• clouds,  leaves,  natural areas,  nature,  quotes

    The Strength of a Touch

    The healing of our present woundedness may lie in recognizing and reclaiming the capacity we all have to heal each other, the enormous power in the simplest of human relationships: the strength of a touch, a blessing of forgiveness, the grace of someone else taking you just as you are and finding in you an unsuspected goodness.

    Rachel Naomi Remen, Kitchen Table Wisdom

    I sit on a rock bench looking out across Big Bass Pond at Arapaho Bend Natural Area. It’s about 1:57 pm. I feel the warmth of the 77 degree temperature but accepting the grace of relief provided by the cloudy skies. I notice the small world of life all around me that I so often overlook. Bees, butterflies, and beetles feasting on the nectar of the rabbitbrush. Ants, spiders, grasshoppers and unnamable bugs scurry or jump around me. Cottonwood leaves become intricate works of art as the autumn equinox arrives. And the cattails showing the golden tips of their swords. I am grateful to slow down and experience the healing given by being present to this world. It is a gift that has much to teach me. Now a rumble of thunder gives notice for me to move on. By the time I reach the car, raindrops have begun to fall. (Entry from my journal.) So here are three images from the afternoon.

    This morning a steady, gentle rain falls. It began just after I got up, around 4:30 am. My weather app predicts it will continue until mid afternoon. I have my front door open so I can hear and take in the fragrance of this refreshing rain. It’s a good day to journal, read and work on this blogs transformation. Thanks for being here and have a great day!

  • clouds,  landscape,  natural areas,  quotes

    Afternoon Prayers

    How good it is to pray to God and meditate in the meadows amidst the grass and the trees. When one goes out to the meadows to pray, every blade of grass, every plant and flower enter into his prayers and help him, putting strength and force into his words.

    Rabbi Nachman of Breslav

    I drove to Reservoir Ridge Natural Area yesterday afternoon to journal but that’s not what happened. Instead I watched and listened. The the air was full of birds and their songs of prayer. And, the grass in the meadow was making music and praying with the wind. I never touched the journal but watched and listened to the concert of songs and whispers of prayers for about 45 minutes. It had to be afternoon prayers.

    And today is my youngest sisters 70th birthday. Happy Birthday, Sheree!

  • coffee life,  latte art,  quotes

    The beginning of love…

    The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to fit our own image. If in loving them we do not love what they are, but only their potential likeness to ourselves, then we do not love them: we only love the reflection of ourselves we find in them.

    Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island
  • coffee life,  latte art,  quotes,  silence

    Ordinary Life Experiences

    Latte art (rosetta) by Dean

    The most ordinary life experiences become transcendent when you offer them your reverent silence, your mischievous laughter, your sacred rage.

    Mirabai Starr

    Another frigid morning below zero, where my car groaned when I turned the ignition. Almost like it was saying, “Do you really want to do this?” Clear blue skies and sunshine now bring some warmth. My morning included quiet time, a breakfast scramble, then a trip to the coffee shop filled with wonderful conversations and a mocha. I did not journal until after I came home and began laundry. Some may consider my life dull, boring, ordinary but for me there is nothing ordinary about this life I live. My life is full as long as I stay present, my eyes open! I must admit I live the good life! I see that everyone is dealing with this cold weather so I hope you are staying warm.

  • fountain pens,  journal,  quotes

    My journaling…

    Dark Chocolate Petit Beurre Biscuits and chocolate milk

    “As the pen rises from the page between words, so the walker’s feet rise and fall between paces, and as the deer continues to run as it bounds from the earth and the dolphin continues to swim even as it leaps again and again from the sea, so writing and wayfaring are continuous activities, a running stitch, a persistence of the same seam or stream.”

    Robert Macfarlane, The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot

    Nothing like a couple of Dark Chocolate Petit Beurre Biscuits and a small glass of chocolate milk to add to my journaling experience. My journaling has been a continuous practice in my life, a journey, a path I enjoy walking, one word, one step at a time.

  • fog,  frost,  landscape,  winter scenes

    A Wintery Scene

    It was 13 degrees when I left the condo at about 6:47 am. No wind. No bicycle! It was cold enough I could blow off the dusting of snow covering my car. I could feel the peaceful stillness and quiet on this winter morning. I moved on to my coffee life at Mugs where my barista, Dean, made me an extra hot Old Town Mocha. It hit the spot. The coffee shop was rather quiet because of the cold morning. Only a few brave souls would be out on a morning like this. I was able to chat with a two of the brave souls, Jeff and Chris, then had some journaling time. My POD (Pen of the Day) is a Pilot Custom 823 with Yama-guri ink. It is a good combo to find words on blank pages.

    As I left the coffee shop the sun was beginning to break through the clouds, offering blue skies and sunshine on the frost covered trees of the foothills. So I drove home along Horsetooth Reservoir. Nature offered its wintery gifts of low lying clouds, mist rising and floating across the open water, frost covered trees and a touch of blue sky over the foothills. And more quiet! Back home I started laundry and will have a bowl of chili soup later today. May you have a wonderful Sunday! Stay warm!

  • coffee life,  journal,  quotes,  writing/reading

    Living Their Own Lives

    I imagine my books to be my children, each with its own profile and way of walking through the world… It helps me remember that though they are made by me, they are not ultimately mine. They leave home, travel, have their own relationships, and leave their own impressions. I’ve learned it’s best to, as much as possible, stay out of the way and let them live their own lives.

    Ta-Nehisi Coates

    With all the turmoil in our country, and in the world, I have found it vital to spend time in the pages of my journals and on this blog. The words I write, as well as the books and blogs I read, are important to me and life sustaining. It may be one word or sentence that lifts me in a time of sadness, or brings some clarity to my confusion or the words someone else shares can express what I have been trying to say but couldn’t. How some of these books and blogs find their way into my life is a comfortable mystery. It’s not that I go looking for them but I try to be present so when they do show up in my life I can be nurtured by them. I like the metaphor that Coates suggests books are the authors’ children sent into the world to spend time with us in some impactful way. In that context I hope my words, whether written in my journals or on this blog, have some positive impact in this world, and living their own lives.

  • landscape,  natural areas,  poems,  snow

    Miracles Everywhere

    Snow covered foothills at Reservoir Ridge Natural Area

    I was sad
    Mad
    Big things going wrong
    Big
    Asked for a miracle
    Nope
    Screamed for it
    Nope
    Then looked around
    Miracles everywhere
    Just not the one I so badly wanted

    Joyce Wilson-Sanford, I Pray Anyway

    It has been overcast and cold all day. The snow stopped around mid-morning. I made a drive to Reservoir Ridge Natural Area this morning knowing it was closed due to wet conditions but hoping to get a photo of the snow sitting atop the foothills from the gate. What a miracle it is to be alive and live in this beautiful world. In my quiet this morning I took a book down from my shelf called I Pray Anyway and thumbed through a few of her poems until I came across this one. Sometimes a poet will just say what I need to read. Her poem speaks to me because so many miracles that didn’t/don’t/won’t happen the way I want them to. She reminds me to look around at all the other miracles in my life and let go of what I think outcomes need to be. And then I can make a gratitude list of miracles everywhere in my life!!