September 30--Good Riddance! and Please Don't GO!!!

We have to recognize that there cannot be relationships unless there is commitment, unless there is loyalty, unless there is love, patience, persistence. 
--Cornel West

    I enjoyed a chuckle over this random social media post:

Spring: depressed in a hopeful way

Summer: depressed in a manic way

Fall: depressed in a nostalgic way

Winter: depressed in a depressed way

    Praise the heavens, this is the end of September! I definitely did not pass through unscathed, and there is angst that still must be handled. The bonus for September passing is a big sigh of relief and moving into October, my favorite month, because of fall color, cooler temperatures and my birthday. It's better if the Cubs are in the playoffs, but that is not to be this year, so I have elected to cheer on the Royals, Orioles and Phillies in postseason play.

    I've written many times how much I love the Cubs announcers, Jim Deshaies and Boog Sciambi. Here's an example. As a "last game of the season" feature, Boog did a 120-second interview of JD, rapidly firing questions. The toughest was, "Snacks or naps?" JD was stumped, then said, "Can I have a snack, then a nap?" What a kindred spirit!

    October, I'm so happy to see ya!

        Leta

Boog (left), JD (right)

September 29--The Nerve!

Love's gift cannot be given, it waits to be accepted.  --Rabindranath Tagore

Your heart is the real compass of your life. Purity of heart is the gift that guides you, leads you, shepherds you from one end of life to the other, always content knowing that you have done what you were born to do. What else could possibly be worth a life?   --Joan Chittister

    This past Friday, I drove to Kansas City for The Nerve Tour. This is a five-hour presentation on the human nervous system by Gil Hedley, whose personal slogan is "Dedicated to Exploring Inner Space." He and his wife Rachel are traveling to cities large and small all over the country offering this. Gil spent months in the lab with many assistants dissecting a human body to follow the nerve tree within us. I came away with two mighty impressions: 1) Gil, brilliant researcher that he is, is an extraordinary human being (clearly doing what he was born to do), and 2) the complexity of the human body is mind-boggling, and we really don't know much about it. I sat there thinking about how in roughly nine months from two tiny cells a perfect human body is created--the ultimate mystical mystery!

    Appreciate your body, whatever state it is in!

        Leta

Gil started with the brain and
worked his way down the nerve tree
in the body.

September 28--Love Includes Grief

Love isn't a state of perfect caring. It is an active noun like struggle. To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now.  --Fred Rogers 

    As I have noted in previous posts, I have lost several family members in September, plus I lost my best brother this past April. A recent family situation has also piled onto my heap of grief. I know grief well. Here are some helpful thoughts on the subject from "Every Day Spirit" by Mary Davis:

• Grief demands our attention. It is important work that requires soul space. Learn about it.
• There's no timetable. It's a personal journey and you walk at your own pace. There are no wrong ways to grieve.
• Grief is not a linear process; it ebbs and flows, possibly for the rest of your life. Stay with the feelings as they arise. Let them flow through you without judgment. 
• Tell your story to a compassionate listener. Connect with others who have had a similar loss. Speaking your truth puts your experience into words and weaves the loss into your life going forward. 
• Accept the help of loving people who offer it. They want to do something for you, and you need the support. Ask for what you need.
• Working with your hands--knitting, gardening, coloring--can be soothing. Writing letters and journaling can be comforting. Exercise can be helpful. Extra sleep can be necessary.
• You are the guardian of your grief. Be incredibly kind to yourself. Set limits where you need them. Do only what you feel up to doing. 

    I repeat Brian McLaren's excellent definition: "grief is love persisting when what we love is passing away." 

    Leta

Life sometimes feels like a black hole...

September 27--So How Do You Really Feel?!?!

Patience is always rewarded and romance is always round the corner! 
--Ayn Rand

    Being a die-hard Cubs fan, I know patience! Romance around the corner? I'm not holding my breath on that one. 

    Anyway, the Cubs are officially NOT in the playoffs and the remaining few games are rather meaningless. The banter between my two favorite announcers, Jim Deshaies and Boog Sciambi, gets fairly random and off-track. In a recent game, they mentioned someone who routinely hands out business cards that say "Stop Talking" and "Don't Care." That got a laugh out of me so I googled it, and it is a thing--goofy business cards. I can think of plenty of times in my life where I would have loved to hand over a "stop talking" card. 

