i am grateful for a job that lets me write about gratitude!

my latest for beliefnet:

‘the ultimate gratitude list, from a-z’

i am grateful for:

1) virgin snow sidewalks under streetlights

2) the fluffy white drifting by my window

3) the amazing green soup recipe from yoga journal–thanks, ladeez!

4) candlelit yoga

5) the teacher coming up to me tonight while i was in a low lunge, arms raised, one knee on the floor, and saying, “can you untuck your toes?” and me saying “when i do it makes my knee unhappy” and her saying, “then you should do exactly what you’re doing. i love when people figure it out for themselves.” and then gently adjusting the rest of me.

6) sage

7) doppleganger week on facebook. i know, stupid, but kinda cool.

8) making veggie chili and actually taking my lunch to work. twice.

9) hanging out with someone and having time unspool so it feels like you’re in a time-free bubble where it’s just you, them, the immediate space around you, and the connection between you. i love that.

10) bright red toenails

11) that l. is keeping me informed with “the week”

12) the word lucidity

13) the amazing passage in “the psychedelic experiment” when the word “psychedelic” is invented:

“[Aldous] Huxley’s 1953 mescaline trip revealed many things, including the limitations of using the word psychomimetic to describe this experience. Yes, these drugs could mimic the psychotic state. They could give the user feelings of paranoia. But they could also promote positive inslight. They could reveal mystical realms. ‘Aldous and I decided that the words we were using for these strange chemical instruments were idiotic,’ [Humphrey] Osmond later recalled. ‘We wanted to encourage people to use them intelligently.’”

… “Huxley suggested phanerothyme, which meant “to make the soul visible,” along with the poem: “To make this trivial world sublime/Take half a gramme of phanerothyme.” Not bad, Osmond thought, but not quite right. It sounded a bit too botanical…. [Osmond] decided that psyche was more neutral than psycho, and then he came across the word delos, “to reveal.” There it was. Psychedelic would be the word, and Osmond’s little poem sealed the deal: “To fathom hell or soar angelic/Just take a pinch of psychedelic.”

i am grateful for…

1) the 5 rhythms class j. and i just went to. the gabrielle roth thing. here are the five (cribbed from here). the idea is these are five ways to move, dance, play music, be in the world:

• FLOWING – the fluid, continuous, grounded glide of our own movements
• STACCATO – the percussive, pulsing beat that shapes us a thousand different ways
• CHAOS – the rhythm of letting go, releasing into the catalytic wildness of our dance that can never be planned or repeated
• LYRICAL – the rhythm of trance, where the weight of self-consciousness dissolves, where we lighten up and disappear into our own uniqueness
• STILLNESS – the quiet emptiness, where gentle movements rise and fall, start and end, in a field of silence

2) moving, moving, moving

3) moving with other people

4) headbands that take all the hair out of my eyes

5) obama

6) brazil nuts

7) the feeling i had for a moment yesterday of sunshine in my heart

8) that the other j. is getting to go to india. yay for her and i can have another vicarious trip.

9) sparkliness

10) an invitation to be myself

11) water

12) health

13) la bella luna. full tonight. baroooooooooooooooooooooo

i am grateful for…

1) morning yoga in my building

2) acupuncture, which seems to have restored me to non-vitriolic sanity

3) actually looking for a bright side with some degree of sincerity when really, i’d prefer to just kick something and walk around with a cartoon cloud over my head

4) seeing s.’s awesome travel photos

5) sweet potatoes

6) venting buddies

7) men who blush

8) yoga/beach dreams that might come true

9) reading about the drug boyz in “the harvard psychedelic club,” about ram dass, huston smith, andrew weil, and timothy leary. and how while i was waiting for my dinner at a bar (lady-time burger-time) the guy next to me started talking about mushrooms just before he noticed what i was reading and just as i was reading a paragraph about a mushroom trip. as the bartender said, “trippy.”

