My fahter – his health and his expressing his gratefulness for being reasonable well aged 96, his mildness and his joy of life and an increasing flexibility even though already aged 96 to apologize when he felt to possibly might have hurt someone; some huge old beech trees I passed, their enormous capacity to give shelter, cooling down the air beneath their wide branches full of green leaves; a sense of eternal presence aorund them: and the wonder of friendship when things are allowed to just flow smoothly, truthfully and lovingly.
Ose, that’s quite a long productive life. At first glance, he reminds me of my paternal grampa. My family just had a rememberance gathering for him a couple days ago.
I feel,
more today than most days,
that I have spent a little time in all of your lives this morning,
and it makes me feel connected.
I felt all of you
in your moments
of thinking on today’s Question,
and then thought of my own . . .
a string of teeny tiny lights that have amazingly
been burning over my desk for 13 years,
the wonder of my aged cat, Sophie
sitting primly,
just as she did when she was young,
on my printer,
with a bit of disdain in her expression
that I should be feeding her first,
and that my body has been renewed by sleep
and I am actually excited
to get outside and do some hard and tedious work in my gardens,
enjoying my coffee after fasting blood work.
Namaste . . . ♥
Mainly, the fact that I am here at all. And secondly, my cats. They’re amazing creatures. And thirdly, the fact that I am holding this little device in my hands and communicating with people all over this globe. Like most things, this can also be a curse. 😁
The transition from a clear sky to a cloudy one.
The beauty of many elders enjoying their morning walk.
Loc and I, hand in hand, on our neighborhood sidewalk.
Out our front kitchen window I see so many green, green trees. Our neighbors all have trees and behind them stands a large park of legacy forest (not quite old-growth, but over 100 years since it was logged, before it became a park). They’re right there to rest my eyes on any time I need a break. Trees are always amazing anywhere, and especially beautiful when they’re undisturbed the way this big park is. I don’t have to worry about them being cut down for a development that would add noise and traffic. Instead they’re habitat for the owls I hear at night, and the coyote pack that occasionally whoops it up as I’m falling asleep. Their roots help capture the runoff from our neighborhood and filter water on its way to the south end of Puget Sound where the salmon and seals swim. They’re taking in the CO2 I exhale and giving me oxygen. I recently listened to Robin Wall Kimmerer read one of her essays in Emergence Magazine, which gave me even more appreciation https://emergencemagazine.org/essay/becoming-earth/.
I’m looking at the trees through the drops of water from our sprinkler. The whole system that brings us clean, fresh water is worthy of wonder. I know how lucky we are. I’m in a very green, wet part of the world (western Washington) with plenty of water, although not quite enough to keep the lawn green this time of year and my husband wants it to look a little happier.
Over our kitchen island, a beautiful light fixture exemplifies my husband’s creativity and skill. I marvel at how many things he knows how to do for and around the house, from a lifetime that includes summer jobs in construction, majoring in construction management, having a hobby of radio-controlled planes and model building, and military service. He took four small lamps designed to stand on a desk and turned them into a hanging light with the lamps as pendants dangling from a rod. He designed the whole thing, sourced the materials, did the wiring and installed it. It’s really beautiful! When we turn it on the light glows through the colors. The lamps were made in the Philippines, where his mom is from, and are big tinted real butterfly leaves. (The multicolored ones on this page from the fair trade store in town where we got them https://newtraditionsfairtrade.com/collections/lamps-and-shades/products/mini-square-table-lamp-2.)
Thank you,
dear Barb,
for this so lovely post,
and the sharing I feel within it . . .
I feel as if I am sitting in your kitchen window with you,
enjoying the eye candy in the trees
and the mulit-coloured warmth from your husband’s creation.
Thank you too,
for the links to two songs that I love
and for the Robin Kimmerer . . .
just a lovely break in my day. ♥
I’ve been reading my way through a blog, A Year’s Risings with Mary Oliver, by a UU minister and avian veterinarian, LoraKim Joyner. She posted a poem and her reflections on it every day for quite a while. Yesterday’s poem fits with today’s question:
Lingering in Happiness
Mary Oliver
After rain after many days without rain.
it stays cool, private and cleansed, under the trees,
and the dampness there, married now to gravity,
falls branch to branch, leaf to leaf, down to the ground
where it will disappear–but not, of course, vanish
except to our eyes. The roots of the oaks will have their share,
and the white threads of the grasses, and the cushion of moss;
a few drops, round as pearls, will enter the mole’s tunnel;
and soon so many small stones, buried for a thousand years,
will feel themselves being touched.
