“There is a thread you follow, it goes among things that change…”

I am not looking at my worn and aging windows, nor my piles of things undone, taxes, household follow up, all the things that really need my attention ~  instead I am just going to wander around on this page ~ with Pandora’s Autumn Jazz station playing To You by the Gene Harris Quartet. As I listen I am filled with a rare-for-me feeling; a smiling, sighing contentment.  I am looking at some exposed wood, worn chipped paint as the music and my gaze transport me to my Brooklyn New York heart.  O, the deep wholeness that resides beneath that borough.  With her chainlink fences, and fire escapes alongside the brownstone stoops and walkups, dotted with flowers in pots on steps with trash cans just below, or in winter as this picture suggests covered in a blanket of snow..  

How/why do I find such beauty in this?   Brooklyn was love at first sight.  I do not know how or why, but it is so.  So much soul.  I feel the aliveness, the grit alongside the delicate roses or soft snow.  The William Vale Hotel rises above the humble brownstones and walk ups with siding, and under it all, holding it all is the hum of creative energy.  The timeless housing the fleeting.  Those buildings that came before me and  will out last me.  Probably my offspring and theirs too and so on it goes.

This borough has seen some things.  She has a chance, although just a chance of surviving late stage capitalism with its tendency to knock down memories and markers of who we were, and what has happened as if it matters not.  All that matters to this young energy is NEW and MORE NEW.  In its adolescent drive it would leave itself nothing to remember this moment.  It doesn’t yet know how much that will matter; those markers that remind us of who, where or what we have been.  

Why do I think this matters?  Why is this worth your precious and scarce time to read?

There’s a thread you follow. It goes among

things that change. But it doesn’t change.

People wonder about what you are pursuing.

You have to explain about the thread.

But it is hard for others to see.

While you hold it you can’t get lost.

Tragedies happen; people get hurt

or die; and you suffer and get old.

Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.

You don’t ever let go of the thread. 

William Stafford

For me, part of the thread our poet refers to, are the images that pop to mind from my (then unmarried) daughter Kate’s apartment on 130 Nassau Avenue in the Greenpoint area of Brooklyn.  Her law school student brother/my son Zac visiting from Boston.  And me, a newly minted fan of medicare, with more money to spend now that I am not paying for health insurance at $1500 a month!  What better place to spend it than in Brooklyn with its eateries and shops.  Always new ones to explore alongside old favorites. For a week at a time I got to pretend I lived there.  Kate’s dry cleaner would greet me when I dropped or picked up laundry.  And once he even stopped my friend, because he didn’t recognize her as she was following me a few steps after we had just picked up Kate’s cleaning.  “Excuse me, Miss, that doesn’t belong to you.”  I had to rescue her from his accusation of dry cleaning theft!  My mother’s heart so reassured that even Kate’s dry cleaner had her back.

Fast forward to the present, when the uber drives by 130 Nassau Ave that thread of memory awakens and I once again belong to that time and those experiences.  I re-appear to myself.   I feel coherent.  That thread is as visible as a rope or a large chain in that moment and I feel sturdy and whole.   She lived here. She met, and fell in love and married here. I visited and was a part time Brooklynite here.

I know in my bones that this matters.   It has always mattered but in times of intense change when the center itself does not appear to be holding, it might matter most.   AND I want to be very clear,  what I am referring to is quite different than going back in time.  Some in my country want to return to a time when “yes, life was simpler” but it was repressive to many people, especially to all women.  No, I am not nostalgic to return even 8 years ago to that part of my life nor to the 1950’s when I was born, or anything in between.  I am now and will forever be on the side of evolution, progress not regression.  I care to preserve memories because they render our lives  a kind of coherent integrity not as a return to some better time.

Interestingly, my love is not of Manhattan but rather Brooklyn.  Why? It’s aliveness and soulfulness allows its past, present and future to exist simultaneously.  You might argue that is true of Manhattan but Manhattan is not the most diverse place in the world.  Brooklyn is.  And that diversity includes class differences, which is what Manhattan often misses, because while different classes work there you need to have a fair amount of money to live and eat there.   My Borough, Brooklyn also has widely different religions, nationalities, cultures and histories living alongside each other and both resisting and learning from each other.   There are shops in Williamsburg and Greenpoint still owned by Polish families that have been there for over a century.  It is this odd combination, that is both neighborhood,  (at an intimate and accessible scale) alongside high-rises  and a variety of commerce, that speaks so deeply to me.  

EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE BELONGS!  Everyone certainly doesn’t agree, some barely tolerate others but there is this sense of belonging to this place that is large enough for everyone and contributes to Brooklyn’s current level of creativity in so many domains.  This to me is the true meaning of diversity and I for one adore it.  It makes me feel safe.  Even this now north-of-70 year old woman belongs in these younger, hipper areas like Williamsburg.  Each of us paying attention to our own thread and assuming the others are doing the same.  Both a bit indifferent but also immediately available in case of emergencies. 

Oddly, I have lived in North Oak Cliff, in Dallas Texas just 3 miles from Downtown Dallas for 40 years.  I have watched my neighborhood become hip and cool.  It is Dallas’s Williamsburg. Yet, even though I know far more people when I am in its trendy Bishop Arts commercial area, I don’t really feel the same sense of belonging as an older person with white hair.   It is truly okay, I always wished for this to happen so I am not complaining but noting there must be something in Brooklyn that is NOT TRYING to become anything or be like anywhere else.  Maybe it is Brooklyn’s age. It is true as people age we become less interested in “TRYING” and more interested in just  “BEING.”  Maybe my neighborhood is in its adolescent or young adult phase and it too will evolve into the best kind of hospitality? The kind that barely notices you, because everyone is both stranger and neighbor.

I would it were not so but so it is, who ever made music of a mild day.

The title of this post is the last line from a poem by Mary Oliver entitled A Dream of Trees.

There is a thing in me that dreamed of trees,

A quiet house, some green and modest acres

A little way from every troubling town,

A little way from factories, schools, laments.

I would have time, I thought, and time to spare,

With only streams and birds for company,

To build out of my life a few wild stanzas.

And then it came to me, that so was death,

A little way away from everywhere.

There is a thing in me still dreams of trees.

But let it go.  Homesick for moderation,

Half the world’s artists shrink or fall away.

If any find solution, let him tell it.

Meanwhile I bend my heart toward lamentation

Where, as the times implore our true involvement,

The blades of every crisis point the way.

I would it were not so, but so it is,

Who ever made music of a mild day?

As I entered the third act in a long life, my long life, I imagined this act to be filled with writing and reading, my meaningful work of helping people come to deeply value, trust and love themselves. I did not hunger for leisure or even travel. Rather I preferred learning and continuing to offer impactful support as my clients came to make choices that enlarged their lives and enriched others. In this dream I never questioned the stability of my country. I presumed I would navigate this chapter from a place of grounded steadiness. And like the poem’s author, I would be “a little way away from every troubling town,” and at least apart from laments.

Of course these were the dreams of a younger Nancy. One who lived in a much less divided country. A Nancy who would not need to find time in her days, for letters to elected officials, imploring them to not confirm her President’s appointees that came from backgrounds disdainful and/or without experience in the departments they were responsible for overseeing. Nor did she expect to be protesting an unelected, unconfirmed Billionaire manager of a department that did not previously exist and has not yet been approved by the US Congress. Yet, it is reeking havoc on the US Treasury Department systems and many others.

Dear reader you may not share my political point of view. You might be in favor of the things I am protesting. But I bet you too have had an experience where your “dream of trees” had to suddenly accommodate a reality not of your choosing. So please bear with me while bringing your unique experience to mind. Our poet goes on to say

“... but then it came to me that so too was death a little way away from everywhere.” This pivot in the poem is critical for each of us in our lives, when we find ourselves in a reality not of our choosing. And one that some of us, myself for instance, struggle mightily to achieve. Mary Oliver follows it shortly after with “… there is a thing in me still dreams of trees. But let it go.” It am finding it hard to accept this new reality I find myself in. I want to shout. “This is not what I wanted.” Some of you reading this are possibly much better at letting go than I am. But none of us love being surprised, at least not initially. This is a strong part of our human nature. We long for permanence, consistency, and predictability. And for our hoped for, dreamed of outcomes. AND we are now into the third decade of the 21st century which is marked strongly by constant upheaval. Steady, relentless change. Instead , of the permanence, consistency and predictability most of us desire.

Our poet tells us “homesick for moderation half the world’s artists fall away” I too, am so homesick for moderation. This small post I am writing is my attempt to follow the poet’s lead and

“bend my heart toward lamentation.

Where, as the times implore my trust involvement,

and the blades of every crisis point the way.”