    Right now I could use one that says, "It seems you enjoy being a hypocrite." 

        Leta

September 26--Paint the Questions

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart... Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.  --Rainer Maria Rilke

    See yesterday's post for a whole bunch of goofy questions. 

    A friend is in the process of down-sizing from their home of multiple decades to a single level patio home. This is what our real estate agent friend refers to as the "final destination home." My husband and I consider this option periodically, and agree that we ought to start looking, but we haven't so far. We are just living the questions... stay in our current home? move? around Wichita or elsewhere? what are our requirements? do we have the energy to move!??!!?

    Creating helps me live the questions. Certainly that is one reason I continue to write a blog post daily. It is also why I paint. I can have fun with paints and make the world and its concerns go away. Below is completed clay pot #3. It's not the Mona Lisa, but I like it. I'm going with the theory that a colorful pot will make the plant in it happier. 

    Change, and the questions that go with it, are in the air!

    Leta

Clay pot painting adventure #3

September 25--Just Wondering

Be worthy, love, and love will come.  --Louisa May Alcott

    Having love requires being love. It's simple but not always easy. 

    I have just passed two milestones. On September 23, two years ago, my S-I-L Sue died suddenly and unexpectedly. Then on September 24, both my parents made their transitions. My mom passed in 1979 and my dad in 2000. I suspect you can see why September has been a challenging month for me!

    These milestones had me pondering the afterlife which generated some silly thoughts and questions. Note that I don't believe in any such entity as hell. It's all heaven, but I'm thinking my idea of heaven may be different from yours. How do we recognize each other? I want to look like my younger, healthiest self, not older me. I've read via near-death-experiences (NDE) that we are greeted on the other side by loved ones who passed before. There are some of those that I really don't care to see. Are spouses reunited? I love my husband dearly, but with eternity and an infinite number of souls to choose from, I want to consider other possibilities. Are we still female or male? When do we get to organize coming back into another life? It's all a great-fun mystery!

     Willing to wait a long while for the answers!!

        Leta

September 24--The Mystery of Time

On the other side of pain, there is still love.  --Madeline L'Engle

    Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 (NIV):

There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:

a time to be born and a time to die,

a time to plant and a time to uproot,

a time to kill and a time to heal,

a time to tear down and a time to build,

a time to weep and a time to laugh,

a time to mourn and a time to dance,

a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,

a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,

a time to search and a time to give up,

a time to keep and a time to throw away,

a time to tear and a time to mend,

a time to be silent and a time to speak,

a time to love and a time to hate,

a time for war and a time for peace.

    I'd like to get rid of "kill," "weep," "hate" and "war." Alas, those are still in our consciousness.

    Some day...

        Leta

Arlie's son glued a golf ball to a tee
and added it to the marker.
My brother LOVED golf.

September 23--The Effort It Takes

Love isn't something natural. Rather it requires discipline, concentration, patience, faith, and the overcoming of narcissism. It isn't a feeling, it is a practice. 
--Erich Fromm

    Is it possible to overcome narcissism?!?! I don't see #45 making any effort at that! I do, however, give him credit for bringing that personality disorder to the forefront.

    Enough of that. Day-to-day love is definitely a practice. Each day brings new delights and annoyances--ask anyone who has parented, for instance. Or been in a long-term relationship. Or adopted a puppy. Or started a business. Or pursued a dream. Love truly is our nature, and everything we do is ultimately out of love. Translating that love into real-world action often does require all those things Fromm listed. 

    Each day brings a new opportunity to love. 

        Leta

Photo by Jacob Bentzinger

September 22--Freedom for All

Be still and wait without hope, for hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love, for love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith, but the faith and the love are all in the waiting.  --T. S. Eliot

    I could "blah, blah, blah" on about this quote, but really, I don't have a clue what Eliot meant!

    Instead I leave you with the adorable/nasty little thought below... Freedom is for all or there will be freedom for none. 

    VOTE!!!

        Leta

September 21--Nearing Another Ending

Things come suitable to the time.  --Enid Bagnold

    Well, yes, they do, and it can be so annoying! Birth is the first example--what makes a baby come into the world at THAT particular moment? I don't think we know that. The same is true for our exit time. I firmly believe that on some level, we choose that moment also. 

