Wealth among traditional people is measured by having enough to give away … our word for the giveaway, minidewak, means “they give from the heart” … In the dance of the give-away, remember that the earth is a gift that we must passion on, just as it came to us.*
Robin Wall Kimmerer

That which came as a gift to me,
I am seeking to pass on.
It may look a little different now –
I’ve mixed it and shaped it together with other gifts I’ve received
over the years –
And it’s here for you,
If you wish to receive it.

The starting place for change is accepting oneself and taking an interest in one’s inner world.**

*Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass;
**Edward Deci’s Why We Do What We Do.

Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.*
Anne Lamott

Breathing in the scent of Mother Earth stimulates the release of the hormone oxytocin, the same chemical that promotes bonding between mother and child, between lovers.. Held in loving arms, no wonder we sing in response.**
Robin Wall Kimmerer

Where are your sanctuaries?
The places you step in to in order just to be – your
nature, walks, silent buildings, writing, painting, god …

*Anne Lamott’s Almost Everything;
**Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass.

[T]here is a fire you must tend to every day. The hardest one to take care of is the one right here. Your own fire, your spirit. We all carry a piece of that sacred fire within us. We have to honour it and care for it. You are the firekeeper.
Robert Wall

I have learned to be content with whatever I have.  I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need.**
The Apostle Paul

It is possible to forget the secret, to forget
how to live gratefully, so I will have to keep
writing it out:
If you stick with writing,
you will get better and better,
and you can start to learn the important lessons:
who you really are,
and how all of us can live in the face of death,
and how important it is to pay much better attention to life,
which is why we are here.^
We each are capable of creating a beautiful story,
Forged through humility, gratitude and faithfulness
A story that will help us see differently:
Both the gaze that sees and the
object that is seen
construct themselves in the one act of vision.
So much depends on how we see things.^^
I suspect we will find that life-in-all-its-fullness will open to us,
no matter what:
Be joyful though you have considered
all the facts.*^

*Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass;
**Philippians 4:11-12;
^Anne Lamott’s Almost Everything;
^^John O’Donohue’s Divine Beauty;
*^Wendell Berry; Anne Lamott’s Almost Everything.

for we are story makers, not just storytellers*
Robin Wall Kimmerer

To forgive yourselves and others constantly is necessary. Not only is everyone screwed up,, but everyone screw up.**
Anne Lamott

I think that allowing ourselves a new story may be
an act of forgiveness, a
new beginning,
Whether the story change is
major or minor.
There’s more than one
“Once upon a time” available to us,
Forgiveness being a larger story for
our personal tales to be held within,
So here I am,
Once again upon a time …

*Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass;
**Anne Lamott’s Almost Everything.

I had the thought
to occasionally post some doodles from the archives
of 2014 to the present for the
particular day.

You have travelled too fast over false ground;
Now your soul has come to take you back.
Take refuge in your senses, open up
To all the small miracles you rushed through.*
John O’Donohue

When I let go of the destination for a moment …
When I let go of the destination for a moment …
When I let go of the destination for a moment …
When I let go of the destination for a moment …
When I let go of the destination for a moment …
When I let go of the destination for a moment …
When I let go of the destination for a moment …

*John O’Donohue’s Benedictus: For One Who is Exhausted).

It’s a grand thing to get leave to live.*
Nan Shepherd

Your big break. Some people get one. Most people don’t. But if you’re reading this, it means that you’ve received more than one, perhaps a countless number of, little breaks.**
Seth Godin

I guess we’d all agree on how
it’s important to live before we die,
Given the biggest break of all –
That of being here.
The odds were stacked against us, but here we are
with daily options on how we want to live.
The Windigo is a Anishinaabe legendary monster that
exists to consume and consumes to exist,
But the more the Windigo ingests the hungrier it becomes:
Windigo is the name for that within us
which cares more for its own survival
than for anything else.^
Robin Wall Kimmerer sees the Windigo’s footprints
in all of our corporate and personal destructiveness:
industrially-blemished lakes, deforested
hillsides, coalmine-wasted
countryside, poisoned
waterways,
New kitchens replaced with
newer kitchens, Clothes
we never wear, food
going to waste.
The Windigo does not live, perhaps does not even survive, but
only exists:
What native people once sought to rein in,
we are now asked to unleash in a
systematic policy of sanctioned greed.^
None of us have failed to be taken in by this monster, but
there’s another part to our story –
Perhaps we have noticed how we recover when we give,
When we notice our talents, energies and values, turning
these outwards in giftedness to others, we find
life is richer.

*Philip Newell’s Sacred Earth, Sacred Soul;
**Seth Godin’s blog: Your big break;
^Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass.

When in doubt, come back to the stories.*
Chris Guillebeau

When we see in new ways and have the courage to speak it, we access a deep power of the soul.**
Philip Newell

Some have forgotten and wandered away
from their story,
Others have not explored theirs.
But we all have a story, the best place
to return to when we are lost.

*Chris Guillebeau’s The Happiness of Pursuit;
**Philip Newell’s Sacred Earth, Sacred Soul.