I am sitting at the computer in our office/guest room/meditation room. Just looking in front of me I quickly found 3 things that bring me a sense of wonder:
1) A beautiful handmade poster that one of my husband’s CNAs made for him when he was in the hospital 18 years ago. I am bowled over when I think of the time and care she put into making this, and the effect it had on my husband. It seemed to me that the turning point of that hospital stay was when my husband was able to feel and transmute the energy of his anger at what was happening. The poster says (FYI my husband does not quite have an “oppressive illness”, but it still is a wonderful message) “In a profusion of ailing souls, rebellion comes hard. But for a man struck with an oppressive illness but whose FIGHT refuses to fade, it comes like FIRE. Final Summation: Decimate Apathy, RAGE ON”
2) A colored copy of the beautiful Revolutionary Love Compass created by Valarie Kaur is posted on the bulletin board behind our desk. I am filled with a sense of wonder at all the wisdom, study, painful and joyful life experience, intuition, and artistic ability that went into creating this compass.
3) A city calendar with a gorgeous photo taken by a local person of our valley with dark clouds in the sky and a lovely rainbow as well. I am filled with wonder at the skill that went into composing the photograph, the fact that something like photography exists where we can just point a camera or phone at something and get a picture, and at the beauty of nature captured in the photo.
The sun rising & engulfing the green rolling hills & farm fields with light & love.
A new flower, a pinky orange zinnia, in my flower pot garden. I am in awe of all the flowers in my garden.
The swallows flying above & in front of my terrace. They are singing their little hearts out & squawking away! They are enjoying the warm sunlight & this beautiful summer day.
Happy Monday All….🕊️🩷
1.) the books I’m reading, making me contemplate certain things.
2.) my family, praying that everyone is having a good day
3.) nature, watching the wind blow through the trees in my backyard
I see my husband reading the paper, so relaxed.
I see my Siamese cat Coco, the picture of comfort,
sitting atop two cushions, thinking about who knows what.
I see my newest cat Calliope, on the back of the sofa, ears twitching,
as she scans the area outside the window, looking for anything that moves.
It’s the little things in life that make life so good.
Thank you for this question.
The ornamental grass perfectly backlit, for just a moment, by morning sun. The moving cloud of pollinators on the lavender bush: three kinds of bees and two kinds of moths. That fact that it’s a new morning and I’m here.
Yesterday on a walk I passed through the grounds of the state capitol. Big fat bumblebees were working over clumps of lavender; so beautiful and peaceful.
The wisdom of a seed; the sacrifice of the first responders from all over our country who traveled to Texas and have been assisting with the flood clean up day after day; my son and daughter-in-law’s care of stray animals.
I’m enjoying the rays of sun coming through the trees onto our patio and yard.
Twin plants that are not twinning in health. We bought them off the clearance rack at Lowes last winter. They have had the same love and care, but one is thriving with lots of leaves and the other had one leaf recently but now looks like it’s dying.
My female dog, Reese, staring at me through the glass doors. Is she wondering when we’re going for a walk? Or is she just staring because she loves me so much? It’s probably the walk 🙂
Hi friends, it has been a few weeks. My work load shifted and I lost my habit of being here. I’ve missed you all. Three things that bring wonder are: this space and how it brings gratitude and joy, my cats beautiful black and white belly fur, and my teen daughter who is emerging as a vocal talent to be reckoned with.
The morning dew as the day starts slowly and mysteriously. The ebb and flow of everything living thing in nature. The sun going up and going is down daily is a wonder. The moon and the starts reflect wonder. The garden and its growth.
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My fahter – his health and his expressing his gratefulness for being reasonable well aged 96, his mildness and his joy of life and an increasing flexibility even though already aged 96 to apologize when he felt to possibly might have hurt someone; some huge old beech trees I passed, their enormous capacity to give shelter, cooling down the air beneath their wide branches full of green leaves; a sense of eternal presence aorund them: and the wonder of friendship when things are allowed to just flow smoothly, truthfully and lovingly.
Your father’s health is truly a gift. Enjoy every moment.
What beautiful sentiments,
dear Ose . . .
your vibrant father
and the wise old beech trees,
all in one thought. ♥
Ose, that’s quite a long productive life. At first glance, he reminds me of my paternal grampa. My family just had a rememberance gathering for him a couple days ago.
To honor Your grampa, beautiful! and thank you, dear Loc Tran!
No problem, Ose.
I feel,
more today than most days,
that I have spent a little time in all of your lives this morning,
and it makes me feel connected.
I felt all of you
in your moments
of thinking on today’s Question,
and then thought of my own . . .
a string of teeny tiny lights that have amazingly
been burning over my desk for 13 years,
the wonder of my aged cat, Sophie
sitting primly,
just as she did when she was young,
on my printer,
with a bit of disdain in her expression
that I should be feeding her first,
and that my body has been renewed by sleep
and I am actually excited
to get outside and do some hard and tedious work in my gardens,
enjoying my coffee after fasting blood work.
Namaste . . . ♥
Love the string of tiny lights over your desk!