    Angst is developing within me, I can feel it. There are only eight more regular season Cubs games left. Multiple miracles would have to occur for the Cubs to make the playoffs. And yes, I will watch the other teams in the playoffs, just to ease my withdrawal from baseball season. And yes, Chiefs football and basketball will keep me occupied through the winter, but nothing compares to baseball season. Sports also "come suitable to the time." Yet as soon as the Cubs finish on September 29, I will be dreaming of Opening Day 2025!!!!

    Leta

September 20--In Between

Honor the space between no longer and not yet.  --Nancy Levin

    Wow, I feel like this has been the story of my life the past couple of years. I can't say that I've done a good job of "honoring" the space, and it surely has been a roller coaster. The space was a pit of depression for a long while. This calendar year has been much better as I set a couple of intentions which have ultimately "honored the space between."

    I see this quote also applying at a macro level, wherein the patriarchal old-white-male-dominated society is no longer working and is dying a very loud kicking-and-screaming death. We don't have a clear picture of what is to come, yet I feel hopeful. 

    This is certainly an interesting "space" to live in!!

        Leta

Stonehenge, October 2023...
Where the "space between" is very important!

September 19--Let's Go Easier on Ourselves and Each Other

God, grant me the serenity to stop beating myself up for not doing things perfectly, the courage to forgive myself because I'm working on doing better and the wisdom to know you already love me just the way I am.  --Eleanor Brownn

    What a great version of the "Serenity Prayer" Ms. Brownn offers us! We are much too critical and impatient with ourselves. 

    I like to take the time while stopped at a traffic light to consider the rest of humanity. We are all just humans trying to get somewhere, trying to make a living, trying to make the best of this human experience. Those folks that feel they must run the red light (and I see this every day) must have some good reason to endanger themselves and others. Most folks are carrying some sort of burden... shouldn't that inspire patience and kindness, given that we have all been there? What makes "that group" OK, but "this group" bad? Why do skin color, sexual orientation or religion matter so much to some folks?  

    Here are more thoughts on nonviolence and oneness by Father John Dear:

Active nonviolence begins with the truth that all life is sacred, that we are all equal sisters and brothers, all children of the God of peace, already reconciled, all one, all already united, and so we could never hurt or kill another human being, much less remain silent while wars rage, people die in poverty, and nuclear weapons and environmental destruction threaten us all. As we deepen into this vision of our common unity, we come to understand that we are one with all humanity, all creatures, all creation, and God. So nonviolence is much more than a tactic or a strategy; it is a way of life that is based in the oneness of creation, the unity of life itself. It is not passive but active love and truth that seek justice and peace for the whole human race and all of creation, and so resists systemic evil and violence, persistently reconciles with everyone, works to create new cultures of justice and peace, yet insists there is no cause however noble for which we support the killing of any human being. Instead of killing others, we work to stop the killing and are even willing to be killed in the struggle for justice and peace. 

    I rewrite Ms. Brownn's quote:  God, grant me the serenity to stop beating myself and others up for not doing things perfectly, the courage to forgive myself and others because we are working on doing better and the wisdom to know you already love every one of us just the way we are.

        Leta

Wednesday morning's faint rainbow

September 18--Nonviolence

The course of true love never did run smooth.  --William Shakespeare

    I am going to offer an addendum to my Sept 12 post titled "The Disease of Fear and Violence." These are the words of Rev. James Lawson:

There is impracticality to violence. It’s ineffective and has been ineffective throughout the world for too many years. We must not let people who romanticize or mythologize violence persuade us that it has proven to be efficacious…. It has proven to be the most ineffective weapon. It drains emotional, psychological, moral, and spiritual energy with no good consequences.

I want to urge you today to the spiritual and moral task of creating a revolution that is utterly necessary in the twenty-first century. And when I use the term revolution, I do not mean violence.

From the perspective of Gandhi, nonviolence is the use of power to try to resolve conflicts, injuries, and issues in order to heal and uplift, to solidify community, and to help people take power into their own hands and use their power creatively. Nonviolence makes the effort to use power responsibly.

