Gratitude Sunday: Easter Greetings

Gratitude * Sunday
Sunday’s heartfelt tradition.
A time to slow down, to reflect, to be grateful.
A list of gratitudes, our gratefulness feeds one another.
Quoted from Taryn Wilson
Joining the Gratitude Sunday Tradition at Wooly Moss Roots.

Sunday Haiku
Chickens? Eggs! Spring brings
great abundance: gardens, lambs,
chicks, fresh food. Hard boiled.

Sunday Musings
Happy Easter! Wasn’t Christmas just yesterday?

To everything there is a season. It’s time for renewal, resurrection, rebirth. Because of our extremely mild winter – non-winter, one could say – you can see abundance everywhere you look here in Oregon’s Willamette Valley: lush green grasses; blossoms everywhere, many perennials blooming very early for the average season; deciduous trees dangling catkin earrings; flocks of geese flying north again; yard birds singing and building nests; squirrels frolicking through backyard trees; frogs croaking with joy in the April showers; luxurious 60 degree weather.

The grass is so thick it feels like velvet carpet under my feet, soft and slightly dew dampened. The air is so sweet I can barely distinguish between the wafting hyacinth and lilac. The rain is so soft I let it run down my neck and caress my bare arms.

Funny, I don’t consider myself old, but I feel myself aging. I pray every night I am granted another day and again in thanks when I awaken to another birdsong-filled morning. Is it too late to understand the inexorable progress the body makes or is it a new understanding as each aging day is experienced? Bodies are different, but how is it one body remains spry, able, and coherent, and another doesn’t? Perhaps understanding isn’t important, maybe just the experience is.

Some people are born mature, for me it’s been a growing process, and if I compare myself to others (a slippery slope) sometimes I think I’ll never achieve maturity. Or maybe their facade is better than mine. Maybe maturity is a myth and doesn’t matter as long as one is kind, caring, and compasionate.

Each day I am new. I am the total culmination of my past: my daily experiences, my connections with the earth and others, my nighttime dreams are all growth like a tree sending out more roots and shedding old leaves while producing fresh shoots every day of the year. I am the river who is never the same from one minute to the next, always flowing, growing, generating life and death, changing, never the same. I am resurrected daily.

Eggs are such a symbol of life and regeneration. When chickens begin to lay eggs in the spring it seems such a gift, fresh protein delivered in a tidy little package just at the time the food one put up last summer is running out. We don’t experience this so much any more with modern grocery stores unless you are fierce about producing your own or shopping only with local producers. Tending chickens and gardens brings us close to the earth and the seasonal connections that really give us life. Enjoy this picture of my niece’s (I call her my niece, as she is my sister-in-law’s niece, and though not blood related I love her just the same as if) recent abundance with her beloved chickens.

I love when people get creative with decorating hard boiled eggs. My mom encouraged us to try different techniques back in the day. I did the same with the son and still have a very old package of egg dye in the cupboard that I bought one year before I realized he was too old to care to participate. Though I did not make any of them, here are an assortment of creative endeavors with eggs for your eye candy enjoyment and inspiration.

Priorities change as you age. Seeking money may become less of a concern, and comfort more so. Strengthening connections with loved ones by whatever means becomes more important. Focusing on the day rather than the future may become easier, while letting go of the past still might not be so easy.

Take time throughout the day to be thankful for yourself and your life, take comfort knowing what you learn and do daily and yearly is important and counts. Your growth, production, creation, contribution to this planet is essential. Enjoy this Easter Sunday in whatever form that takes for you.

Color Watch – blooming attractions in my neighborhoods this week – brilliant yellow ruffled petals of the common dandelion; the beautiful downside of dandelions, their prolific seed heads; slugs are fascinating decomposers and I could not resist including this fat critter sunbathing on a dandelion; my favorite red rock still greened with mosses; lilacs; lilacs; oh, and did I say, lilacs?

Currently Reading – Cassandra (1984, fiction) by Christa Wolf; Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End (2014, aging and terminal care) by Atul Gawande; Humble Inquiry: The Gentle Art of Asking Instead of Telling (2013, psychology, communications) by Edgar H Schein; Mr Strangelove: A Biography of Peter Sellers (2002, biography) by Ed Sikov. Yes, concurrently.

This week I have been grateful for:

• The privilege and struggle of life on this earth. This life. Mine. Just as it is. Every odd or joyful moment of it.
• Ripe buttery sweet champagne mangoes.
• A group of Portland literary fiction writers who create literary work in their own images: Monica Drake, Chelsea Cain, Cheryl Strayed, Lidia Yuknavitch, Diana Abu-Jabar, Karen Karbo to name a few. There are many more, because Portland rolls like that.
• Fresh clean rural air and open doors.
• Pain free moments.
• Sleep, when I get it.
• Skin. What a marvelous organ.
• The privacy of my own home.
• Rare silence.
• The Easter Bunny who swims at my pool.
• Finding a carton of “organic” California strawberries that tasted as good as they smelled.
• Intellect and curiosity.
• Water.

Hoping you have a lovely week.

Namaste. Peace. Blessings.

Floral ribbon border by Laurel Burch

Bunny ribbon by Susan Branch