1. More lovely family time, this time with Jon’s family. I love the way that people care for my children. We are truly in a village.
2. Mary Oliver’s poetry
3. Musings. Amusement. The Muses. Bemused.
4. Finding a typo in the dictionary. Nerd, nerd, nerd–why does that feel so satisfying?
5. Jim Howell’s Lemon Sponge Pie.
Namaste.
1. A family that makes holiday get-togethers a total delight (Happy Birthday to my dad!)
2. Being Santa with Jon Weaver-Kreider
3. Hot chocolate with a candy cane and a splash of vodka
4. Annie Lamott’s reminder to take care of myself and not to waste my life wearing pants that are too tight
5. Circles. I think I have mentioned them before. But they mean so many things. So yes: circles.
Namaste
1. An internet Circle of Wise Women discussing Adrienne Rich, and finding my way back into her work.
2. French Toast. Comfort food.
3. I think I am getting into the spirit.
4. Long night coming. Time for sleep.
5. Circles.
Namaste.
1. That there are still a hundred shades of green even in the middle of December, and the way the Sun pointed at them for me this afternoon, elegant fingers slotting through the clouds. See this one here? And this?
2. How the chickens skip and bounce out to see me when I go out to the coop. I am under no illusions. I know it is because I am the Lunch Lady, but Lunch Lady Love is still good lovin’.
3. Arugula. Both the taste and the sound of the word. I always want to go honk an old-fashioned car horn. . .
4. More on the Sun, which shone a quick beam through the clouds as I was washing carrots this afternoon. Orange! Sweet, glistening orange gems.
5. Jon Weaver-Kreider, who worked all day, and then cooked dinner when I was too exhausted and wrapped up in kid-mediations to manage.
(I didn’t mention whoopie pies once).
Namaste.
Take heart.
Take mine, yours, any heart.
Take heart
and hold it tenderly
in the bowl of your hands,
in the warm breathing space
where your open palms
have held damp soil,
small creatures,
warm eggs fresh from the nest,
where you have cradled
the heads of tiny babies,
cupped water,
offered prayers.
Take heart.
Gratitude List:
1. Gentle reiki from Nicki
2. Charoite with yellow-green calcite inclusions
3. Learning to say No
4. (The other) Beth Weaver’s seductive chocolates
5. The Way Things Work book
Namaste
1. Those people up the road who tenderly removed the siding on the front of their house and just as tenderly restored the log cabin front.
2. Lisa White’s amazing whoopie pies. Just like the grandmothers used to make, and yet not so. . .
3. The way the light rays out of the barn through the boards into the fog.
4. Breathing. Breathe in suffering. Breathe out compassion. Breathe in gratitude. Breathe out love.
5. The light is coming back. It will return, it will return, it will return. (I am truly grateful for that, though I realize that this last smacks of desperation as much as it expresses gratitude).
Namaste!
1. People often really do become their best selves when we expect it of each other.
2. We get to choose who to be
3. The struggle is kind of the point
4. Whoopie Pies–I am drooling in anticipation of the ones I ordered for tomorrow
5. Resiliency
Namaste.
I wanted to try a more traditional form, so here’s a Rondel. Three stanzas (ABba, abBA, abbaA, where the CAPS are the refrain lines).
When I walked this morning up the hill into the sky
bits of quartzite threw back the laughter of the sun.
A flock of crows flew east to west, one by one.
I breathed the golden air as I watched them fly.
Across the sparkling arm of the sun, they passed me by.
I watched transfix’d. I watched until they’d gone.
Bits of quartzite threw back the laughter of the sun
when I walked this morning up the hill into the sky.
The sun, a million miles away, a single fixed point, and I
another. Draw the line between. See how it runs,
a purposeful and shining thread, artfully spun.
It drew me up and up, toward that golden eye
when I walked this morning up the hill into the sky.
And a Gratitude List:
1. The Pleiades
2. Bagel sandwiches
3. Whoopie pies
4. Pileated Woodpeckers, and the hope of the Ivory Bill
5. Walking the road together
Namaste
1. Libraries and librarians
2. The 2-sided coin of science and magic
3. Pickled radishes
4. That dream of hundreds of happy children eating around a table
5. Making it myself
Peace to all beings.
1. Coconut Flan and Coconut Macaroons in one dessert.
2. The Great Horned Owl who woke me up this morning.
3. Poetry as Revolution. Of the heart. Of the world.
4. Mist and fog, and the way they shift and change the landscape.
5. Rose quartz.
Namaste.
Mockingbird Chronicles 