There is no other way. It cannot be done with hatred. It can only be done by people who have compassion and awareness of their own lives in the light of creation. It cannot be done by insulting other people, cannot be done with the gun or the fist, cannot be done with bombs. We three-hundred-plus million people of the United States can be healed of our fears and our animosities, our hurts and our pains, but that can only happen if we adopt a nonviolent perspective, daring to put the issues on the table in front of us no matter the pain, walking through them and putting together the ethos and principles that can create in the United States a new earth and a new heaven... Religion must get out of the pews and become a movement for the moral, intellectual spirituality that can help us become the people that God has created us to be.

    VOTE! And please cast your vote for nonviolence.

        Leta

September 17--Hurry Up and Wait

Impatience asks for the impossible, wants to reach the goal without the means of getting there.  --Hegel

    Well, yes, I'm ready for "beam me up, Scottie!"--getting there instantly. How many times have parents throughout the eons heard, "Are we there yet?!?!" 

    Monday was full of impatience and wanting to get there. I reported Monday morning for jury duty as ordered (under threat of a fine) and after standing in line to check in and waiting for about an hour, they sent my group (designated with Judge Kaufman) away to return at 1:00 pm. 

    Alas, the closest parking for the Sedgwick County Courthouse is the parking garage north of the Courthouse. I HATE parking garages, mainly because I have no depth perception, and garages are just too close quarters for me. Plus there is the spiraling around. And on top of it all, the elevator in the parking garage is out of order. How's that for handicap support? At least we can park there for free with the "Juror" stamp on the ticket. 

    My return by 1:00 pm only brought me more waiting. Around 2:00 we were hustled up to Judge Kaufman's courtroom for arrangement according to a seating chart and more waiting. The judge and attorneys came in and went through the extensive questioning process to choose their twelve favorites. The case was a criminal charge of a felon in possession of a firearm. I think my comment of "gun violence is epidemic and something needs to be done about it" probably saved me, as I was not one of the chosen twelve. We escaped just before 5:00 pm. 

    Hopefully I'm in the clear again for a few more years!

        Leta

September 16--Let Me Go, Please!

The truth is, most of us discover where we are headed when we arrive. 
--Bill Watterson

It is a first-class human tragedy that peoples of the earth who claim to believe in the message of Jesus whom they describe as the Prince of Peace show little of that belief in actual practice.  --Mohandes Gandhi

    Today I must report for jury duty. While I am OK doing the whole "good citizen" thing, I don't want to go. The last time I was called, I sat in the jury pool room for an entire (boring!) day and was dismissed. I really do not want to be picked for a jury, as timing is bad on the home front this week. I plan to take a deck of cards in case I'm stuck with a bunch of bored potential jurors who are game-players. I should borrow my husband's t-shirt that says, "I can't, I have plans with my dog."

    Onward to the civics lesson!

        Leta

September 15--"It's TOO Hard!"

Everything is hard before it is easy.  --Goethe

    You can start right with the process of being born, leaving the dark comfort of the womb and emerging into a world of bright lights and giants. Then you have to go through the whole process of learning to be a human on Earth. That's the big picture. 

    My son told me yesterday about his two-day old newborn opening his eyes to their dog's inquisitive muzzle right in Remy's face. My son and I both pondered how wild that must be for a new human!

    Then there is the typical day... it's hard to get out of bed (stiffness? pain? don't want to go to work?). There's the chaos of everyone getting where they need to be (school? office? appointments?). There may be co-workers or co-volunteers that are not your favorite folks (cranky? bossy? lazy?). Any time we have to or get to learn something new, it seems hard at first. And humans are excellent at procrastinating.

    Let us bless our stubborn perseverance!

        Leta

September 14--The Eye of the Beholder

Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts.  --Charles Dickens

    Dickens describes a very nurturing and nourishing way to live.

    A few years ago, I literally went overnight from "I can't paint" to "Sure I can, it's not rocket science." I've taken a bunch of painting workshops at City Arts, and I've displayed my efforts here on the blog. I did Zentangle drawings for my most recent book. I painted a bunch of barn quilts during the pandemic, which solidified my love of straight lines. For the longest time, I did not like anything I created. I was too critical. Taking on painting as a hobby has relieved me of that self-critical nature.

