Gratitude List:
1.  Feeling better.  Maybe sometimes it takes feeling sick for a day to remind me how good normal feels.  I can get whiny and fussy about how tired and achy I am these days, but a day of being sick makes the default me feel pretty energetic and happy.  Also, if you’re going to feel really sick, having a crazy storm blowing cool winds in the window is a nice environment to be sick in.
2.  Another new addition to the family.  I think Afil Hamster will be with us a little longer than the baby mouse was.
3.  Feeling the work take shape.  It’s like watching a small creature emerge from an egg.
4.  Is it the weather?  Is it simply the time of year?  I am feeling the transition beginning within me, in these weeks before I start school.  I was worried that I would come to August and feel cheated of my summer, or like it had gone so quickly that I didn’t have time to get it all together.  But the internal transition is happening.  I feel ready, and I am grateful for that.
5.  Hope.  I know I have written about this before.  I know and appreciate Pema Chodron’s definition.  Maybe I am actually identifying something else when I write of hope–but there’s a kernel of something in there that makes me strive, makes me move beyond simple resignation toward something better.  Even in my prayer and meditative life, I feel like a ray of hope renews the energy for that internal work.

May we walk in Beauty!