My little groundhog self burrows out of a warm bed, pulls on fleece pants and wool shirts, and goes downstairs to meditate in the dark-light, in the lightening of the dark.
Groundhog Day is coming.
https://pixabay.com/photos/winter-dawn-tree-fog-nature-cold-3321361/
A local hospital's refrigerator was 9 degrees instead of the recommended 2-8*. Would they have to throw the 860 doses of vaccine away?
Feel your heart cringe as you read that sentence. Oh no! They have to throw it away? That’s 860 people.
Feel your resistance to what is. Notice that suffering or discontent co-arises with resistance. Acceptance = Peace.
Feel the resistance to the intense cold outdoors.
Rest.
Moderna said the hospital could use the 860 doses after all.
* This turns out to be Celsius, not Fahrenheit as i originally thought.
Research shows there are four main causes for joyful tears: beauty, achievement, affection, and amusement.
Achievement tears are often shed in contexts of extraordinary performance or when someone overcomes an obstacle and often include feelings of pride.
Beauty tears occur commonly in situations of overwhelming elegance or beauty, including nature, music or visual arts, and feature feelings of awe or experiencing chills.
Affectionate tears are often experienced in situations including unexpected kindness or exceptional love such as wedding ceremonies or reunions and often feature feelings of warmth, increased communality, and feeling touched or compassionate.
Finally, amusement tears are shed when something especially funny occurs and include feelings of amusement or lightness and the inclination to laugh or giggle.
No matter the cause of joy, give yourself over to it. To paraphrase:
Be joyful unto Life! Serve Life with gladness. Come into Presence and recognize joy.
Gladness is one synonym for joy. Appreciation is another.
Citation: ‘A Model of Positive Tears’, Janis Zickfeld et al., published in PsyArXiv Preprints 08 November 2020.
We look at a houseplant and think Oh, I know what my philodendron looks like. Look again. And again.
Nothing stands still--not even our houseplants that are pot-bound, house-bound, and perhaps root-bound. The pots aren't moving, but their occupants are.
We think we are sitting still--sort of. Standing still. But we are in constant movement in and around our home. Our bodies are in constant motion--breathing, eyes blinking, heart beating. Every thought tenses some little or big muscles in the body.
We think we are sitting still and the world is moving around us. Look again.
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This is one of the 5 Daily Recollections--a reminder of impermanence. This past 11 months, so much has changed. So much has vanished.
I'm quite happy with the silver linings of these COVID times: Zoom. No commuting. A lot of gardening. Having the time to be a naturalist; noticing, really noticing birds and their habits. A smaller life.
What am i missing? Busy-ness. Miles on the car. Miles in the car. Travel. Going to the movies.
Everything is changing, all the time. We've had a lot of social change this past year. Black Lives Matter. A change of president and a change in the Senate.
How do you feel about change?
One of my personal mantras is Flowing with the river of Life. I aspire to flow with events as they happen. Stress disappears. Ahhh.
Behold! Our Christmas tree is reborn outside, near the front door. A green tree sprouted in a snow bank. I call it instant landscaping.
Birth. Death. Birth. Death. Birth is happening every moment. Death is happening every moment.
Have you noticed?