    Someone said, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." I say, "So is ugly." Below is the second clay pot I have finished painting. I give it a "90% ugly." I give myself credit for stepping "outside my box" and not doing straight lines. I like the glitter paint that is on the yellow spots. It will look just fine with a plant in it. It is more interesting than a plain clay pot. I am completely OK with designating it as ugly. I'm not sure what I was going for, but I think I missed it. Anyway, I bought two more pots and saucers at an estate sale on Thursday, so stay tuned for what I will come up with next. I am undaunted!

    Painting is an adventure, and I like that!

        Leta

September 13--SUPERCALIFRAGILISTICEXPIALIDOCIOUS!!!!!!!

Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day.  --A. A. Milne

    And babies leave the womb when they are darn good and ready!

    I now have a no-doubt precocious grandbaby #2, a boy!!!! Luca is a big brother now. Will he want to keep his new little brother around? Time will tell. 

    The newest little godling in our family is Remy Quinn Hardin, born on September 11, on my mother's birthday. My mother's name was Madeline, and she passed in 1979, so she never got to see her two grandsons delivered by me. She was there last night at the birth though, because my son told me their first nurse's name was Madeline. Mom wanted to help her great-grandson into the world. How cool is that!?!?!?!

    Remy weighed in at 7lb, 11oz. According to his dad, Remy is perfect. Well, of course he is!! I've seen a couple photos so far, and I would wholeheartedly agree. Remy's mom did an excellent job raising him from an embryo and bringing him into the world for us.
    We will go see Remy and family in a couple weeks after things have settled down a bit. 

    Happy Grammie!

        Leta

September 12--The Disease of Fear and Violence

Most of the time, all you have is the moment, and the imperfect love of the people around you.  --Anne Lamott

    Still awaiting the grandbaby!

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    These are the words of Shane Claiborne: 

Violence is contagious. Violence begets violence.… Pick up the sword and die by the sword. You kill us and we’ll kill you. There is a contagion of violence in the world; it’s spreading like a disease.

    It is quite clear to me that a vote for Trump is a vote for spreading the disease of violence. He has demonstrated it in every appearance, ranging from mocking a disabled person to promising to go after anyone who is disloyal to him. His whole message is based in fear and violence. 

    Is this what you want for your future and your children's future?

    It is incomprehensible to me that ANY woman could vote for Trump. His misogynistic behavior is quite evident, and he and his old white male cronies have no interest in women having any rights. 

    Any vote for Trump, "in my book," is an act of treason to the U.S. and the Constitution and everything that has already made America great. This would be either a willful traitor (I'm rich and I want to stay rich; Trump will support that) or an ignorant traitor (somehow convinced to believe his lies, proving the failure of our public education system). Willful or ignorant traitor? I can't come up with a choice of which is worse. 

    Haven't we had enough violence? Let's go for love, no matter how imperfect.

        Leta

Let's make our country for ALL!

September 11--Waiting...

There is not love of life without despair about life.  --Albert Camus

    Well, life begins and life ends. I restate Brian McLaren's definition of grief: grief is love persisting when what we love is passing away. Another way to look at the Camus quote is in this spiritual wisdom: everything has a lifespan. Nothing stays the same, and generally we don't care for that, but oh, well--there is the despair. 

    Right now I am wildly swinging between love and despair. The new grandbaby is due any day now, LOVE OF LIFE. Not knowing what's happening moment-to-moment (they are in Colorado) has me in a concurrent state of anxious despair. We don't know if the baby is a boy or girl, so there's extra excitement over the surprise. September 11 was my mother's birthday, so it would be cool for her great grandbaby to arrive today. 

    Stay tuned!!

        Leta

Barney is really good at waiting...

September 10--Love Evolves

When you love someone you do not love them, all the time, in the exact same way, from moment to moment. It is an impossibility. It is a lie to pretend to. 
--Anne Morrow Lindbergh

    Let's start out with "you do not love them all the time." Note that I removed a comma. 😉😉 The folks I love the most--yep, I do not love them all the time. Or maybe I always love them but sometimes I don't like them. 

