CoreEssence wrote: ↑Wed Dec 11, 2024 12:20 am
Paradise-on-earth, Spiritualcookie--Hi!! Love reading your sharings! thank you for the welcome! I was skylark on the old forum! I needed a focused space for consistent appreciation practise, so here I am.
skylark!!! I totally missed that this is you, I'm so sorry!! SO GOOD to "see" you!!
It is Winter Solstice! It snowed! It is super cold! It is sunny! Yes, it is the perfect winter solstice! It is the perfect setting for a story set a long time ago with a cook who was maybe a witch, or maybe a healer, or maybe just a grounded woman who loved the natural world! OHH! I Love this day! It is making me feel all these thoughts! And making me think all these feelings! Feeling my thoughts! Thinking my feelings! And also simply feeling my feelings.
I am so grateful for having this vocabulary for emotional fluency. I love how it stands me in such good stead with my 7 yr old. I love how open he is to the nuances of feelings, and of course, to really feel his feelings. I love that after I told him to invite the scariness in, while I held him in my arms, toshow it that it wasn’t alone, that it was among friends—happiness, anger, joy, frustration, contentment—he said he wasn’t scared anymore. It helped him not be scared of scariness. It helped him think thoughts he liked. I love so much beyond words having this deeply felt understanding of emotions. I love my own facility with feelings—I love my sensitivity, I love my emotions, and I absolutely love seeing each time how what I feel (negatively) is triggered by the action/the word/the happening. I love this holistic, whole-istic view of feelings I have gained over these last 2.5 yrs of brennan work. I am deeply grateful for all of it.
I love the menu I am thinking of—a root vegetable gratin-ish thing, a quinoa-cauliflower rice preparation done like tamarind rice, a soup—maybe a lentil one since I forgot the ingredients for it!, a gingerbread snacking cake, chocolate sable cookies, and this glorious chocolate-cherry panettone I bought at the market WITH ALL CLEAN INGREDIENTS! I LOVE FINDING A PANNETONE sans enriched this, natural flavors that! Just wheat flour, cherries, eggs, and a bunch of few other ingredients that I UNDERSTAND!
I am looking forward to figuring out where to put the holly and the boughs of greenery. I love all the fairy lights everywhere. I love all the candles. I love making this a special time for myself! And I love how it pulls everyone else in its ambit too, because of course love and joy and excitement and groundedness is contagious! Wait, did I just say I am grounded? ME?! Huh. I did. I am getting there. I really, truly am!!
I am looking forward to jumping in to the wiccan make your own rituals book I bought! I own this part of me that feels like I have been a high priestess in my previous lifetimes. I love how all this energy work lends itself SO NATURALLY to all the witchy aspects of myself!
I am now going to enjoy putting out all the wonderful veggies I hauled in from the market. And, putting all the greens and the holly and the bouquets in water. And put a few more ornaments up in the tree. And then go for a sing-along to the church!
I am joy, and I am excitement, and I am the fullness of contentment. Yes. And so, it is.
I love the big windows in this house. I love seeing the sky change its colors. I love seeing the changing sky reflected in the waters below. I love seeing sunsets framed by the horizon. I love seeing the twinkling lights of other homes. I love seeing the puffy white clouds, and the gray ones with silvery underbellies. I have loved seeing birds fly by at the exact moment I have looked outside. I have loved having a bird come in on the windowsill, and also a dragon fly.
I love the open kitchen. I love the gigantic fridge and the ginormous freezer. I love the plentiful storage cabinets in the kitchen. I love the white finish. I love the gleaming steel exterior of the hob and the fridge and the dishwasher. I love the big cavernous oven and the plentiful delicious meals I have cooked and continue to cook.
I love the wooden floors, and their dark polished finish.
I love the cavernous cabinets and the plentiful storage to keep so many things. I like the layout of the closets. I like that we have stuffed them to the gills with our clothes. I also like the faucets in the kitchen and the bathroom, and the rainshower heads. And I like the bathtub for the Epsom salt baths. I love having space for our big, ginormous bed.
I love the energy of our home. It is restful and healing and harmonious. I love the time I have spent here when I have been on my own. I have loved having this home as our sanctuary during covid isolation times. I have loved and continue to love the wide open space between the living room and the kitchen and our conscious choice to let it remain unoccupied so that we have space to dance, and run or do whatever!
I love being able to put a rug on the ground and sit in this space, and talk to friends as we gather together. I love that there’s a drum set here, and also a tree right now.
I love the quiet peace of my house. I love that it is built very much in line with vaastu, unbeknownst to us. I love that it is west facing and that we get so much plentiful natural light, and of course also the most glorious sunsets.
I have loved all the memories we have made in our home. I have loved watching n grow up here and walk and run and build his train set and lego and experiments and all the other things we have done together. I have loved the memories a and I have made here in this home of ours, this house of ours.
I love the flower shaped lights on the ceiling. I love having neighbors with whom n can have ease playdates. I love having neighbors with whom we can have easy cups of chai.
I have loved living in this house of ours. I trust that whatever unfolds next will be utterly glorious and utterly in keeping with our new, expansive desires.
I love remembering glimpses of Abraham that work the best for me. Like focusing and amplifying that which I love and have loved and continue to love.
I enjoyed today. It was fun, and unexpected and a really pleasant way to spend a rainy Saturday. I enjoy cuddling with a and n. I enjoy remembering things we have loved and living new loves.
I have enjoyed this week immensely if I think about it! I like that! Lots and lots and lots of good things and good moments!
Jenny Lee wrote: ↑Sun Dec 29, 2024 1:08 pm
Thank you for your beautiful appreciation of your beautiful house--I can partly picture it in my mind's eye.
