Stones today, for all the people and places I hold in my heart. Stones for the people of Haiti. For the Water Protectors. For ones standing for justice everywhere. For friends experiencing uncertainty, illness, and grief. For those who have fled their homes because of war and terror, and for those who want to flee but cannot. For those making new lives in new lands. 

I am having trouble coming up with a gratitude list today. My brain is tired, perhaps, or yesterday was a little too focused on just getting work done, and I didn’t really do my work of paying attention. Attention is the spiritual work that comes before gratitude. If I let myself stay inside my head for a day, then I don’t get into the body spaces that focus my attention.

Gratitude List:
1. Ironing. Ironing means order and tidiness. It’s meditative work, but work I almost never do. Some of my dresses really require ironing, which forces me to do this adult work once in a while. I’ll say ironing and mean: making order and meditating.
2. Rain and the promise of rain.
3. Robins outside the window, discussing the coming flight south, or the movement into the deeper woods.
4. Learning to pay attention.
5. Communities.

May we walk in Beauty!