By contacting my students and families. By doing my best to be a good teacher. Calling Rod to find out how my cousin Geraldine is doing after her heart surgery in Scotland.
By watering my plants and weeding and trying my best to create beauty and harmony. By cleaning up in the kitchen, so that others won’t have to deal with my mess. By leaving the bathroom clean.

Am learning how to stay with my discomfort and upset, and not reacting in the heat of the moment.
At least, I’m practicing- not always successfully!

Art is essential to everyone’s life in one form or another. In the last few years, I take a lot of photos- to capture the beauty in the moment: whether trees, plants, houses, people canning, the cats resting.
How could we live without art? Cooking a meal with care is art; organizing, cleaning and making my bed is art.
Art is creating beauty and order, and being open to it around us.

Morning. My mind and body (usually) are calm and refreshed, and I feel the most peaceful. And it’s a new start.
Here in Pennsylvania, this past month, I climb the hill behind the house I’m staying in, and look out over all the trees and feel grateful for the trees, the green and the natural world.

My health and wellbeing. I can climb up a hill, as i did this morning, and walk easily and freely, enjoying where I am. Right now, with friends in the backwoods of hilly Pennsylvania. Enjoying hiking on the back roads and through the woods.

grateful

That I like walking up the hill out here in the middle of rural Pennsylvania, and seeing the forests across the valley, and sitting there listening to the birds. No cars, no hot cement sidewalks or roads. Just green trees, grass, birds, and a morning breeze.

How might I clarify what matters most?

by slowing down. By paying attention to what I experience and feel. By walking, and getting quiet. By talking to my friends who listen. By seeing the example of those who really did what mattered most to them.

Get up, and go work on something that needs to be done. Today it was plant my two pots of flowers, and water the plants.

Being outside and moving or walking.

Turns out that I spent the day with Judith. It was mutually satisfying. But my heart is already open to her.
Hmm…. Brief encounter with my housemate, Alan, this evening. Very short, but nice conversation about my trip to Vermont. I needed that. Maybe he did too.

by honoring older people I know: Donna, Suzanne, Harriotte.

By accepting that I do things slower now, and have to be careful when climbing downhill when hiking.

Having a good night’s sleep, always. Being listened to deeply. Stretching, doing yoga. Taking a walk in the woods. Reading a satisfying book. Lighting a candle while I eat, or meditate or write.

Wondered about that when I woke up to the sound of trucks, and the loud generator! Here, in the backwoods of Vermont…

Sense of peace, when I sat out on the porch in the deckchair, with my blanket on my legs–and looked at the latest photos of my two sweet great-nephews.

Just stretched for an hour. Working on internal silence.

And now, will work on the “garden in the woods.” with the trees and the hummingbirds..

To be a better friend to myself: talk kindly to myself. Take care of my body. Do things that delight me, and be with people who are delightful.

To others: don’t take crap from people. Be honest. Take a deep breath when I’m upset, and notice what I’m feeling.

😊

Wow

Thanks for sharing