Gratitude List:

1. Muses.  I like that word: muse.  A source of creative transformation incarnate in human form.  I feel transformative shifts happening within me, moving like the waters during thaw.  And some of the shift has come as the result of a dream in which someone inspired me with bold counsel and gentle caring.  I can’t quite describe it, but it’s like I was reaching for a deeper understanding of certain emotions and ideas in the waking world, and this dream visitor gave me images and language that I can bring with me into waking spaces in order to (hopefully) deepen and mature.  (This is not a person I can approach and say, “Thank you for inspiring me in the dream-realm.”  It could even be you, for all you know.)
2. It’s the year of the Fire Monkey.  I don’t know quite why I like that so much, but I do.  Fire monkey!
3. Playing Chutes and Ladders with the family
4. Sitting here at the table in the early morning with my morning buddy.  I’m making a gratitude list, and he is cutting pictures of animals out of magazines, and chanting, “Penguin, penguin, penguin. . .”
5. Yesterday morning, good storytelling, a sermon in song, powerful modeling of vulnerability, prophetic words.

May we walk in Beauty!