There is a large old maple outside my window with huge thick branches flung wide, outstretched as if to hug me. In leaf, the movement of a breeze through the leaves cause ripples of color and sunlight, like a kaleidoscope.

Next to it stands a Norway Spruce that is probably over one hundred and sixty years old. It is the tallest tree on the property, standing straight and perfect of trunk with branches bending gracefully towards earth. At times, those branches are loaded with cones like ornaments.

I love to look out on these venerable friends and connect with their ability to weather storms. They have seen far more fierce storms than I have, yet still they stand, whole and strong.

I marvel at the different smells of trees, how each is distinctive — the sweetness of some, freshness of others, in some even an earthy quality.

I’ve already gone a bit long, and I could go longer still! Trees are one of the magical gifts with whom we share this world!

Well, I must thank you all, dear souls, for uplifting my spirits this gray morning simply by being You. ????

I awakened after a night of active dreams, only one of which was happy, and the last of which left me with an almost crushing sense of loneliness, isolation, and invisibility. In it, I was traveling to my husband and new home with a group of people, many of whom I knew, but no one would talk to me except for a stranger who kept telling me everything she thought I did wrong. (????????????) Gak!!

I have been having dreams of late that show me I am very much done with where I am and eager to move on, yet the timing is still in the Not Yet. That is challenging, though I am doing better about Being where I am instead of attempting to project myself forward to where I want to be, which never works anyway. ???? I am grateful for the chance to learn this, actually, since I will need to BE where I am once I get there, too, if I wish to cultivate happiness.

I am grateful for the Done Here dreams because they tell me that I can feel certain that I am ready to move on, even if my unconscious seems to be a bit of a noodge about the topic! (I hope “noodge” translates! A Noodge, in essence, means someone who keeps nagging or reminding you to do something, as in, “All right, all right already! I’ll take the trash out! No need to be a noodge about it!”)

So, as I say, even though I knew “it was only a dream,” I was feeling a horrible weight of loneliness this morning, like a cold, smothering, gray blanket.

Then I came in here.

And in this sacred space with the posts of these sacred souls the loneliness lifted, like morning sunshine burning away the fog hanging over the fields to make space for a new day of growth and beauty.

I am still exactly where I am. The dream was the dream, the waiting will go on, the time is still Not Yet.

But somehow, I no longer feel like I am traveling alone.

Thank you, dear souls. You are amazing and awesome and indispensible. ????????????????????

God be in your road, my friends.

I am sitting here in the deck greenhouse basking in the sun and warmer temperatures, so naturally I thought of you all!

Two of the three dogs are asleep in a sunbeam beside my chair, and the chickens are happily clucking and crowing outside the door and down in the grass. I fed them earlier, but every so often they like to suggest I might want to do so again.

I had such a good day pain wise yesterday that I was amazed. I think the new approach is helping. Then today it is not so good, but I know this is a process rather than a flip the switch kind of thing. Healing damaged bits just takes time.

I am grateful to see the sun again, thankful for a time of sitting with emotions this morning, and glad that I can be quiet to do so. Later, I will write some on the blog to prepare for going live. I will share the link once we have one!

I have missed being in here. The end of last week and weekend got busy for me. I was able to go to acupuncture, get my hair cut afterwards, cook three kinds of soup for a friend who is facing breadt cancer surgery this week, and then go to book club on Sunday to deliver it, followed by errands.

That may not sound like a big deal, but simply being at a place where I CAN plan these things with a reasonable hope they will happen is much healing progress! It was not so long ago I would have had no stamina and been in too much pain to do this kind of weekend. I am very very grateful!

Oh, Cintia! I wish I could give you a hug and some homemade tomato vegetable soup.

Please do keep us posted. And remember, too, that whatever the news, that is the starting place, not the ending. Health issues often draw us to find deeper healing in new ways. I am someone who regular doctors pretty much gave up on, yet I am regaining my health through finding a path that was right for me. There are so many many ways to heal!

So right now, you get this doctor’s opinion and then see where your heart says to go from there. Maybe another opinion, or maybe how to proceed in a way that will take good and compassionate care of you. One step at a time.