Coffee after fasting bloodwork. Oh yes!
🥰
My cats are experts at “showing disdain”, too.
“Serve me, human, as is your right and proper function.” I see that furry face every day.
😸😆
🙂
Mainly, the fact that I am here at all. And secondly, my cats. They’re amazing creatures. And thirdly, the fact that I am holding this little device in my hands and communicating with people all over this globe. Like most things, this can also be a curse. 😁
It’s delightful how many of us are amazed by our cats.
Charlie, I totally feel you on this device. It’s a double-edge sword. You just built upon my 2nd answer from yesterday.
”Like most things, this can also be a curse.”
So true,
dear Charlie . . .
it’s called ‘balance of all things.’ 🙂
The transition from a clear sky to a cloudy one.
The beauty of many elders enjoying their morning walk.
Loc and I, hand in hand, on our neighborhood sidewalk.
I love that you and Loc hold hands on your walks.
♥️♥️♥️
I love that you commented on “elders doing their morning walk.” I dream to be one of those, walking with my husband, one day.
My Ngoc, we had so much fun walking on the sidewalk along the lake this morning.
Out our front kitchen window I see so many green, green trees. Our neighbors all have trees and behind them stands a large park of legacy forest (not quite old-growth, but over 100 years since it was logged, before it became a park). They’re right there to rest my eyes on any time I need a break. Trees are always amazing anywhere, and especially beautiful when they’re undisturbed the way this big park is. I don’t have to worry about them being cut down for a development that would add noise and traffic. Instead they’re habitat for the owls I hear at night, and the coyote pack that occasionally whoops it up as I’m falling asleep. Their roots help capture the runoff from our neighborhood and filter water on its way to the south end of Puget Sound where the salmon and seals swim. They’re taking in the CO2 I exhale and giving me oxygen. I recently listened to Robin Wall Kimmerer read one of her essays in Emergence Magazine, which gave me even more appreciation https://emergencemagazine.org/essay/becoming-earth/.
I’m looking at the trees through the drops of water from our sprinkler. The whole system that brings us clean, fresh water is worthy of wonder. I know how lucky we are. I’m in a very green, wet part of the world (western Washington) with plenty of water, although not quite enough to keep the lawn green this time of year and my husband wants it to look a little happier.
Over our kitchen island, a beautiful light fixture exemplifies my husband’s creativity and skill. I marvel at how many things he knows how to do for and around the house, from a lifetime that includes summer jobs in construction, majoring in construction management, having a hobby of radio-controlled planes and model building, and military service. He took four small lamps designed to stand on a desk and turned them into a hanging light with the lamps as pendants dangling from a rod. He designed the whole thing, sourced the materials, did the wiring and installed it. It’s really beautiful! When we turn it on the light glows through the colors. The lamps were made in the Philippines, where his mom is from, and are big tinted real butterfly leaves. (The multicolored ones on this page from the fair trade store in town where we got them https://newtraditionsfairtrade.com/collections/lamps-and-shades/products/mini-square-table-lamp-2.)
Two songs to go with the question: Louis Armstrong https://youtu.be/rBrd_3VMC3c?si=W8HiMwpTuZmcSLWy and Israel Kamakawiwo’ole https://youtu.be/Z26BvHOD_sg?si=XtwMGjnAspTUPqnj.
Thank you,
dear Barb,
for this so lovely post,
and the sharing I feel within it . . .
I feel as if I am sitting in your kitchen window with you,
enjoying the eye candy in the trees
and the mulit-coloured warmth from your husband’s creation.
Thank you too,
for the links to two songs that I love
and for the Robin Kimmerer . . .
just a lovely break in my day. ♥
I’ve been reading my way through a blog, A Year’s Risings with Mary Oliver, by a UU minister and avian veterinarian, LoraKim Joyner. She posted a poem and her reflections on it every day for quite a while. Yesterday’s poem fits with today’s question:
Lingering in Happiness
Mary Oliver
After rain after many days without rain.
it stays cool, private and cleansed, under the trees,
and the dampness there, married now to gravity,
falls branch to branch, leaf to leaf, down to the ground
where it will disappear–but not, of course, vanish
except to our eyes. The roots of the oaks will have their share,
and the white threads of the grasses, and the cushion of moss;
a few drops, round as pearls, will enter the mole’s tunnel;
and soon so many small stones, buried for a thousand years,
will feel themselves being touched.
https://yearsrisingmaryoliver.blogspot.com/2010/07/lingering-in-happiness.html
Mary Oliver is always apropos.
Thank you Barb for this wonderful poem.
Thanks again,
dear Barb . . .
I have visited this blog and bookmarked it
to follow every day.
I feel doubly enriched today . . . ♥
I’ll think of us reading it together, Sparrow. That makes me smile. I’m happy to have introduced you to it.
