateful for growth, for patience, for friends, for knowing the goddess, for being called by both Brigid and Mami Wata, for their fierce protection.

I’m grateful for skill, love of work, talent, clients, potential clients.

I’m grateful grateful grateful for health, good food, cooking skills.

I’m grateful for support from my sisters (of blood and of choice) and the rest of my support network.

Life is good and I am blessed.

I’m grateful. Yes I am. I’m grateful for showing up for life, for my vision, for change. Even when my efforts are spectacular failures (at least apparently).

Tried to change the game with a loved one and it fell really really flat. I feel idiotic for trying, for landing up in our old (lifelong) control struggles. You can’t be the boss of me. Well, you can’t be the boss of me either!

I feel so much sadness. So much loss. My dad, who now has lost about half of his language. Meaning that about half the time he can be understood and the other half of the time his words come out unintelligible. And he knows it. Poor dad; I can see the frustration and pain in his eyes when his words don’t come out right and then he just waves his hand and gives up. Of course this is just another stop on the road of indignities. First mobility. Then continence. Now this.

And he’s lost appetite. No surprise, I guess. And then there are the really freaky moments, like when he picked up his soda can and poured it into his full plate instead of into his glass. Without seeming to  notice anything out of the ordinary. God bless him.

Prayer and meditation. Gotta reach into my toolbag and pull out the tools that keep me in the knowing that I am not alone. That I am in a place that’s healthy and safe and where I can be of service. That there is love aplenty, time aplenty, money aplenty. That I’m in the flow of abundance and love that makes up every atom and cell of this beautiful universe. I am so grateful to know this. I am blessed and life is abundantly good. I insist on reminding myself of that, on good days and on the ones where I wake up curled up into a ball of loss. And so it is.

I am grateful this morning for the drenching rain and dramatic storms. For the beautiful rainbow yesterday afternoon between soaking rains. For the Cheshire cat smiling moon early yesterday evening. For the hopeful end of the California drought. I haven’t seen this much rain since I moved to California in 1994.

I am grateful for my new glasses. Light on my face. New Rx means I see with more clarity. And they look okay.

I am grateful for health. Renewed health. Clear breathing. The end of coughing. (Begone! And stay gone!)

I am grateful for commitment to centering and meeting people where they’re at. Helps in every interaction.

I am grateful for love and loving.

I am grateful for lessons learned. So many lessons learned.

I am grateful for the technologies that support my active curious life.

I am grateful for sexual expression, my own and others’.

I am grateful for time’s healing. For loving and letting go.

Life is good and I am blessed.

I am so grateful!

My father’s dying looked a lot more like living on Wednesday. He was out of bed! He was out of his room! He was sitting up at the movie at his place. And I heard he had gone down to the dining room for dinner the night before. *And* that he was holding hands with the woman who has set her sights on him. Nice. So nice. So much nicer than seeing him sleeping all the time. And being out of his mind.

This dying thing is not linear or clear-cut, is it? Jeeze, like the rest of living, huh?

I am better better better! My cough is a rare thing now. I can breathe much better.

My energy is coming back.

I made it to hula class.

I would really like to make it to a dance this week. Saturday, after Avatar?

I’m grateful for friends.

I’m grateful for the room share at Pantheacon. I will be staying with Ladybug and Avery (her 8-month-old baby). I get to go!

I’m grateful for my sister and for Jackie, who care about and hold space for me even when I do things they are sure aren’t good for me.

I’m grateful for my loving heart, my sense of humor, my trust in spirit, my cozy home, homemade kombucha with lavender-mint infusion, health, wealth and this new beautiful day.

Blessed be!

The art of gratitude. Simple. (But not easy.)

