Sunday Morning Senses

A distant motor hums

birds singing

trees swish in the breeze

 

Flowers blooming

an ant crawls

wispy clouds float across a blue sky

 

Fresh cut grass

an indistinct scent of flowers

damp wood mulch

 

Stiff, smooth pen between my fingers

the coolness of metal against the back of my bare arms

a faint breeze

 

Rich, flavorful herbal coffee

cocoa lip balm

a hint of floral somehow mingled in

 

© Julie Rehnelt 2019

 

~

 

Just a few observations as I checked in with my five senses this morning; grounding me in the present moment.

 

I don’t have a photo to share from my observations this morning, but here’s a random picture I snapped earlier this week as I enjoyed some peaceful moments by a stream…

 

Wishing you peaceful moments today…

 

 

✿~Peace & Love~✿

Welcome June

Each morning as I sit down with my coffee and pick up my gratitude journal to write, the first thing I write down is the date.  Dates often evoke certain memories in me.  Does this ever happen to you?  Earlier this morning as I wrote June 1st, 2019, my first thought was “Welcome June!”  I love the beginning of a new month, and I love the month of June!

Here in Minnesota, June typically means that the danger of frost has indeed passed and gardening season truly gets underway.  The temps warm up, but it’s usually not quite up to the harsh heat and humidity of summer yet.  It’s like October in reverse, when the temps begin to cool, but not yet to the point of a hard frost and the days are still warm and sunny.  Not to mention, October is when the leaves start changing. Yep… October and June are my favorite months out of the year.  And September and May are close behind.  But sometimes September is still too hot and May is still too cold.  But May is a freaking bloomfest, so it’s okay that it’s still a bit cold.  I actually don’t mind the cold.  Maybe my favorite months are October and May, but I love June too.  Anyways, I’m rambling now…

Right after I had my “Welcome June!” thought, my very next thought was “June 3rd of this year would have been my 30th wedding anniversary.”  Ugh, didn’t want to go there.  Especially since I’m about to write in my gratitude journal.  But I decided to stop there and allow myself to ponder, to check in with myself and allow whatever emotions to arise.  Needless to say, there were a wide range of emotions, even with it being nearly 10 years since we split …

I’m not going to exhaust myself or bother you in relaying all of them, but I did want to share a text I got from my sister when I shared with her about it, because although it was just a simple thing she said, it felt quite profound to me and it was a good reminder.

Just for a bit of background… The 8:05 I have at the beginning of my text to her is a weird thing between my sister and I.  Usually it’s at 8:14 or 11:27 – our birthday dates that we’ll send a text to each other.  I don’t know why we do it, it’s just a thing we do if we happen to notice the time on the clock.  I almost always get a text from her at 8:14 in the morning, and you’ll notice her reply is at 8:15.  I guarantee you that she picked up her phone at 8:14 to text me, when she saw my text at 8:05 and then it took her a minute to type.  Speaking of the 8:05, once in a while we’ll still put the time at the beginning of other texts for no reason, just to be extra weird…

What I love the most is the end of her text – “Wait, it’s only June 1st, it sounds like you are in the past and the future at the same time… please join me in the present.”  Gosh you guys, how often do we do that?  Seriously!  Still!  Even though we know that the present is where to live and be.  I’m constantly grounding myself in the present moment.

But the mind… it’s always going isn’t it?  And we need our minds.  Haha oh God knows we do!  And I’m thankful for my mind.  I’m thankful it works properly.  And that is not to be taken for granted – some people’s minds don’t work properly, and they suffer so.  Sometimes we can cause ourselves a different type of suffering too, by allowing our minds to transport us into the past or the future and then lingering there too long.

Do you know what I’m realizing right now though that was kinda cool about all this too?  When I said that I allowed myself to ponder, to check in with myself and allow whatever emotions to arise… I was actually more of an observer this time.  And that’s the key!  I’ve heard/read many times that we should allow these things (our emotions/thoughts) to arise, but to be an observer of them.  And that is actually more of how this was.  I am not usually an observer of my emotions, I usually feel every. single. one.  Omygosh am I evolving?  Or maybe it was the text from my sister that snapped me out of it haha!  😉

When I came back to the present moment I noticed a Catbird mewing.  There is this one Catbird who always comes around and kinda sounds like its saying my name… “Jewy, Jewy.”  Sounds like Julie to me.  So then I sent this and my sister, who also has Catbirds at her place too…

I truly lol’d at that last bit!  For a good couple of minutes afterward too!  I love my sister’s sense of humor!  It matches my own!  I’m giggling now…

Maybe that can be a reminder… whenever I heard a Catbird saying my name I can check in with myself and make sure I’m staying in the present moment…

Birds all over the world are calling my name right now!  Hahahaha!