I will light a candle for you, too, and I will pray.

Hugs to you, dear Cintia!

I love calendula! So easy to grow, so cheerful in the garden beds, and so powerful! Such healing in such a smiling package!

We had a calendula-hypericum first aid cream for awhile that could heal cuts on fingers, even serious ones, faster than anything. Adding in the hypericum made it extra powerful in nerve rich areas. I may need to make my own, though, as I have not seen that cream available in awhile.

I love how calendula reseeds so easily, too, as if it is so friendly it wants to be available to help even if you forgot to plant it!

Oh, no! What was going on with your Jack buddy? Our Lily was deaf for some long while. It was hard to tell at first, though, because that independent minded little thing wasn’t ever exactly the best listener. It was part of her charm. Lol

My Labby girl sometimes limps in her front left, probably because, as one vet put it, “Labs are silly and stoic and will run until their legs fall off!” My guess is that she has help wrassling with her big buddy. We just started them on Longevity powder from Springtime, which has some extra stuff from their flagship Fresh Factors that we have used for years. I am hoping that will do the trick. She is almost eight but acts more like 3-4.

I have had no luck getting Sounds True to let me in for prior summits. I will check again for what browser they support. It is limited, as I recall.

I have been learning a lot about neuroscience, neuroplasticity, and the possibility of healing trauma damaged circuits. Fascinating and amazing stuff!

Sweet love to you and Jack. If you are also one who can feel energy through your palms, you might try some intentional healing touch to shore up his qi in that area.

I wish I could smell the Ponderosa Pines. I don’t think I have ever met one, though maybe at Big Sur? There were some incredible smelling evergreens there.

Wishing you sparkly sunshine hugs!

I love that thought, Manda! Makes me think maybe I ought to do a batch for my husband to stash around campus for the kids to find.

Do you or Nancy know what type of paints are needed or is there a final poly spray? I used a paint pen on some smooth rocks once, but it came off fast.

It would make me smile to paint rocks again, reminding me of when the neighborhood kids made beautiful art on our porch. ???? It did get one of the parents to come down once, pick up the kids, chat a bit…and beg “No more rocks! Please!” They had three of the kiddos, and apparently their apartment was fast filling up with joyfully painted rocks!

They have challenged me, too, Diane. I have reminded myself of you and your hygge resolve on more than one occasion. I have to say that aside from my Snowtrum and writing a couple very grumpy winter haikus, I have done better than I thought.

I have been listening to a “Dawn Chorus” recording made by a friend in her garden a few years ago. They do the videos for things like those little shorts you see in museums on the natural world, so the quality is quite good. I play her recording while allowing the screensaver on my computer to roll. I have it set on a file of images I took on a beautiful summer’s day when the corn was tassleing. Then I think sun filled thoughts. ????

I have asked my husband if there is a way to make it into a slideshow I could share with you all here so you all could relax in the Ohio summer countryside for a spell. I will post if we can make it happen.

One of the blog posts I wrote but have not put up yet is on The Resilience of Grass. That always amazes me!

Hope your acupuncture appointment today helps escort the pain out. Have you ever heard of a BioMat? My acupuncturist has them on the tables, and we love them! There have been times it felt like it slurped the pain right out of me!

You can buy them online, though they are not cheap. Not horrible, depending on the size, but not cheap. I tried to get insurance to cover and even had a doctor’s prescription! The answer? “Sure, we’ll cover it!” But then we found that they would only cover $83 of the charge, paying the distributor a fraction of what the item costs. So I did not get one as we were severely underemployed at the time, but if you have the material resources available, it might well be helpful. It comes in chair, massage table, and bed sizes.

“My strength is made perfect in weakness” is both an encouraging and a challenging verse. So often I find myself exclaiming like a child, “But I don’t wanna be weak!” as if I am being sent to bed early or told to go nap instead of play. Reframing it as something that is actually being used helps me see it more wholly.

Blessings to you this day. God be in your road!

Thank you, grateful. I know you DO understand! ????

I was so happy tomato was one of her favorites. She is already actively modifying her diet where necessary to help her body fight and has been asking me for input, that being one of my things. ???? There is something empowering about knowing that you are giving your body the tools to do its job, even to fight, and feeling empowered is encouraging!