And this of course means I must transcend how I see these crises. Instead of seeing them as events taking away the future dreamed of, how can I see them as an invitation to a future with more aliveness and meaning than I had envisioned? Did I underestimate my own capacities? Do I not trust my ability to discern where, when and how to engage the issues of our day? Is it possible that there might be some part of me that longs for this more intense engagement? The poem ends with

“I would it were not so, but so it is,

whoever made music of a mild day.”

reminding me/us, yet again that the storms of our lives are what bring our essence more fully to the surface. Maybe you too are confronted with a storm in some aspect of your life. if so, where or how might you be underestimating your capacities? Is there somewhere you too, aren’t trusting yourself to discern where, when and how to meet the particular storm presenting itself now to you?

If so, we might begin by facing the reality that storms, like babies, do not come with instruction manuals. We must find our way step by step. How? By trusting that inner counselor, that deep intuitive wisdom within us. Remember “getting warmer, getting cooler” from our childhood games of hide and seek? S/he is still within each of us and speaks to us through our energy (or lack thereof), our dreams, our intuition, which we can access through non-dominant handwriting. The later is one of my favorite things to teach people so that they can indeed connect with what TED Talk retired bank executive Bill Donius calls our brain’s hidden app. That hidden app turns out to be our very own astonishing inner counselor.

I will close this post by saying as a 70+-year-old woman when I look back at every crisis in my life, every time my life didn’t show up as I dreamed and hoped it would, it ushered in a new level of becoming, of enlarged capacity and vitality. And while there are some I hope to not repeat, it is equally true they all their unique way served my growth and becoming. Onward!

“Walk on air against your better judgment”*

This piece was penned on Sunday December 22nd, the day I thought was Winter Solstice but it wasn’t. That has been a bit of a theme for me this past year; things I thought were or would be, never materialized. I should not be surprised, yet I almost always am. Sometimes stunned or even shocked. The Rumi poem below, found me in the 1990’s, yet I keep forgetting its wisdom:

Who makes these changes?

Who makes these changes?
I shoot an arrow right.
It lands left.
I ride after a deer and find myself
Chased by a hog.
I plot to get what I want
And end up in prison.
I dig pits to trap others
And fall in.

I should be suspicious
Of what I want.

What Rumi doesn’t address in this poem is exactly who is the “I” here. The Plotter, Shooter, Digger etc? I believe that “I” is centered in our strategic powers (the commander of that separate sense of self), we adults possess, though we did not at birth. Our controller/planner-in-chief is Rumi’s “I”. BUT is that “I” really all of us? Is this all we truly are?

I spent a week with my sister. Her youngest grandson spent the day with us on New Year’s Eve. It is unmistakable that there is a clear and a singular intelligence in this 10 month old. This is who I believe we each are, a singular intelligence.. This is who will influence everything throughout our entire lives either with our awareness and support or without it. "The Our awareness” in that last sentence is that “I”, that as adults we typically over-identify with. It is the evaluator of all we do, it is the voice that seems to weigh in on all things with likes and dislikes, acceptance/rejection, permission or fears. And this is NOT that intelligence I see in my sister’s sweet 10 month old grandson. That singular intelligence is our “experiencer-in-chief” and possesses a remarkable intelligence of its own.

The title of this essay “walk on air against your better judgment” is a line from the Seamus Heaney poem Gravel Walks. It came to my attention reading an essay in the Atlantic by Caitlin Flanagan about her family’s relationship with him, this famous Irish Pulitzer Prize winning poet. That line took hold of me and has not let me go and so I have taken to my pen to wrestle it.

On Solstice Eve (the real one) at our annual dinner party with beloved friends the question was posed: “So how are you thinking about the next four years, the President elect’s return to office and power? “ My first thought came as always from my “I”, who is also my protector-in-chief. It whispered, remember he said “I am your retribution” on the campaign trail. The next morning however, reading Caitlin Flanagan’s essay, Seamus Heaney, My father & Me I found the famous poet’s counterpoint to my fear and anxiety. Seamus wrote:

So hope for a great sea-change 

on the far side of revenge.

Believe that further shore

Is reachable from here.

Believe in miracles

and cures and healing wells. 

