Notes from the Woods – Page 2 – ~ A Joy Warrior's Journey

Magic for the Holidays

Holidays. Love ‘em, or hate ‘em, here they are!

Those of us in the States kicked off the big slide to year’s end this past Thursday with our annual Thanksgiving celebration. It unofficially marks the beginning of the winter holiday celebrations.

It’s a glorious, maddening time of year, with all its expectations and demands. It’s a roller coaster ride through a land of fantasy and faith, memory and anticipation. But since it’s seemingly unavoidable, regardless of where on the globe you live or what your traditions or culture, I think it’s wise to make up your mind ahead of time just how you’re going to play it.

Personally, I’ve decided I’m going to be grateful to be alive to see it yet again, with all its music and show and color, and to love every minute of it as hard as I possibly can.

I’m going to remember my mantra: How easy can I let this be?

And the power chant I learned a while back from the incomparable Joe Vitale: “I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you.”

But listen, since the spirit of Thanksgiving week still lingers, will you indulge me and let me ask you to think with me for a few minutes about gratitude?

I know a bit about it. For several years now, I’ve kept a Gratitude Journal. Every night, I write down three sentences that begin with the words, “I’m grateful . . .” and name something that brought me satisfaction or pleasure during the day.

I confess that sometimes I have to think for a while before I can name three things.

That’s not because my day lacked something for which I could feel appreciation. It’s because sometimes it’s hard to get to the place inside yourself where genuine gratitude lives. And, I’ve observed, it’s because, like everybody else—maybe even you—I take so very many things so much for granted.

That’s what keeps me keeping the journal. It invites me, once a day, to pause and consider all the things and people and experiences in my life that make it what it is, and to feel a reverence for them. I get to hold up all the shining moments of the day and choose three to note.

Really getting in touch with your sense of gratitude is a genuine celebration of your life, of the wonder of it, however humdrum it may sometimes seem.

When you let yourself sink into the warmth of gratitude, your heart opens. It lets go of the trapped hurts and disappointments and lets them fade away. When you see how the goodness outshines them, hurts seem to lose their sting.

Sometimes, I’ve noticed, when I allow myself to be awash in gratitude, I can even appreciate the times and the people who brought me disappointment, or irritation, or pain, and to see the gifts of insight and learning they carried with them.

But the main thing I wanted to say about gratitude is that it’s worth it to take the time to tune in to it. It’s worth the effort to calm yourself enough to feel its power and graciousness warming you from within the very center of your being.

We don’t do that enough. We’re too busy. Too stressed. Too distracted. Too tired. And I gotta tell you, that’s a damned shame.

Because you know what? Gratitude is so jam-packed with sheer, transformative, replenishing, healing, lifting, soothing power! You just owe it to yourself to let yourself sink into its arms.

That’s where I’m going to spend my holidays. Enveloped in the stuff, and loving life as hard as I can. I joyfully invite you to join me

Happy holidays, my friends, every day of the week.

Warmly,
Susan

^{Image by Dawn Rose from Pixabay}

Hunting Season, Opening Day

Fallen branches rise from the creek bed
like the sloughed off antlers of a deer,
the ancestor, perhaps, of one bedded down now,
deep in the woods, hiding from the hunters.
I wish him good cover and safety for the season.
The color of the fallen leaves that blanket the woods
matches his pelt I see. Nature provides.
I imagine him standing by these waters
at dawn, drinking his fill, then disappearing.
Let the hunters go home empty-handed.
It is a great gift just to roam these banks.
Let the creek’s peace be your prize for the day.

The Great Pause

Between the last notes of the overture
and the first movement of the next scene,
a quiet descends. The earth sighs
in contentment as she settles in to rest.
The ten thousand leaves have fallen.
Beneath the waters fish seek the depths.
The woodland’s creatures snuggle in their burrows.
Soon snow will come. You can catch its scent.
Everything waits.
What comes next is grandeur.

Let Us Give Thanks

For all the wondrous variety
that brings us such delight,
for the orange of things and the green,
for the moist and dry, the passing seasons,
for earth and air and sea and sky
and all the things to which they give life,
let us give thanks.

And let us give thanks for thankfulness itself,
and for hearts that can know its fullness.

Let us be open to joy and revelry,
to the touch of a kind word, a caring glance.
Let us sing the connections that bind us,
one to the next, to the next.

Let us celebrate the morning
and the bright dancing air.
Let us applaud the firing neurons
and the shooting stars.
Let us make merry for the day’s music
and the ears that collect its sound.