The chickens have brought me a lot of joy since we started letting them free range. They are so danged HAPPY! I worried at first about their safety, but they have done well. We have actually had less loss with them out and about than we did when they were in a fenced run under poultry netting!

It has made me think about life, too, how it is better to accept the risks inherent to living and choose to be happy out in the world than to hide away in my “coop” under layers of poultry netting for safety but never enjoy life as I could have done. Chickens may not be the brightest of God’s creatures in some ways, but they are rather wise in their own way. (Hmmm…I shall probably write about this chicken wisdom in a blog post…)

Hugs back to you!

Thank you, Manda, it was something I noticed on reflection rather than during, more of a “Hey, wow! Look what you did!!” that showed me a huge difference from where I was a year ago.

I have had a real block with cooking as it was always a huge coping mechanism for me, passed down by a codependent grandmother(!), so I had to talk myself through and take it easy. I wanted to do this for my friend as she lives alone. That way she could eat something healthy easily post surgery.

I centered on cancer fighting foods to encourage her. I made a chicken congee with ginger, garlic, and cordyceps, a non dairy Butternut Squash Bisque, and a Tomato Vegetable Basil soup with the canned tomatoes, garlic, and frozen basil all coming from our organic garden’s production of seasons past. She was especially thrilled to see the tomato, it apparently being one of her favorites. And not to seem immodest, but I do make a wonderful tomato soup. ???? It is nothing like a can of Campbells!

Cara Anna, thank you for sharing from your heart. It does help us all to know that we are not alone in our feelings and experiences, that we share a common frail, yet resilient, humanity that often hurts.

How wonderful that your husband had prepared dinner, a little TLC at the end of a hard day helps so much! I am sorry your resources at work feel spread so thin. That does increase anxiety, since the basic fear of anxiety is not having or being enough to meet whatever challenge is before you. The positive side of that, of course, is that some wonderful creative thinking happens when you look for other ways to have “enough” for the challenge! ????

I agree about being a work in progress. I used to see healing more as a series of steps to climb, landings to reach, until one reached the destination where, oh, I don’t know, I guess where I thought I’d finally have myself better assembled somehow. ???? Now I am viewing it more as a journey than a destination.

Healing is a journey, forgiving is a journey, relationship is a journey.

And every process consists of day after day, moment by moment, of faithful practices that all add up to a life. I would love to practice my life in such a way that there is no home for depression within me, though I think perhaps it will always be a possibility. But this, this possibility we do not wish to happen is part of what keeps us practicing, and practicing is what keeps us healthier and happier. Thus even the fear of it can be used to promote goodness in our lives.

A good counselor is an invaluable tool. I have been very blessed in that regard with two pastoral counselors over the years who have helped me more than they can possibly know.

A big hug back to you, dear Anna! May your day today be filled with the beautiful feeling of Enoughness.

Hi, Manda!

Oh what a happy thought, a sledding adventure! I haven’t done that in years. Maybe once we move as it is so flat here that there aren’t many good sledding hills that are not owned by someone. I would love to own a good sledding hill so I could share it with local kids. ????????

The Happiness Course is great! I have been enjoying the material and found new things to consider. One is that there may be a backdoor to happiness built into many of us from dysfunctional families via a positive amygdala reaction that is activated during compassion. I emailed the course to ask if I was understanding that correctly as they did not go into detail about it.

The Three Good Things practice is nice, too, and I have shared it with others. I find it is akin to a Gratitude practice I do from a TEDtalk by Dr. Amit Sood.

I have been doing the Pain Management pack on Headspace, and your shoulder comment reminded me of how he suggests spending equal time during a body scan on what feels good as well what hurts. He says the mind’s tendency is to head right for what hurts, even if most of the rest of the body doesn’t. So I have been practicing picking a body part that feels good and diverting the mind from the painful bit by saying, “Wow! Does my right elbow feel GOOD!” Or, “How about that left knee, eh? Pretty good today!” I felt like an idiot at first, but it does seem to help lessen the automatic reactivity in the brain regarding pain.

Have you baked anything wonderful lately?