Lenten Gratitude {2} 🌿♥️🌿

Continuing my Lenten List of Gratitude ~

11. Mr. Kleon’s work has been opening my mind to possibly lately. And that’s a good thing.

12. Thinking on this quote I read with my 17 yo the other day, “A picture or poem, or the story of a noble deed, ‘finds’ us, we say. We, too, think that thought or live in that action, and, immediately, we are elevated and sustained. This is the sympathy we owe to our fellows, near and far off. If we have anything good to give, let us give it, knowing with certainty that they will respond. If we fail to give this Sympathy, if we regard the people about us as thinly small, unworthy thoughts, doing mean, unworthy actions, and incapable of better things, we reap our reward. We are really, though we are not aware it, giving Sympathy to all that is base in others, and thus strengthening and increasing their baseness: at the same time we are shutting ourselves into habits of hard and narrow thinking and living.” ~ Charlotte Mason, Ourselves

12. Thinking about creativity and how sometimes it’s hard to grasp that elusive ‘thing’ that’s haunting you and waiting to be born. How birth is beautiful and miraculous, yet it’s earthy, natural, and an everyday occurrence all over the world. These lyrics speak to that and here’s the music video which has stunning imagery about this tension. {click CC button, top right corner of video for English subtitles}

13. The flames, smell, colors, warmth, ritual of filling our indoor woodburner. I’ve been finding in the midst of the hard work of it and constantness of it, a beauty. Hmmm, this sounds like writing practice. 😬😩😂

14. Margin. Modern life is a snowball. I’m thankful when I remember to stop it and live counterculture for a bit. Run counterclockwise, Amy. One part of this can’t really change though. Relationships. Those you need to keep your toe dipped into.

15. This zany, high energy podcast. An encouraging online friend, Adrienne, recommended me to this resource!

16. Starting enjoying a new Shakespeare play, composer, and especially enjoying this unique artist with my children. So thankful for the moms in my homeschool group for sharing these riches.

17. For this this poem and animation. So peaceful!

18. For photography- snippets of light for dispelling darkness

19. Warmth: fires, slippers, hot showers, hot tea, steamy coffee, and comfy thrifted purple Scotland sweatshirts.

20. Changes of perspective to help me get outside of myself. For coming back to my mountain to climb with newness and freshness, or at least a deep breath. ♥️🌿

What’s fueling you? 🌿♥️🌿 Lots of love from the Ridge, Amy 💜🌿💜

Lenten Gratitude {1} 🌿♥️🌿

Florence Bird Sculpture – Aunt Marianne Buche, Healer

Even though my church tradition doesn’t include the observance of Lent, I find the church seasons helpful in my faith walk. I hope to use Lent as a time of conscious gratitude, close attention, and a listening heart and spirit. ♥️

1. Statues and their stories whispering in the sunlight

2. Used, magical bookshop filled with 40,000 dreams

3. 2,000 year old caves, drip-drips echoing, concentric circles of time, red ochre art of the past, both mysterious and timeless

4. Brokenness bringing the riot of beauty in the everyday out anew and afresh

5. February’s Peace Poem project bringing so much more to me than what I gave…gifts do that often, don’t they?

6. Meditating on these words from Wendell Berry, “…But I aspire downward. Flyers embrace the air, and I’m a man who needs something to hug. All my dawns cross the horizon and rise, from underfoot. What I stand for is what I stand on.”

7. Intricacies of nature, mind boggling

8. A little boy so concerned about his thumbs finding their way in his leather mittens

9. Beauty found in icy disappointment

10. Thinking on and thankful for this: “ When people speak of a beautiful sunset, do they hurriedly riffle through a book of photographs of sunsets or go in search of a sunset? No, you speak about the sunset by drawing on the many sunsets inside you…” Mr. Miyazaki goes on with more of this gorgeous thought in his book, Starting Point

May your Lenten journey or posture of prayerfulness be one of fruitfulness 🌿🌿🌿

Lots of love, Amy ♥️