Deep Gratitude

Fall is now tinged with winter. We just had our first snowfall yesteday. It was exciting and bits still remain.

Thanksgiving is this week. I think I am always very aware and grateful for my blessings, but this year it feels like a more acute awareness. A recent birthday and a worrisome health issue that followed closely, have heightened my gratitude for being alive, vital, and for my many blessing.

Foremost, the blessings of family and friends. They are golden. I want to let those precious friends know you are not taken for granted. You are treasured and appreciated. Thanks for all the well wishes, caring, checking in, delicious food, and comfort that you have delivered! I will be forever deeply grateful. I also want you to know they made a HUGE difference. Being a strong and independent woman is a good thing, but sometimes that woman is weak and needs support. You recognized that and were there for me. Thank you.

We will reschedule the gathering around They Roared sometime in the future. In the meantime, it is at the library if you are eager to read it, or at the Bakery, Marias, or Amazon.

Be well, know you are treasured. Happy Thanksgiving, blessings and love.

The following is from Archaeology for the Woman's Soul. Enjoy.

THE GIFT OF YOUR SENSITIVITY You are awake. You are sensitive. You feel everything. Sometimes you wish you didn't feel everything. But you do. The depths of loneliness. The heights of joy. Sometimes it feels like it's too much. Sometimes you dream of numbing yourself. It's a lot, living this close to life, this close to death, this close to yourself. But then, you realise, numbing the pain would also numb the joy. And you refuse to be numb like the others. So you walk, your heart exposed all day, every day, every fucking day. Great sorrows plowing through. Bliss cascading like a waterfall. Unable to switch it off. Unable to run. (Where would you run to? There is only you.) You, and your raw, broken open heart. You, and the thrill and dread of being alive for another day. Another whole day! Sensitive to the tiniest little flicker or flutter of experience. To the breeze on your face. The cracked glass in the old window. The spider web in the half light. The contraction and expansion of each sacred breath. A morning shifting into afternoon. A secret or promise kept or not. A plan crumbling into shiny Unknowing. You will take this intensity, yes. You will commit to this living, yes. You will walk this path, of course. Even though you will doubt it, often. There is no other path for you. You feel everything. You are sensitive. You are awake. And our noisy world needs you, now more then ever. - Jeff Foster-