I am appreciating the warmth of my home on this cold, wintry day. I am glad that the cold is back after a few days of warm temperatures. The cold makes me feel alive and energized and brings on and out all the hygge elements I want to feel and surround myself with—tea, casseroles, warm lights, candles, sweaters, cozy stories to read, cozy stories to write, cuddling inside the blanket, big bowls of soups.
Wintering (thanks Katherine May!) is also burrowing down inside myself—contracting, letting go of expectations of myself, flowing in the moment, being ok with the mess, and the not-knowing, and the imperfect execution of all my plans. Yeah, I like that. Wintering is allowing myself to fold up on my-self: to read if that’s what I want to, to write if that’s what I want to—to be ok with not writing, to trust that the next impulse is there, and as I allow the creative fuel to express itself in this moment, it will continue running through me for me to express it in whichever way brings me the most satisfaction in the next.
Oooh—YES. I LIKE THAT. I WROTE THAT. YES! As I express the creative fuel in the way that brings me the most joy right now, I will be able to express it in whatever form brings me the most joy in the next!
So, weaving in and out of cooking, cleaning, writing, talking, quieting down, texting, reading together, putting clothes away, showering, going out to ___, making chai, and khaana, and reading together with N, and doing the verbal stuff, and maybe cracking open my books, and. . . yes. YES. Yes. Weaving in and out. I love that motif, and I love coming back to it. That seems to be more of how my brain works.
I like this feeling of weaving together a tapestry—not that I have ever attempted it, but it might look like a big mess and a big tangle of threads and yarns but intricate, delicious, rich work is emerging from those yarns, and those threads.
I’d like my day to be a tapestry of my inner being’s attention and my own. A tapestry of my inner being’s attention and my own. A tapestry of my own attention and my inner being’s.
I am appreciating wanting to make appreciation more consistent. Maybe short bursts 1-2 times a day? And in-depth notes as the fancy strikes.
I am looking forward to the girls’ night out dinner. It satisfies my desire for more community, especially local, neighbourhood community. I have always been resistant to join these before, but I feel like I’ve come closer to two of the neighbors in the last year or so. I’m also interested in exercising curiousity—yes, this one is different, or that one thinks/believes/says something which doesn’t make sense to me. Can I still hold to my center in an expansive, unitive way and enjoy myself? Plus, out of the 18 or so women, there might be a few who hark close to my own essence!
I am looking forward to chai. I’ve finally figured out the right formula to enjoy for now—fresh ginger, about half an inch, one cardamom pod—uncrushed, a few sprinkles of black cardamom, and 1-2 peppercorns. That gives the exact gingery flavor that I like and appreciate these days. And I do so love being able to put in the right amount of tea leaves every-wich time. Yes, please.
I did enjoy going to the market today even though it is sparse and with less varieties. I like eating according to the rhythm of nature.
I appreciate my warm fleece pants which make it perfect to be out and about in today’s cold, blustery weather.
I love listening to hubs and n talk about math. I do so appreciate n’s keen curiousity and his quick grasp. I want to continue reminding myself that it isn’t about his “smartness” but his alignment, which he has in spades.
I love how much that kid loves to dance and move his body. I love how perfectly that complements all his mental stuff that he excels at.
I do like wanting to hone in on this particular wintry story. I LIKE that I really want to finish it. I like that I feel compelled to write. I like wanting to write without really thinking much about how it reads or what it can be.
I also like writing bits and bobs, and these appreciation lists.
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I like that I can ground more and then write this.
I like Terry Pratchett, and Diana Wynne Jones. I like the madcap nature of their stories. They are fun, and thoughtful.
This strange fluorescent colored bookmark with its pink and turquoise and green that n made in pre-school is such a sturdy little thing to use.
The gray clouds outside with a bit of blue peeping out from between is soothing to look at.
The warmth of the heaters running right now feels wonderful.
I am so deeply appreciative of miss p who comes to help me clean the house every Saturday. She is so meticulous and thorough. I love showing my appreciation for her in all the ways that I do. I really, really appreciate her presence, her work, and her energy.
I am liking being more conscious about prana and fresh food and figuring out a balance that works for me.
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And this is right now:
It’s snowing and I appreciate the quiet that has blanketed the world outside. I love how snow hushes everything, the quiet ushering in a reverence, even at the start of a busy Monday morning in a busy bustling city.
I love my candle, and its yellow warmth and its subtle fragrance.
I love my thermos of hot water.
I love starting my day with kapaalbhaati, and a cup of valerian leaves seeped in hot water. I like that I got up today with the clear idea to do these two things first.
I like the twigs of greenery inside my house. I like both the cedar leaves as well as the pine-like leaves. I like keeping the temperature inside my house on the cooler side and wearing warm, snuggly sweatshirts and sweaters and pants and socks for warmth and comfort.
I like meeting people and enjoying the conversations we have. I like practising listening, and tracking how my energy is moving as I am interacting. I like my desire to be deeply centered and grounded as I interact with whoever I interact with.
I love that the conversation I ended up having with the group of women I was seated next to was meaningful and not just small talk. I also enjoyed the small-talk-Anuja-Chauhan-Man-on the-Inside kind of fun talk I had with another group of women. I like this clear idea that the conversations I engage in are very much about who I am, and what I am willing to show up as (open, and curious, and centered).
I like that I can go on more but that I am gonna stop, and get to the next thing I want to accomplish in this slice of the day! Hell, yeah!
skylark!!! I totally missed that this is you, I'm so sorry!! SO GOOD to "see" you!!
HUGS!!