Thank You. by Patresa Hartman

On the day before the year turns, I feel wise and strong, sensing divine purpose in where I've been and alight looking forward. The 365 days before become a collection of lessons; the days ahead streak ready acres of limitless possibility. Possibility kicks ass (Many apologies to my mother for using the word "ass" in a public forum.).

I came to YOG late, invited to round out a shifting Gratitude Team. What an opportunity for big soul work! Thank you, Ms. Kat, for inviting me. And thank you, Ms. Barb and Ms. Angie, for welcoming me so warmly. High fives all around.

There are two key things I believe I have learned in this process: 1) Gratitude is a choice; and 2) Gratitude opens you to peace and joy. Peace and joy also kick ass.

I like math and think numbers are chronically underestimated. They are interesting and expose dynamic layers of the universe when tapped. I like that a -5 and a +5 are equal distances from zero; the concept implies that every number contains two parallel frequencies. Likewise, I think of each moment of my life as a point, a distance from zero, and therefore containing equal opportunities for negativity or positivity. With this acknowledgment, I can no longer believe that life is a series of events that happen to me. I can choose: wallow in the negative frequency; or celebrate the positive. I am learning there is joy everywhere -- in every moment -- if I only choose to look.

My friend, Mary, introduced me this year to a mantra inspired by Morrnah Simeona's teachings of an ancient Hawaiian healing system, Ho'oponopono. Simeona taught that we are all connected and therefore all responsible for one another. The external world is a projection of our internal world, and so the more peace we feel, the more peace there will be. (And the more peace there will be, the more peace we will feel.) The mantra, explained in Joe Vitale and Hew Len's Zero Limits, goes like this:

I love you.
Please forgive me.
I'm sorry.
Thank you.

I find it appropriate that the last line is "Thank you." There is a particular openness and peace that is communicated via gratitude. It is acceptance and surrender to something bigger than our immediate understanding. This concept is alive in every spiritual walk. Saying thank you for everything -- the bad and the good -- is an important acknowledgement that we are part of the universe, not separate, that the universe is ultimately good, and it is providing what it must. (I think it works just as well to say "God" instead of "universe.") I feel a lot of my own personal turmoil comes from resistance. There are things in the world I do not like, people I do not like, things about myself I do not like. When I do not accept these elements, I close myself not only to them, but everything else -- including love and joy. When I am closed, I feel isolated and angry, even superior.

Even in times of sadness, when I sense and accept my rightfully small place in the natural world, I feel open and connected. There is peace in this tiny shift, and sadness reconfigures. It hops frequencies and becomes joy.

So for 2009, I wish for you:

to choose joy
to choose peace
to choose gratitude
...in response to all things.

Thank you.

Comfort and Joy by Barbara Quinn

Tidings of Comfort and Joy. That line from the old Christmas carol, God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, has a lot to be said for it. This time of year has me reflecting on the meaning of those words.

I want to bring glad tidings of comfort and joy. How can I do that?

I can hug the ones I love. I like hugs. They tend to make me feel better, make me feel all warm and soft inside. Who can't benefit from a hug? I’m going to make a special effort to hug for a beat longer when I greet my friends and relatives this season.

I will try to notice people, really see them. What color are their eyes? The rush rush of the season makes it easy to try to get through a task instead of embracing it, makes it easy to not see a sales clerk, a soldier home on leave, a waitress, a cashier. I can easily wish them season's greetings, the best of the season, and mean it. Perhaps for an instant that will bring them joy.

Where do I find comfort? Certainly in the arms of my loved ones. Sometimes in a piece of rich dark chocolate. But I find it in many other places and it is out there ready and waiting for even the most desperate of us. I have found comfort in the words of a good book, in the touch of a friend, in the roof over my head, and the food on my table. I have found it in my belief that the future can hold goodness and light and that can carry me through the darkness.

I count myself lucky to have known the joy of comforting a small child, and of sharing good times with family and friends.

I am grateful for simple things that give me joy and peace such as for the fact that even after over 35 years my husband is my partner, and he is willing to be leaned on. Joy is that little lighthearted feeling that spreads through my chest, so fleeting but so real I want to grab it and hold it forever. But like dance, it must be experienced, and cannot be captured. It can be found in a job well done, in a smile well-sent, in a dance of the spirit.

May you comfort someone in need, and may you in turn be comforted when you are in need. May your joys be many. May you dance.

Comfort and joy. To you.

Unexpected Gifts by Angie Ledbetter

Have you ever noticed how when you're really really down in the dumps or past worn out, that if something or someone comes along to lift you up, even if unintentionally, it makes all the difference in your attitude and outlook? It can be something as simple as a store clerk being extra helpful, a friend with whom you've grown apart who suddenly contacts you and says he/she misses you, a gorgeous burst of color from a tree changing its leaves from fall to winter foliage, a family member giving you a spontaneous hug, a stranger offering directions or picking up a package you've dropped on the floor, a bad drive in traffic offset by a glorious rainbow's appearance.

There's something so sweet about these incidents; a gift from an unexpected source or a cosmic pat on the back made sweeter because you didn't expect it or even know it was coming your way.

I'm exceptionally grateful today for these gifts offered by nature; for the people who extend a hand or kind words (knowingly or not); for those things which plump up your faith in human nature and reassure you God is looking on. Without them, life would be filled with a lot more black and white one dimensional pictures instead of an album of masterful works of art.

Healing Power O' Dog. by Patresa Hartman

I love my dog.

Her name is Kaya, and I love her purity, her complete lack of complication. I love the smell of her feet and the soft of her ears and her wet wet nose. I love her keen observation and her unwavering enthusiasm for: walks, treats, the garden hose, the vacuum, getting up in the morning, air through the car window, policing the cats, and voicing her concerns to the collie mix that walks the block.