10) pillows

11) eucalyptus

12) home

i am grateful for…

1) doing yoga with 200 yogis and elena brower under a giant whale skeleton at the moma. she integrated the space and art into the class, telling us to be aware of our own skeletal structures and how we can expand the space within those structures. the reminder that yoga teaches us how to create internal space when we feel bound or trapped or constricted. we can breathe into how we deal with uncomfortable poses and literally make space and time expand so that we can be more present, more compassionate and of better service by being better able to respond appropriately instead of reacting in self-defense. because when you have internal space like the kind you have when you’re in a moma gallery with 50-foot skylit ceilings and sky views everywhere, you can handle all that is hard to bear. there’s more room for grace, kindness, and presence. so damn cool.

2) marjorie nass, assisting elena, reminding our bodies with her hands to anatomically relax and open in ways that make such safe, good, intelligent sense.

3) another thing elena said–about the anusara instruction “side body long,” in which you focus on lengthening and expanding your side flanks. she said when we do this we step into our own sense of worthiness. and i could feel that. ribs expanded is hard because you are announcing yourself. “i am here, i am deserving of being here, in the world, and i will shine.” she added that when we do this, it is not necessary to feel seen, heard, acknowledged so constantly by others, that by claiming our own presence and worthiness, we claim ourselves. (i have quibbles in general with the whole–”enlightenment means not needing anyone” thing, but also agree that when we are a little more emotionally and psychically self-sufficient, we interact with each other so much more kindly and effectively; it’s so much easier to make space for others’ feelings and thoughts and ideas when we are not on a love-and-approval-seeking mission. also, we can give so much more fully and joyfully.)

4) lunch with the ladies

5) the best half-hour date ever

6) krishna das and sharon salzberg. so much chanting, meditating goodness, i don’t know where to begin. maybe with “bruce springsteen is the boddhisatva of new jersey.” (ss) or “practice is what gets us through the day without closing our hearts.” (kd) or sharon telling a story of a woman who had encountered great, tragic loss whose friends with “perfect, glowing, happy lives” kept telling her to get over it already. sharon said she said, “get some new friends.” and “my friends are all wrecks.” ha! which i love, because it’s true, right? the real people, we (if i might include myself) are all beautiful, wise wrecks. she also said something about how we don’t really see others because we’re so worried about what they think of us: “do they like me? do they really like me? do they like me better than anyone they’ve ever known?” which just about made me pee i was laughing so hard in shame-relief recognition.

7) chanting and dancing in the quaker meetinghouse where i spent my formative years sitting in silence, finding my voice, passing notes, giggling, and listening to others find their voices. not to mention playing the recorder, singing, and being in my first play (interestingly, it was called “inside a kid’s head” and my role was “mission control,” my lines being about telling the kid’s body when to digest, etc. very buddhist, actually–noticing the internal dialogue).

8) sharon’s story about being on twitter and being interested in this pbs documentary coming out in early april about the buddha, called “the buddha,” and getting a twitter alert email one day that said, “the buddha is now following you.”

9) mehndi! (see above) thank you, j. so in awe of your art.

10) my chanty yoga homegirls. omg, i am so deeply grateful to have you all in my life. you make communing with spirit feel like a divine slumber party.

11) grappling with my heart’s truth about this book: what do i truly, non-ego-ically need to say?

12) that b.c. is coming back. wag

13) 10 hours of sleep

14) apples and almonds

15) dreams about mobsters named walnut macdougal

i am grateful for

1) hank moody

2) the word “moodling”… “The imagination needs moodling–long, inefficient happy idling, dawdling and puttering.” — brenda ueland

3) park benches in january

4) home

5) finally figuring out which apples to eat in january–fuji

6) that the project flowed this week

7) how much i love yoga, really. it’s weird.

8) doing yoga at the moma tomorrow

9) dreaming about warm vacations

10) “as you like it” at bam and: “we that are true lovers run into strange capers.”

11) talking till too late

12) the feeling of an inner tail wagging in gladness

13) quiet

14) sleep

i am grateful for…

1) mlk’s planting of the notion that peace is not the absence of hate, but the presence of love. obvious or not, it is such a more potent question to ask–not: how can i eliminate hate? but rather: how can i cultivate love?

