This is going to sound weird. I am grateful for this horrid heat we are having across the West Coast and specifically Washington State. I live in Central Washington and yesterday it was about 114F. Never been that hot since I moved here 13 years ago. When I went out at sunset to get the mail I noticed the sunset was extraordinarily beautiful. Sunset is rarely that beautiful. Rather than feeling the oppressiveness of the heat, I was lifted up and was able to see the benefit of such heat, if such a thing is possible. At that moment I was profoundly grateful for the heat and that sunset, grateful to be alive to see the glory of it. This website really helps keep me grounded in seeing the benefits in my life in spite of how the world tries to drag us down. The glory is there if we just care to see it. Thank god for the sun. It keeps us going. We CAN resolve our environmental issues. Buckminster Fuller believed and I am coming to believe it too.

Feeling my wealth. I am rich beyond belief. Not by the standards of a society based on a belief that how much money you have determines our value, of course. But I am indeed wealthy. I have so much. I FEEL like I am as financially wealthy as the richest person in the world. I feel beautiful. When I quiet myself I feel calm and peaceful. I am learning to recognize states of feeling. Calm vs. frazzled. Each has a its own energy and I am learning to recognize when I am frazzled and to consciously calm myself. It takes practice. So feeling like the richest person in the world is rather strange. I must get used to it.

My past. My paralyzed older brother passed in April and I went for the memorial service. So there are no more opportunities for building a relationship with him after many years of separation. I last saw him in August/September 2018 when I went to see him because I knew I would likely never see him again. He had been paralyzed for 8 years already at that time. Paralyzed people generally don’t live very long. He outlived the prediction of 7 years by 3 years. I am so grateful I made that 2018 trip. I would have gone last summer but Covid prevented it. But I reunited with family I had not seen for 30 years (my eldest brother and a niece of the passed brother). It was an intense time. I have many picture to remember this last trip by. I did not know until the trip to the service how important each and every person in the world is. Time is precious and we are precious. But we don’t live that way. So I must hold his memory in my heart, added to all other pain, until I am priviledged to join the rest of my family who have passed. I must remember to have compassion on myself and everyone else.

My meditation practice is starting to grow results. The peace and calm that is generated by sitting quietly reflecting on the love of mother earth and the universe, is starting to bring about a state of calmness within me which is going with me throughout the day. In that way, each task that I engage in becomes opportunity for gratefulness. That then cements that attitude within my heart and is reflected, I hope, to others throughout the day. I don’t manifest love perfectly, but I would hope I am better than I was a year ago.

I was given a miracle. One of two in my life. My son with whom had been estranged from me for many years, called me out of the blue last Mother’s Day. We reunited though separated by the entire country. We had many more conversations from that point on till he went ahead with his decision to move to England in October to marry someone he had met online that lived over there. So, we parted on peaceful and loving terms. I may never see him again (the last time I saw him was 8 years ago) but the gift of peace between us was a miracle. He had been so angry for so long. Another miracle I was given was a way to heal from past hurts. An illness that proved to be a help. I am forever grateful for that. Even if I still feel the physical pain from the lingering effects of that miracle. So I guess I can say I have been given two miracles.

I live with daily pain. It is never ending. The only break my body gets from it is while sleeping. But in spite of it, I am aware of all the gifts in my life, this site is one of them. I found this site shortly after beginning my journey of gratefulness. I used to begin each day here before my new phone became personal and decided to block my access to posting on the site. I can only post when I am at a real public computer. But I am grateful anyway. What really helps me connect to what is important is being outside. Funny how nature presents so much opportunity for gratefulness but man’s world does not.

I am not sure how much more integrity I can have. Does that sound proud? Perhaps. But I consider myself a pretty good human being except for the negative thought patterns (I can get awfully nasty in my thoughts–though I don’t put voice to those thoughts–also can be self judgmental). My outer behavior always strives for love and decency towards others. So…I don’t know how I can show greater integrity. Perhaps that will be when I have learned to dwell more on positive loving thoughts toward the world.

A recent favorite memory is from two years ago or so. 2018 to be exact. I went on an extended trip, the first of my life. It included a visit with my brother and his wife in Colorado Springs. My brother is paralyzed from the neck down. Has a trach so he cannot use his voice without a special device. He can move his eyes and can speak in a whisper to his wife who translates for others. I spent 4 days with them. I had not seen them in around 25 years so it was a special visit. I treasure that memory because, now, as we share these memories, he is slowly dying. His body is finally failing. He has been paralyzed for ten years. His mind has been good all the way through though. My two other siblings are going to be there soon and I want to be there too but there are obstacles to that. It is very hard to wait for news of how far along things are with his passing. Anyway, that trip is a treasured memory.

I stopped trusting all government when I was homeless back in 2005-2008. I learned that our society is operated by systems that have no compassion for us as a people though those in leadership would have us believe otherwise. We are all human but those who consider themselves “elite” because of their elevated level in leadership or the amount of money they happen to have, definitely hide their humanity from those with less. And they live in fear that we will discover just how weak they really are behind closed doors. I am reading a book called The Soul of Money by Lynne Twist. She talks about a whole different kind of worldview that all people everywhere must adopt if we are to survive as a species. The calls it the ‘you and me together’ concept. There is no them and us. Only all of us together working to promote everyone together. If we are to save the earth, our precious, precious life giver, we must change our concept of how things work. By operating from the heart rather than from the concept of how much money we DON’T have. If we share from the store of wealth that we DO have, we can all have more. Anyway, the book is helping me.