 

Welcome June!  🌼  Here’s to staying in the present…

 

 

 

✿~Peace & Love~✿

 

Mosaics

 

“We are mosaics-

pieces of light, love, history, stars-

glued together

with magic and music and words.”

~ Anita Krizzan

 

I came across the above quote the other day while out shopping with my daughter and granddaughter and it brought tears to my eyes.  I don’t know why, but it just really struck a chord.

I’ve been running a bit on empty these days, working at two different jobs and only having one day off per week.  But I have found a few moments here and there along the way to fill my tank.  Coming across this quote was one of them, it stopped me right in my tracks  – I don’t ever want to get so busy that I lose sight of what a miraculous gift life truly is…  Every. Single. Breath…

Wishing you moments of beauty, awareness and discovery as you go through this day…

 

 

 

✿~Peace & Love~✿

Ashes of Gratitude

 

Grateful words whispered

while incense burns

leaving behind ashes of gratitude

in a small clay urn

 

© Julie Rehnelt 2016

 

For the past several years, I’ve had the morning practice of lighting an incense match and using those few moments while the match burns to thank God for all of the blessings in my life.  Some days, when life is being difficult, it can be a bit of a struggle to come up with things, and I always want to be authentic and real.  But even in the midst of difficulty, there are still things to be grateful for…  Even if it’s just simply being thankful for a nose that can smell the sweet aroma of the incense –  mine is vanilla scented so it smells pretty yummy.  🙂

Sometimes the simplest of things can bring us great pleasure when we’re mindful of them.  The simple pleasures of all we can experience through our five senses – see, smell, touch, taste, and hear, are often easily taken for granted, or go unnoticed, especially when many today are moving at warp speed through life, or going through terrible difficulties.  But it pays to slow down, and/or to shift our focus off our difficulties and onto all that we have to be grateful for.  Not in denial of life’s sometimes difficult circumstances, but in awareness that life in itself is a gift, regardless of our circumstances.   I know that may sound cliche, but I don’t say it lightly.

Ashes are often thought of as something negative, but when I look at my little clay bowl of ashes sitting on the table beside me, I see a huge reminder of all the thousands of things I have to be grateful for.  My ashes of gratitude.

 

Wishing all of you much happiness today, and as always…

 

 

 

✿~Peace & Love~✿

Always There

 

“Around us, life bursts with miracles – a glass of water, a ray of sunshine, a leaf, a caterpillar, a flower, laughter, raindrops.  If you live in awareness, it’s easy to see miracles everywhere.  Each human being is a multiplicity of miracles.  Eyes that see thousands of colors, shapes, and forms; ears that hear a bee flying, or a thunderclap; a brain that ponders a speck of dust as easily as the entire cosmos; a heart that beats in rhythm with the heartbeat of all beings.  When we are tired and feel discouraged by life’s daily struggles, we may not notice these miracles, but they are always there.”

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

 

~

 

I love this thought and resonate with it so much.  It’s a good reminder for me when I’m ‘tired and feel discouraged by life’s daily struggles.’

 

May you notice some of life’s miracles today.

 

 

✿~Peace & Love~✿

Being Peace

 

“If we are peaceful, if we are happy, we can smile and blossom like a flower, and everyone in our family, our entire society, will benefit from our peace.”

                                                                                                    ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

 

~

 

Does it sound strange to say that I crave peace?  Like, isn’t ‘craving’ something in and of itself, sort of the complete opposite of being peaceful?  Leave it to me to be a contradiction.  😉

But I do – crave peace.  And I have peace, much of the time.  But sometimes life just heaps so much weight onto my shoulders, there’s so much required of me, so many things to do, so many people that need me, my knees begin to buckle under the strain, until finally, my strength gives out.  Splat, there I am sprawled out on the ground, I’m not any good to anyone like that am I?

I don’t do it on purpose, I just pick up things along the way.  And sometimes I let the people I love put things on me too, because they have needs and I want to help.  But the best way for me to truly help, is for me to first have peace within myself, because then I ‘can smile and blossom like a flower, and everyone in my family, my entire society, will benefit from my peace.’

And I know what I need to do to have that, I just get caught up in all the other stuff sometimes.  Well, that, and my erratic hormones.  Maybe it’s really balance that I crave.  😉

 

Wishing you a day of balance, a bit of what you crave, and lots of…

 

 

 

✿~Peace & Love~✿