Oh, let us be glad and grateful
for the endlessly streaming wonders,
for the grand mystery of it all,
and for our being in the very midst of it.

Let us give thanks.

Before Snow

I wait for these, these sycamore leaves and oaks,
the last to fall, some of the sycamores larger than my face,
all of them larger than my palm, and so rich in color.
This is the quilt’s top layer, the topmost shield against the snow,
coming soon now, soon. But not today. Today is still mild,
and the burnished umber of the fallen sycamores and oaks
spreads itself beneath the tall trunks of the mighty ones
who bore them. I breathe their fragrance, their songs
rustling around my ankles as I walk.

Morning Fog

I like waking to November’s fog,
to the way it silently wraps itself
around the trunks of the bare trees,
the fallen ferns and leaves,
filtering the light, caressing
everything with its soft wings,
as it gently whispers,
“Wake, children; wake.

Her Winter Look

What do you think, love?
It’s my winter look. Personally,
I like the subtlety of it, the seeming
neutrality, with depth and yet
a sense of dance and humor.
Flamboyance is so yesterday.
This is me now. Bare bones.
Take another look, sweetheart.
Tell me what you think.

Watching the Fall

Twenty years from now, they say,
we won’t need cars. No one
will travel or need to, because
everything will be virtual.
I look at the oak leaves,
pondering the idea that I
may be among the last
of this round of humans
to experience actual nature.
And so I walk and gaze
with deepened reverence,
and more than a touch
of sorrow, watching
the fall.

The Presence of Geese

The geese are gone. They gathered
their young ones and off they went,
honking with joy, their strong wings
lifting them in their great V formations,
heading south. But this place
still bears the feel of their presence.
We leave our imprints on all that we touch.
And standing here on the pond’s edge
among the bleached reeds, I smile,
remembering spring’s fuzzy goslings,
marveling at the way they grew
into elegance in a few short months,
much like the swan in the fairy tale.
A crow calls from a tree across the water.
“Hear! Hear!” he says. “Yes,” I whisper to him,
“I do,” as the sound of geese honking
floats silently above the pond.

Overcoming My Inner Crabby Bear

“Okay,” said November, washing the gold from the trees, spilling it all over the road and the lawn, “Enough of that. Now, let’s get down to business.”

It’s as if she has a switch of some kind that she flicks half-way through her stay. We’ve had our spell of magnificence. Now comes the rain, and the dark, and the cold.

It makes me want to hibernate deep in my cave, and not come back out until the berries are ripe.

I want the long green of summer, and its warmth and light.

I growl to myself. It all went away far too soon.

But just as I was thinking that and feeling like quite a crabby bear, my eyes fell on an index card that’s pinned above my desk.

“How easy can I let this be?” it says.

And all at once, I remember.

I love those words: “How easy can I let this be?” The moment they wash into my awareness, a kind of gentle softness flows through me. I remember that I can let this be easy: the rain, the dark, the cold.

What did I think I had to steel myself against? Why did I think it had to be hard?

“Easy” is just a state of letting-things-be, and being with them. And all you have to do to get there is to let go of your preconceptions of how things “should” be, or of wanting them to be different than they are.

When things seem hard, it’s because we’re reacting to an old movie in our heads instead of responding to what is real right now.

Right now, it is raining, and when I let myself be at ease with that, I hear the sound of the raindrops softly striking against my window pane and see them shimmer as they slide down the studio’s antique glass. They look a bit like jewels against the sketch of wind-blown woods behind them.

It’s cold out tonight. But when I am at ease with that and step outside, my skin feels awake and alive, and a fresh alertness brightens my mind. And when I come back inside, the warmth of the house wraps around me and welcomes me.

Easy lets you pay attention and to ride the moment’s flow.

Even when the moment holds pain, or regret, or sorrow, if you can put aside your resistance to it and allow it to be what it is, and allow yourself to experience it fully, you will bear it with so much more depth and grace.

Easy lets you discover the moment’s meaning. It points you toward what you are doing or could do, right now, easily.

Easy is a kind of listening – as if you are hearing a new sound. It’s listening to what is around you, and to what is within – and that is always new, for the world and you are ever-changing and this moment never was before. Easy allows you to embrace it and opens you to its wholeness and wonder.

Try it. With a sense of curiosity, just ask yourself, “How easy can I let this be?” and notice what happens.

Wishing you delightful discoveries!

Warmly,
Susan