    Let's put the comma back in. (By the way, there is a great book for grammar/punctuation nerds titled "Eats, Shoots & Leaves" by Lynne Truss. Note that the comma after "Eats" is quite meaningful.) The quote above makes me think of the "5 Love Languages" by Gary Chapman. To summarize, we love by 1) quality time, 2) words of affection, 3) acts of service, 4) physical touch, and 5) gifts. Any good relationship is probably an ongoing, changing combination of those five actions. I can look at my marriage and see that those have changed over time. I would say that now our primary "language" with each other is #3. It works for us.

    When you love someone, being able to adapt to change is a very important skill!

        Leta

At Botanica in Wichita

September 9--Wonders!

Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.  --Carl Sagan

    Consider our Universe--apparently infinite in every way, thereby giving us unlimited exploration and learning opportunities. And right where you are, your own body, is the same--an unending learning opportunity. Certainly science has discovered much about our universe and the human body, but there is still much more that we don't know. 

    I realize that Carl Sagan was the really-big-picture-Universe guy. But I have opened up a new world for myself with the simple idea of painting clay pots, combining my love of painting and plants. I googled "painted clay pots" and an incredible array of ideas scrolled before me. I even ordered some holographic glitter paints (which excite me to no end--I LOVE sparkles!!). Stay tuned for pot #2. (Pot #1 photo is on Sept 2 post.)

    There are always new worlds to explore if we remain open.

        Leta

Sparkles!!! 😀😀

September 8--Grieving Our Natural World

Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.  --Ralph Waldo Emerson

    Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation of September 5 is titled "Fall in Love With A Place." The idea is to have somewhere in nature where one becomes intimately aware of all its nuances, gifts, and challenges so that one is willing to work to sustain it. My "place" is Alan Seeger Natural Area in central PA. Another is my backyard garden, and I do put in quite a bit more effort there. 

    Brian McLaren offers these words relative to our grief regarding our abuse of nature:

Through the years, I’ve been involved in a lot of different areas of activism and so often what sustains us and motivates us in our activism work is anger. That’s legitimate because wherever we see injustice, we ought to be angry. But anger … can toxify our motivations if anger is all that’s driving us. That’s why I think it helps often for us to trace our anger back to grief... and then to trace our grief to love. It’s because we love something that we feel grief when it’s threatened. In fact, one of my favorite definitions of grief is that grief is love persisting when what we love is passing away. What you love, you try to save, and that’s why so many of us see the natural world around us with such tenderness, with such grief, sometimes with such anger, because what we love is passing away.

    I love McLaren's definition of grief. I have experienced considerable grief over the past couple of years, and I think that's true for the rest of humanity also. 

        Leta

A mossy decaying tree stump
in Alan Seeger Natural Area, PA

September 7--Bless Our Trees

Trees that are slow to grow bear the best fruit.  --Moliere

    When we moved into our home in 1985, all the trees in the neighborhood were spindly little saplings. I could barely wait to get trees planted in our yard. That happened in 1990. Back then I did not dream that we would be in the same home nearly 40 years later, but here we are and the trees that remain are big. I went from a sunny yard with a thriving vegetable garden to a shady one with ornamental plants only. Disease, age and/or storm damage have forced the removal of several of ours and our neighbors trees, and I'm back to growing some vegetables. Many folks in the neighborhood planted silver maples because they grow fast. Those are the ones that are also failing the soonest. 

    I grew up in central PA surrounded by literally millions of trees. I was a "tree-hugger" before that was even a term. And yes, the slow growers thrive for the longest time.  

    A tree's shade is priceless in our hot Kansas summers. 

        Leta

My "tree heaven"--
Alan Seeger Natural Area in PA

September 6--Is Pain Useful?

Be patient and tough; someday this pain will be useful to you.  --Ovid

    Being human, I would prefer to avoid pain. Times in life accompanied by great pain generally don't seem useful in the moment. Alas, humans, including me, tend to change only when the pain reaches a certain level. As I ponder this quote, I can see where pain has been extremely useful to me. 

    Back in 1996, I had a bout of horrid back pain. Instead of having surgery, I elected bed-rest for nearly six weeks, and it did heal. That was no small challenge for a working husband and two young children. Patience was the primary "medicine." That pain was very useful--I vowed to get in shape and stay in shape so that it would not happen again. I have kept that promise to myself. 

