Snow Daze

Yesterday as the snow fell lightly in the mid-afternoon I took a walk with my camera. What a lovely

Snow Daze

of a walk!

Because the snow was still shallow I wore my winter shoes instead of boots. But I had my Kahtoola nano-spikes on my shoes to lessen the chance of slipping. I felt so good walking along through the snowfall. The nano-spikes made me feel so free and secure striding through the snow.

It was magical!

The snow fell softly. My little part of the world seemed quiet, graceful, and peaceful. At times I could hear a train whistle softly in the distance. The sound was like distant music accompanying the gentle snowfall.

I noticed snow gathering on the leaves of plants beside the path. And how the new snow clung to one side of the tree trunks only, silhouettes of tree limbs against the sky, the softness of the newly fallen snow, skaters on the pond behind our house…

“Yes. I mean, I think I’ve been thinking of this as the year of taking nothing for granted. And that’s led to two things: one, gratitude — here you and I are, able to speak in relatively good health after 17 months of isolation; and attention — looking at all the things I sleepwalk past in my regular life.” — Pico Iyer and Elizabeth Gilbert OnBeing, The Future of Hope

What a wonderful world!

This morning the fresh new snow glittered in the sunlight, shadows of trees blue on the new snow. Evergreen trees were frosted almost entirely with glistening white. Icicles hung outside my dining room window. And the world woke up and began moving to and fro again in the bright cold sunlight.

Filled with Gratitude

“And a friend of mine gave me a tip: to lower my standards of gratitude, to lower the bar and to catch the low-hanging fruit so that it’s not — it doesn’t have to be these huge, epic, grandiose gratitudes. The more physical they are, the more I felt it in my body. My gratitude for these slippers that I have that have an insole that you can put in the microwave and you can warm up your feet, that’s on my gratitude list almost every day. And I feel it neurologically. Even when I say it, I remember how comfortable those slippers feel, and remembering that doesn’t necessarily send me into despair over the state of the world, and it starts to kind of rewire my brain.

So my gratitude list, my gratitude practice has gotten simpler, you know, smaller. It doesn’t have to be spectacular, like — like all things that bring happiness. Another small thing, nicely done.” — Elizabeth Gilbert, OnBeing, The Future of Hope

Today I plan to take another walk through the newly fallen snow. And to practice gratitude, and “lower the bar and to catch the low-hanging fruit.”  This week my body has been feeling good walking. With each feeling good step I feel huge gratitude that it feels good to move. The older I get the more I cherish simple gifts like feeling good moving my body.

My wish for you my friends, is that you also take nothing for granted and that you find gratitude in the simple wonder of being alive.

May you walk in beauty.