It takes me aback. “So, walk on air against your better judgement” Oh I long to believe in the great sea-change on the other side of revenge and that this further shore is indeed reachable from where I am today. But to believe in this I must also walk on air against my better judgment. Which from all accounts the famous poet did throughout his life. Yet, my “I” cautions. It suggests that If I hope, I will be deeply disappointed if a 2nd term for the President elect is as bad or worse than the first. These lines found me because I knew I had not offered much of a response to the query from our Solstice Celebration, because of course I was of two minds. One anxious and fearful and one as hopeful and curious as that 10 month old.

By now, you may have guessed that I voted for Kamala Harris and if you know me personally you also know that revenge and retribution, those all too human impulses are unthinkable for me, (I credit 12 years of Catholic school for this.) As a small school girl I believed revenge was an offense against a loving God, the supreme unconditionally loving Being. I couldn’t square that God with one who mets out punishment and retribution. I sensed even then that to close one’s heart to someone else’s struggles and suffering was a kind of violence to one’s self. Our souls I was taught and still believe, dwell in the eternal, or to quote the Mystic poet Rumi again, “in the field out beyond wrong doing and right doing.” This is the field my experiencer-in-chief and that 10 month old sweet boy reside. Your experiencer-in-chief does too. That part of us is focused on this moment, and totally present to our experience. That other part the “I” is focused on safety and protection so the threat of retribution and revenge, are especially frightening to it. Especially if it has been shame, belittlement or trauma.

It would seem I have stumbled across my answer to my friend’s query from solstice eve: I will continue to “hope for the great sea-change on the far side of revenge. And to believe that further shore is reachable from here.”

I won’t however, attach a time line. I will “Walk on air against my better judgment.” Which for me entails the death of my dream of a President Kamala Harris. This to me is what walking on air requires ~ it of course is an extraordinary act of faith and humility. Humility in that I must surrender the idea that I know what is best, and faith in that further shore, where miracles, cures and healing wells reside.

Caitlin Flanagan whose recent article, Seamus Heaney, My father & Me brought Heaney’s stunning words to me, says in her essay “We can’t escape losing the people we love and need most. Each death has to be countenanced as a fact, squared away in the record books.” Yes, the death of the dream of saying Madame President is fact. A man whose heart I fear, will assume our country’s highest office in less than a month. But Cailtin goes on ..”But there are people so well known to us, so loved, (for me, my country) that death is one more thing that can be turned to air.

I remember beginning a conversation with my beloved father days after his death (over 20 years ago). Occasionally I still turn to him, and the thoughts and feelings that spring immediately following my queries of him do offer proof that our deep and abiding loves, once the ground of our being shape shift to the air beneath our wings. What happens if I refuse to give to give up hope? What happens if instead I choose to walk on air against my better judgment?

I notice as I pen these words something in my heart pops its head up, it feels like curiosity? Or Wonder? How will I do this? What might emerge? This wonder is filled with innocence, with truly knowing that there may yet be a happy enmding, a more perfect union for the United States, maybe not in the next 4 years, my judgment cautions, but I am walking on the air of “no-one, maybe least of all this next President knows what will come to meet him.” We are all playing a part in the unfolding of the play that is our country’s evolution, its story. The planner-in-chief part of me, that “I” is the one that makes predictions about things not yet here, but the experiencer-in-chief part of me, might be able to stay in the present (like the Lost Horse, Chinese folk tale below).

The ancient Chinese story of The Lost Horse:

A man who lived on the northern frontier of China was skilled in interpreting events. One day, for no reason, his horse ran away to the nomads across the border. Everyone tried to console him, but his father said, "What makes you so sure this isn't a blessing?" Some months later his horse returned, bringing a splendid nomad stallion. Everyone congratulated him, but his father said, "What makes you so sure this isn't a disaster?" Their household was richer by a fine horse, which his son loved to ride. One day he fell and broke his hip. Everyone tried to console him, but his father said, "What makes you so sure this isn't a blessing?"

 A year later the nomads came in force across the border, and every able-bodied man took his bow and went into battle. The Chinese frontiersmen lost nine of every ten men. Only because the son was lame did the father and son survive to take care of each other. Truly, blessing turns to disaster, and disaster to blessing: the changes have no end, nor can the mystery be fathomed.

The Lost Horse, Chinese Folktale.

As told by Ellen J. Langer, in" The Power of Mindful Learning," Reading, Mass: Addison-Wesley, page 99-100. (1997).