I am sitting at the computer in our office/guest room/meditation room. Just looking in front of me I quickly found 3 things that bring me a sense of wonder:
1) A beautiful handmade poster that one of my husband’s CNAs made for him when he was in the hospital 18 years ago. I am bowled over when I think of the time and care she put into making this, and the effect it had on my husband. It seemed to me that the turning point of that hospital stay was when my husband was able to feel and transmute the energy of his anger at what was happening. The poster says (FYI my husband does not quite have an “oppressive illness”, but it still is a wonderful message) “In a profusion of ailing souls, rebellion comes hard. But for a man struck with an oppressive illness but whose FIGHT refuses to fade, it comes like FIRE. Final Summation: Decimate Apathy, RAGE ON”
2) A colored copy of the beautiful Revolutionary Love Compass created by Valarie Kaur is posted on the bulletin board behind our desk. I am filled with a sense of wonder at all the wisdom, study, painful and joyful life experience, intuition, and artistic ability that went into creating this compass.
3) A city calendar with a gorgeous photo taken by a local person of our valley with dark clouds in the sky and a lovely rainbow as well. I am filled with wonder at the skill that went into composing the photograph, the fact that something like photography exists where we can just point a camera or phone at something and get a picture, and at the beauty of nature captured in the photo.
The photograph of your valley sounds so dramatic and beautiful, Elizabeth.
Photography is amazing! Thanks for pointing that out!
Thank you, Mary ♥️
My husband has an ” oppressive illness”. I will share this with him. In his own way, he is not giving up.
♥️
The sun rising & engulfing the green rolling hills & farm fields with light & love.
A new flower, a pinky orange zinnia, in my flower pot garden. I am in awe of all the flowers in my garden.
The swallows flying above & in front of my terrace. They are singing their little hearts out & squawking away! They are enjoying the warm sunlight & this beautiful summer day.
Happy Monday All….🕊️🩷
Flowers are so wonderful, PKR. Such treasures!
1.) the books I’m reading, making me contemplate certain things.
2.) my family, praying that everyone is having a good day
3.) nature, watching the wind blow through the trees in my backyard
Always good to see you here, Jennifer!
I see my husband reading the paper, so relaxed.
I see my Siamese cat Coco, the picture of comfort,
sitting atop two cushions, thinking about who knows what.
I see my newest cat Calliope, on the back of the sofa, ears twitching,
as she scans the area outside the window, looking for anything that moves.
It’s the little things in life that make life so good.
Thank you for this question.
Coco and Calliope—great cat names.
😸😸
I feel like I’m in the living room with y’all, Mary! ♥️
♥️
The ornamental grass perfectly backlit, for just a moment, by morning sun. The moving cloud of pollinators on the lavender bush: three kinds of bees and two kinds of moths. That fact that it’s a new morning and I’m here.
Gotta love those pollinators Drea!
Yesterday on a walk I passed through the grounds of the state capitol. Big fat bumblebees were working over clumps of lavender; so beautiful and peaceful.
Ah, that sounds relaxing.
“The fact that it’s a new morning and I’m here. Yes!
The wisdom of a seed; the sacrifice of the first responders from all over our country who traveled to Texas and have been assisting with the flood clean up day after day; my son and daughter-in-law’s care of stray animals.
Your son and daughter-in-law are my kind of people!
😸 🐕 🥰
I’m enjoying the rays of sun coming through the trees onto our patio and yard.
Twin plants that are not twinning in health. We bought them off the clearance rack at Lowes last winter. They have had the same love and care, but one is thriving with lots of leaves and the other had one leaf recently but now looks like it’s dying.
My female dog, Reese, staring at me through the glass doors. Is she wondering when we’re going for a walk? Or is she just staring because she loves me so much? It’s probably the walk 🙂
Or maybe both the walk and she loves you!
But, yes, she is probably thinking about the walk you two will share!
Thank you for the chuckle SunnyPatti.
The dew on the mailbox.
The smoke filled sky.
The tree branches.
The smoke filled sky— is there a fire or is it just hazy?
Fires from Canada.
Hi friends, it has been a few weeks. My work load shifted and I lost my habit of being here. I’ve missed you all. Three things that bring wonder are: this space and how it brings gratitude and joy, my cats beautiful black and white belly fur, and my teen daughter who is emerging as a vocal talent to be reckoned with.
Welcome back 🙂
Welcome home Avril.
It’s good to see you back again,
dear Avril . . .
I’ve missed your posts. ♥
Thank you Sparrow
Welcome back! 💚
So good to hear from you, Avril! I was just thinking of you last night and wondering how you were doing ♥️
Thank you Elizabeth—it’s great to be back in community.
The morning dew as the day starts slowly and mysteriously. The ebb and flow of everything living thing in nature. The sun going up and going is down daily is a wonder. The moon and the starts reflect wonder. The garden and its growth.