I think both my friend and Martha are on to something!
Here's to finding the good....
I had a long, rambly chunk of text for this month’s blog. Then I saw what I was really trying to do was share what came to me on my birthday in November: a simplified meditation. One that’s taken me years to find, one pared down to the essence I’ve been cluttering with way too many words:
Love in, Love out.
Every winter morning, I begin the day by starting the fire. I then sit and breathe in, breathe out, while it builds. Breathe in, Love in. Breathe out, Love out.
That’s capital-L Love. The divine stuff. It’s what I want to take in. It’s what I want to give out.
So if you’re looking for a simple breathing meditation, do try this one. I’ve been practicing it daily for over two months, and my serenity has reset. Highly recommend.
Each year for Christmas, I look for a glass ornament that represents a bit of our life. A few years ago, it was a corn dog in honor of our first compromise. And now we have...bacon & eggs! Our winter weekend breakfast of choice.
Here's to the little things (especially the ones involving bacon).
Merry, merry & happy, happy!
Though I didn’t grow up observing the tradition of Advent, I became more aware of it while attending graduate school at the turn of the millennium. My Catholic neighbor—also in the poetry program—told me she liked to engage a reading project for the December days leading up to Christmas. She inspired me to read the 24 books of Homer’s Odyssey.
I enjoyed that practice so much, I’ve been celebrating Advent in some way ever since. Some years, it’s a reading project. Other years a painting or writing project. For one particularly hard year, I simply committed to walking a minimum of four miles, 24 days in a row, to keep my spirit, mind, and body focused on the goodness I chose to believe was coming. (It was.)
In our commercialized world, Advent has largely been reduced to a cardboard calendar with chocolates hidden behind little, numbered doors. But Advent is so much richer than even the finest chocolates.
The word Advent comes from the Latin adventus, which means coming. And Advent shares a root with adventure, too. (Which, come to think of it, made my first Advent project of reading Homer’s adventures a good fit!)
Advent is a time of expectation. And it’s also time to ask ourselves questions in anticipation of the goodness we wait for. Last December, I painted a watercolor and wrote a poem-question each day of Advent.
And…I combined them all into a little booklet, Questions for Advent. My first limited-edition writing project.
The details:
If you’d like a copy of Questions for Advent (or three!):
The price covers shipping within continental US. (Apologies to folks elsewhere! The mailing cost is more than the booklet.)
To order, email me with your desired quantity, and I’ll send you payment info. I’ll fill orders as they come in until the booklets have found homes. [*Update: the booklets have all found their homes.]
I hope you enjoy these paintings and poem-questions, and I hope this little booklet will be something you enjoy for many Advents to come.
May your quest and adventure be good.
Love,
Anna
O autumn berry,
growing on and on,
you are a small
but sweet taste
of the possible.
For our annual autumn road trip, my husband and I drove north to Canada. I’d long wanted to visit Lake Louise (note: that’s not it in the photo). It was gorgeous, but the experience of its beauty was a bit dampened by the hordes of fellow tourists also wanting to see it.
Earlier that day, we had stopped by Bow Lake. That is it in the photo. It was gorgeous, too, but relatively uncrowded. And so much more peaceful.
The contrast reminded me to keep looking past my expectations. To be open to things and places and ideas I’ve never even heard about. And to cultivate peace every chance I get—it comes in handy in hordes of people or circumstances. Or anything!
For the last few years, my survive-August strategy has been to paint a small watercolor daily. A week or so into this month, and I started painting tiny eggs.
This one is barely an inch tall. These little things bring me great, big joy! And they remind me of all the goodness waiting to enter this world.
May our creative work hatch forth in every season.