For me “walking on air” is acknowledging for each action this next administration takes I can only know the result in this moment. I cannot know for certain the long term impacts, nor can the incoming administration. This is quite a discipline for me to engage. As the lovely ideator that I am, I am often ahead of “now” and these next four years and hopefully well beyond I can apprentice myself to the practice of choosing a response to the events coming toward me that is grounded in a hope for a great sea-change. I can believe in that further shore.

*Seamus Heaney from the poem Gravel Walks

I

“No One Told Me”

“No One Told Me”

I can’t count how many times in my life I have thought this…

“NO ONE TOLD ME.” I thought, following the separation that resulted from a decade inside a failing marriage.

“NO ONE TOLD ME.” I thought driving home to Dallas from Los Angeles, after dropping my first-born baby girl at college.  

And yet again, 4 years later:  “NO ONE TOLD ME.” I cried entering my empty home after taking my last child, my son, to college.  

“NO ONE TOLD ME.” I said angrily while driving home in 2014 upon receiving a diagnosis of PMR (Polymyalgia Rheumatica).

“NO ONE TOLD ME.” I reflect today as I recognize that our country is engaged in a kind of political divisiveness and violence that lead to the storming of the capital on January 6th, 2020 and to an assassin’s bullet nearly killing former President Trump at an outdoor rally on July 13th, 2024.

NO ONE TOLD ME…

That this life would increasingly stun and humble me again!  And yet, again! Must I constantly surrender the idea that through my actions/choices today, I can safely insure the future I want tomorrow?  Must uncertainty forever reign supreme?

Was this the point all along?  

I find this both cruel AND merciful.  Maybe akin to transition labor in the birth process.  Is there no other way for us to learn?  Surely there must be, because this feels needlessly harsh.  

But is it? 

If I compare my disclosures that began this post to birthing a child, they too have all the signs of a new life.  Indeed, each of those events “schooled my intelligence to make it a soul” (John Keats). Each was a disruption of an old order, and an announcement of a new one coming into being.  Let’s hear from a young David Whyte, probably around 35 years old, when he penned the poem, NO ONE TOLD ME.  I suspect he too was on the cusp of a new epoch in his life. There must have been some annunciation which called an end to his former life or his former understanding of how to navigate his life. 

NO ONE TOLD ME by David Whyte

No one told me
it would lead to this.
No one said
there would be secrets
I would not want to know.

No one told me about seeing,
seeing brought me
loss and a darkness I could not hold.

No one told me about writing
or speaking.
Speaking and writing poetry
I unsheathed the sharp edge
of experience that led me here.

No one told me
it could not be put away.
I was told once, only,
in a whisper,
“The blade is so sharp—
It cuts things together
—not apart.”

This is no comfort.
My future is full of blood,
from being blindfold,
hands outstretched,
feeling a way along its firm edge.

And after reading President Joseph R. Biden’s July 8, 2024 letter to Democrats, the stanza immediately above grabbed my attention. It did again, after learning the assassination attempt on former President Trump. And yet again, with the 7.21.24 announcement that President Biden would not run for re-election.

I was told once, only,
in a whisper,
“The blade is so sharp—
It cuts things together
—not apart.”

Is the poem pointing me toward some kind of guidance for my troubled heart and soul in that next stanza? “My country ‘tis of thee” will you remain a land of liberty, for all?  With even the Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney Republicans concerned by our nation’s current attraction to autocracy. These knife blades of sudden change are indeed sharp. The ever present risk of political violence seems to live just under the surface of our daily round. As well as climate catastrophes of wild weather patterns and storms as well as the worldwide political upheavals and violence. As this swirls around me now, I find myself where the poet left the poem:

“This is no comfort.
My future is full of blood,
from being blindfold,
hands outstretched,
feeling a way along its firm edge.”

But here too,  is there also a kind of guidance? 

My future full of blood, (the ugliness of fear mongering, the potential of political assassinations, rumored threats with language like “revolution” and “civil war,” potentially the worst hurricane season underway as the war in Ukraine and in Gaza continue on without apparent end in sight) from being blindfold (unable to see the future) hands outstretched feeling a way along its firm edge.  That last phrase…hands outstretched… implies both a kind of agency, (I make the choice to reach out) and a kind of need.  What a paradox!  I am both in need of visible and invisible help and while possessing agency within me to move, albeit carefully along some firm edge. 

What is that firm edge? 

My abiding trust and faith in becoming.  Mine and my country’s.  Like all those other “NO ONE TOLD ME” moments in my life, I will again move along the firm edge of my true values, my soul’s code, knowing that there will be new life ahead, together, even if I cannot see how it will come to be.