I love her loathing of all things grooming, that she is far more content to be smelly and knotted than peach-scented and blow-dried. I love that she will not submit to other dogs -- that they expect her to, because she is pretty and a girl, but she flatly refuses. I love that she feels no shame in her tastes and tendencies. I gave her an apple slice yesterday and she left it untouched on the kitchen floor. Hours before, I had shoo'd her away from the litter box where she likes to snack. She sees no trouble with this -- this preference for poop over apples -- and she doesn't care who knows it.

We're connected, she and I. Wherever I am, so is she. She looks at me so often with a distinct plea for "Next? What now? I'm waiting." And I feel such responsibility for her. Which is why Thursday afternoon, when I came home sideways and all out of whack, I noticed her own sideways lethargy and felt so sorry.

I am up to my neck, presently. It is inconsequential stuff and stuff, so I don't know why I bother to spin over it (such a waste of my joy); but there it is, regardless. My seams have been splitting, and literally, my class folders are spilling. Ungraded, unplanned, unorganized papers are getting caught in the zipper of my bag. I am forgetting everything. I am waking up early to collect my thoughts and then walking out the door without them. My dog is feeling it, too.

When I came home Thursday after several hours demonstrating the growing ineptitude I'm feeling, I noticed how sad she looked. How put out. How bored and dismissed. She sighed dramatically, and had she words, I believe she would have said, simply, "Park" or "Air" or "Run." I listened.

I changed my clothes and grabbed her leash from the nail on the porch. We climbed into the car, windows open, and drove thirty minutes to Jester Park where there are trees and trails and lakes and creeks. We parked near the sand by the water, and I left the leash in the car.

She ran.

She stopped occasionally to drop and roll in things that smelled bad, or to charge into the lake and lap water that looked contagious, or to pull large burrs out of her velcro hair. She paused momentarily to make sure I was still there, to change her course if I changed my course. But she always ran again.

Kaya smiles when she runs, and it makes me giggle. There is an exploding glee, a reckless, full-speed, balls-to-the-walls about her when she is given the world without limits. She finds great joy in the freedom to be who and what she is -- a dog on the loose in the wild. The beauty of our connection is that it balances us both.

Positivity. by Patresa Hartman

You know what I think is fantastic?

Positivity.

I do not mean the oblivious, falsely enthusiastic, step aerobics and pat-the-bunny, cute like buttons positivity. I mean the kind that comes genuinely from decision -- acknowledgement that there is bad and rotten, but that there is also choice to actively search for what is good (because there is always good). (Always).

My body has developed extra sensitivity toward negative vibes in the last year or two. I am increasingly aware of the effects of nay-saying and complaining, flaw-focusing and arm crossing, blind refusals and failure-expecting, on my physical person.

I feel it in my shoulders.
It tugs downward at the corners of my mouth.
It leadens my step.
The atmosphere grows thick and impenetrable with it.

Conversely, I have become increasingly aware of the buoyancy that comes with surrounding myself with people who seek light and celebrate possibility. I want to sit across tables from daring positivity-excavators, share desk drawers, sip wine with these potential-finders. I want to offer them my brain and my brawn, share air and ideas and punch out holes in darkness. I want to join forces and illuminate.

I feel it in myself -- the joy and openness I feel when I high-five success and breathe patiently through imperfection. It isn't easy. All too often, I find myself crabbing when students do not do what I want them to do, when my husband does not choose as I would choose, when the earth does not rotate in sync with my step. I feel my eyes narrow and forehead crease with perceived slights. Everything goes heavy, and I do not like the sound of my own voice. I do not like that in a moment of disconnect, I slip easily into negativity. I let frustration and pride usurp a space that compassion and grace should unconditionally fill.

It is not about being false or naive. It is about understanding the nature of energy. I must remember the effects of the energy I send, because I understand well the effects of the energy I receive.

Living La Vida Loca by Barbara Quinn

My husband is traveling for a couple of days which means I have some extra time alone. I’ve been married almost 35 years and I know how lucky I am to have hit the love lottery. I enjoy our couple time together.

But when Tom travels it means I can drop into my crazed artist phase. I guard these times and make sure not to clutter them up. I may skip a meal or two, eat breakfast for dinner, stay up late, and sleep in. I can forget about all the daily errands, avoid making or answering phone calls, let the laundry pile up, and the bed stay unmade. And I write till my eyes glaze over and nothing makes sense. Then I catch some sleep and start all over again. It's a productive time that I enjoy. It's the sleep part that gets a little rocky when he leaves.

When I was first married I didn’t sleep right when my husband left on business. He never traveled that much, but every time he left I tossed and turned most of the night. Now when he is gone I have less trouble, especially if I move into the center of the bed and take the whole thing over. His pillow stays close to mine and I can breathe in his scent. That calms me and I eventually drift off when I'm really tired. But I still don't sleep the same without him there.


When he calls to say goodnight, he’s the one turning in. I turn on late night TV and eventually I may drop off, but I’m just as likely to hit the computer again. A real benefit is that if I don’t sleep enough at night, I can take a huge nap in the afternoon. It’s such a joy to be able to do that. Since I’m a night owl, when I’m on my own I do tend to stay up till all hours. In fact, it’s really good that Tom keeps me on more of a normal schedule. Being blissfully unaware of the time is truly one of my favorite states of being because that’s when I find I have the best focus, but I need someone to drag me back to the normally scheduled world. Otherwise I might permanently forget to comb my hair, change out my pajamas and leave the house. I'd stay up all night and sleep all day, slipping into vampire mode. I'm lucky to have a guy who puts me to sleep!