2) mlk jr.’s words:

- “The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be… The nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.”

- “At the center of non-violence stands the principle of love.”

- Life’s most persistent and urgent question is: ‘What are you doing for others?’

- “We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.”

- “We must concentrate not merely on the negative expulsion of war but the positive affirmation of peace.”

(more mlk quotes on beliefnet)

3) the opposite of revenge fantasies–transformation fantasies. or radical acceptance and forgiveness fantasies.

4) soup. especially right now souen’s jappa soup

5) selma the acupuncturist

6) warmish january days

7) how incredibly satisfying it is to sneeze sometimes

8) the gorgeous (if brief?) cessation of over-analyzation

9) maggie’s dress last night

10) meryl’s speech

11) partners in health–go, meryl

12) leisurely sundays in bed

13) snuffly mondays on the sofa

14) outpourings, however awkwardly motivated and insufficient, e.g. the haiti ribbons. help is help. love is love. i think.

so cold. so rainy. so bone-damp. coughing. snuffling. and yet.

i am grateful for…

1) rain out there, warm in here

2) jennifer, for this:

ra ma da sa for haiti from jennifer mazzucco on Vimeo.

3) tissues

4) this, from “a year with rilke,” for january 15 (which i thought was today, but is not): “as you unfold as an artist, just keep on, quietly and earnestly, growing through all that happens to you. you cannot disrupt this process more violently than by looking outside yourself for answers that may only be found by attending to your innermost feeling.” (”letters to a young poet,” paris, feb. 17, 1903)

5) sweetness

6) re-discovering park slope yoga

7) the idea of skiing

8) healing touch

9) raisins

10) the line in better off dead: “but it’s got raisins. you love raisins.”

11) laughing, hard

heavy chest, scratchy throat over here in bk. but thrumming along, despite the sick. well, thrumming in a bathrobe-wrapped way.

i am grateful for…

1) the larry sanders show

2) clean clothes

3) the immense outpourings around haiti. it is incomprehensible, but praying that enough outpouring reaches need. somehow.

4) clean water

5) seemingly solid ground

6) when tragedy releases love

7) and now, for contrast… the great new restaurant in bk, the vanderbilt. truly wonderful vibe, food, people. really lovely.

8) sleeping till noon

9) consistent warmth

10) good knights, sunny days

11) another amazing “bug bites” chocolate bar insert on the mantis-mimic moth: “this indonesian moth is probably mimicking the raptorial legs of a praying mantis. mimicry of a predatory insect is achieved by modifying its leg and body hairs and adjusting its behavior and body stance to a very un-mothlike state. the hairs on the front two legs create the illusion of thickened muscular legs and they are held out in a position similar to those on a praying mantis.”

i think this might be the thing for those of us who have been told all our lives to grow a thicker skin. nope! just the “illusion of thickened muscular legs” posed like an “un-mothlike” lethal insect. hm. working on that. maybe.

12) citrus

13) the poetry of l.l. cool j…. “you’re the type of girl that got class and style/still in all you need the backseat of my jeep once in a while… air freshener is kickin’/drive through for chicken…” (the video does not do it its hilariously awesome justice, but still.)

i am grateful for:

1) nina paley and her masterpiece “sita sings the blues”

2) new moons (not “new moon” but new moons like the one coming on thursday. seeds, beginnings, palate cleansings, fresh slates)

3) this, which i came across today in the open center catalog, which makes me feel better about weird days with hard things in them: “every moment of your daily life is an opportunity for practice. the whole cosmos is a meditation hall.” -thich nhat hanh. words like “weird” and “hard” become more interesting and less painful.

4) j.b.c.

5) that s. is hoooooome!

6) going to see sharon salzberg and k.d. on the 23rd–at my alma mater, no less. i’m fascinated to meditate and chant in the same room where i learned about silence.

7) rainbows

8) sleep

9) apples in winter

10) all things cozy and warm–blankets, sweaters, some people, bunnies, the slanket