    Pain on every level led me into 12-Step recovery. The pain of losing loved ones has led me to understanding and compassion relative to grief. The verbal abuse I experienced growing up was the major instigator of my spiritual journey. 

    I'm not ready to say "bring it on!" to pain, but yes, it has been a useful messenger.

        Leta

September 5--Expectations

Whatever it is you're seeking won't come in the form you're expecting. 
--Haruki Murakami

    I've worked hard the past few years to give up any sort of expectations, because they have led me frequently in the past into disappointments large and small. It is, however, impossible for me to give up expectations, at least so far. I try to remember to add "this or something better" to my anticipated results. 

    I confess that this topic has reduced me to tears, taking me briefly back down the "rabbit hole" of disappointment and depression I have recently climbed out of. I guess a good soul-rinsing was in order--not what I was expecting this morning, but healing nonetheless. 

    This is a good reminder to keep moving, breathe and go with the flow.

        Leta

September 4--Go Outside!

Know your own happiness. You want nothing but patience--or give it a more fascinating name, call it hope.  --Jane Austen

    "Hope" sits better in my psyche than "patience." I am hopeful, but thoughts of patience make me realize how impatient I usually am. 

    I had the most wonderful experience on Labor Day morning. I took my yoga mat and MELT roller out on our deck and practiced. It was a lovely, cool, sunny morning with just a light breeze. There was birdsong and insect chatter. Distant traffic noise was picking up. The garden is lovely, especially our wildly exuberant volunteer sunflowers (see below). I even enjoyed my artwork as five of my barn quilts are hanging on our back yard shed. Practicing on the deck is a treat I shall repeat with our lovely fall weather coming on. 

    Consider your options--maybe a change is in good order today!

        Leta

Too full of flowers to stay upright!

September 3--Settling?

It's a funny thing about life. If you refuse to settle for anything less than the best, that's what it will give you.  --W. Somerset Maugham

    It's a funny thing about life--the idea of settling came to me last week as something I might consider. I even did some journaling about it. I think the practice of settling is different for each individual. Here's one example, for a very wealthy person: "I want my own castle, but I'll settle for a mansion." 

    I'm more in the range of "I want diamonds, but I'll settle for cubic zirconia." I also have within me a drive to and for simplicity--less stuff and fewer complications in life. I'm not sure how simplicity and settling get intertwined. There are some circumstances in my life that are not ideal, over which I have little or no control. Therefore I simply have to settle into those, accept (even though I don't care for them), and move on with life. 

    Gratitude seems to be a good antidote for settling. Most of the time I can stay focused on my in-hand blessings rather than my unmet fantasies. 

    There's more to ponder here, I see. 

        Leta

September 2--Stillness Opens Us

We do not need to go out and find love; rather, we need to be still and let love discover us.  --John O'Donohue

    Only in stillness can we connect deeply with the love within us, our natural, organic state. 

    Painting is one of the ways that I can use stillness. I have no expectations of my artwork residing in a gallery someday. I am very content to piddle around with paints and please myself. I love the open spiritual feeling I get when I sit down at my craft table to add paint to a project. My current project is experimenting with painting clay pots, combining my love of painting and plants. Below is my first creation--note my love of straight lines 😉😉 The plant is a Rattlesnake Plant, calathea lancifolia. I noticed that this plant's leaves reach upward toward the stars at nighttime and relax back open in the daylight. 

    Happy Labor Day! This is an excellent day to enjoy stillness.

        Leta

September 1--Patience, NOW!

That is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great. When it comes to one, it comes as naturally as sleep.  --Willa Cather

    The theme in "Daily Love" for September is patience.  Are you kidding me?!?!?! I have another grandbaby on the way mid-month. I stayed calm through August but there's no stopping me now--I can hardly wait for the call!! Even the parents don't know if the new little one is a boy or a girl. I love surprises!

    Jittery excitement aside, I enter September with some trepidation. I love autumn and cooler temperatures. Gardening becomes pleasurable again. Simulated patient work is resuming. Yet I've had 95% of my rough spots in life in September, so I'm always a little wary. I am determined, focusing on my intentions, to make this a good month. And how could it be otherwise with a new grandbaby arriving!?!? And I'm starting the month with pool fun and game-playing with friends. 

    With patience, September shall flow with ease and grace.

        Leta

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