I am grateful for

love
willingness
determination
surrender
sunshine
new sneakers that are lightweight and made of recycled content (End brand)
having an annual doctor visit, getting checked over
being in good health, relatively at least
being present for my father at this stage of his life/death
taking difficult actions (I’d rather not, thank you)
friends
good food
eating mindfully and very very well
mentors
mentoring
being an artist
sacred intentions, sacred contracts with spirit

Today I am grateful. I am grateful for the appreciation I feel for my father. For his life. His love. His strength. His perseverance. His smile. His appetite. His smarts. (That’s my dad and me on the right.)

I am grateful for growing into being a daughter while he was still around. I am so grateful for the strength and willingness to set aside old hurts, expectations and resentments enough to become worthy of my family. I am someone who gives now; I don’t stand in that place of bottomless need any more (most of the time, anyway!).

I am very grateful for the strength to sit by his bedside and tell him it’s okay to go; that we’ll miss him but he doesn’t have to stay for us.

Yesterday my father didn’t speak at all. His mouth was opened in an “O” shape and he could only open his eyes for a second before closing them again. Read about palliative care and death in yesterday’s NY Times. Looks like he’s closer and closer all the time. So tough!

Moving on to how much life delights me today. I am so grateful for being the kombucha-making, sauerkraut-making gal that I am. I whipped up a new bunch of ‘kraut yesterday, with cabbage, and gold beets, and lots of fresh ginger.

It’s in a nifty ‘kraut-making jar I bought online, with an inner lid that sits upside-down and holds water, and an airlock that inserts into a hole in the outer lid to help keep everything submerged. This ‘kraut will be done in less than a week. Yum!

On its left is one of the three batches of ‘bucha I’ve got going in my kitchen today. I now have four gallon jars and just enough space on my counter to have them all going at the same time.

A true gift of my love affair with Leila, becoming even more fully self-expressed as a cook. I miss her so much in my life; I find myself wanting to delight her senses and to have her taste everything I make. And that’s just what I miss about her in the kitchen. Sad.

I am in a place of knowing, today, what I really want to do with the rest of my time in this life. I get it. I want to make cultured foods and drinks and herbal concoctions that heal and beautify. And make my living doing so. There, I’ve said it in print.

My prayer is for direction and guidance and ability to actually Get. It. Done.

I do not know how.

I surrender to the not knowing and open myself up to every suggestion and every mentor and every possible partner out there who will work with me to get this Labor of Love to the market. Profitably, in love and service.

So mote it be!

One more way life delights me today: I bought myself a dozen canning jars in three sizes: 4oz, 8oz, and pint. All wide-mouth. I feel absolutely rich. I probably have all the jars I will need for my personal use for the rest of my life. If I wasn’t a bit embarrassed, I would add a photo of the jars in my cupboard. I get giddy when I have clean jars to put away. This kind of thing gives me joy. Oh well. Now you know what a dork I am. I don’t care. I’ll take joy every single place I can find it.

Blessings….

I am blessed I am grateful I am delighted to be alive.

Wanted to post this at the moment of solstice this morning. That moment of the sun (apparently) standing still, hovering, quivering, in the darkness inside the light, in the light inside the dark.

Missed the moment. The light is already coming back. The shortest day was yesterday. A moment or two or five more of light today. I’ll take it.

Chanukah family dinner Friday was sweet and bittersweet. Dad didn’t attend as his health is too fragile. Dealing with hospice and other end-of-life conversations. Tough stuff.

Yule rituals were wonderful and amazing. Went to the CAYA mixed ritual Saturday night. It was absolutely wonderful. A working for the wolves on the planet. And a raucous drumming and dancing session. I love my CAYA family.

And then the CSF Yule. The coven that makes things: the altar cloth was simply amazing. Maenam, Victoria and Sarah made it (thanks Maenam for the photo). A lotus with Lakshmi’s footprints. The story is that you paint Lakshmi’s footprints outside your doorstep, pointing to your home, to invite Lakshmi’s light and abundance into your life.

And we strung prayer beads (in the near dark, quite a feat!).

A wonderful weekend of celebrating the light, the sun, the warmth, the fire.

I feel humbled and grateful and lucky to be alive and present to my life.