“Do you not see how necessary a World of Pains and troubles is to school an Intelligence and make it a soul?”

John Keats

To which I respond, “I do John Keats, and your words become my firm edge as I find my way.”

Let Joy Chose You…

I needed this poem, when my wise friend Amanda sent it to me on December 11th.  I would need it more each day after.  

Joy Chose You

Donna Ashworth from her book Wild Hope: Healing Words to Find Light on Dark Days

Joy does not arrive with a  fan fair

on a red carpet strewn

with flowers of a perfect life

joy sneaks in

as you pour a cup of coffee

watching the sun

hit your favorite tree

just right

and you usher joy away

because you are not ready for her

your house is not as it should be

for such a distinguished guest

but joy, you see

cares nothing for your messy home

or your bank balance

or your waistline

joy is supposed to slither through

the cracks of your imperfect life

that’s how joy works

you cannot truly invite her

you can only be ready

when she appears

and hug her with meaning

because in this very moment

joy chose you.

I had spent the last few weeks busily “preparing” for this joy-filled season yet somehow missed Joy trying to wriggle in.  The road blocks were the usual suspects,  things conceived with joy and her cousin delight in mind, but taken over by the spirit of perfectionism and its cousin duty.  Decorating my home and running errands for my favorite holiday tradition, a solstice dinner party with dear friends,  preparing for the perfect holiday road trip to Santa Fe -  where we pack all the right things to snack and enjoy,  year-end work with clients, gifts to family, clients, and friends near and far, and various holiday get-togethers and events.

You probably won’t be surprised to learn that by the time our guests arrived on Solstice night my brain was so full that joy struggled mightily to inch her way into my awareness.

It turns out, I am a limited human being and not a constantly executing machine.  A limited AND aging human, thus even more limited. I come from German, Polish and French ancestors. With that DNA comes a stubborn quality that kept me doubling down on willfully resisting these limitations.  As a result, I ushered Joy away often this month. I didn’t have time to sit and receive her, because I needed to prepare for her!  

AND YES,  I can see exactly how crazy this sounds putting it on paper, but at the time, it seemed so rational.  I ran around, bought, decorated, and prepared for JOY! And in doing so, I missed her tiptoeing in. Only in reading this poem and writing this post (after all the planning and preparation) is it obvious to me that Joy lives in making contact with the present.  She resides in the ordinary and mundane.  And like the poet claims when she says,  ”I cannot truly invite her (Joy) in, I can only be ready for her when she appears and hug her close because in this very moment, Joy chose me.”  My job was to be ready, NOT perfect with an empty To Do list.   Only with an internal stillness and some awareness beyond that endless list, could Joy have found me.  

Ironically, all of 2023 the whiteboard/design board in my office has had written on it in bold letters:

JUST MAKE CONTACT

It is true that we teach best what we most need to learn.  Joy needs me to “just make contact” with this moment, AND I desperately need that same contact. I need to touch with the world of sensory material and motion.  The world that exists outside my brain and beyond my lists and plans.  It insists on my attention, and requires me to make contact in order for me to experience it.  And without that attention and contact how can Joy possibly find me?

…joy sneaks in

as you pour a cup of coffee

watching the sun

hit your favorite tree

just right…

If you are feeling a bit estranged from even minor Joys in your life at times, as I have been often this year, it may not be about us.  I wonder if contemporary life is less hospitable to joy?  If true, maybe this poem offers a remedy we might use to feel more at home in our experience of living.  The siren song of “performing” our lives, living up to some standard, internal or external may actually take us farther from the experience of living our lives.   The poet, Naomi Shihab Nye once urged us to live so poems can find us.  This poem suggests we live so Joy might find us.

As we collectively imagine “beginning again”  at the approach of a new year, together let’s consider finding our unique way of living, so Joy (and poems) might find us.  May we all make contact more often with our experience of the ordinary moments, even the tedious ones.  And hold each one worthwhile and singular, just as we do our ideas of the extraordinary and the perfect.   

May it be so.

Nancy

For those of you looking for a practice to notice and receive the ordinary joys in your present life, feel free to contact me directly at https://www.nancywonders.com/contact

Also you can check out the 15-minute video by Rick Hanson called Taking in the Good, which has a one minute practice.  

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jA3EGx46r4Q