12 Days of Thanksgiving: Day 12, Blessings

12 Things I Am Grateful For This Year
Day 12:  Blessings

One more haiku for the last day of my Thanksgiving Gratitude.

 

Blessings
One long sleepless night
I counted seven thousand
and still was not done.

~~~

 

12 Days of Thanksgiving: Day 11, Healing

12 Things I Am Grateful For This Year
Day 11:  Healing

May you be healed.
May your body find balance.
May your energy return.
May whatever you carry that is not truly yours dissolve.
May health blossom in all the cleared spaces.
May you be peaceful and patient
while Divine Medicine and all its tributaries
rise and flush,
clear and nourish,
restore and heal
every system, cell, and space,
physical and infinite.
May your path today be light.

~~~

Our Lady of Grace, with an orb of light in the lower right,
as if it is a blessing that has just fallen from her hand

12 Days of Thanksgiving: Day 10, Signs

12 Things I Am Grateful For This Year
Day 10:  Signs

Signs

Seeing signs
requires intention.
I cannot tell you
what to look for.
I can only tell you
how they come, to me—
as a leaf, a cloud or anything
heart-shaped,
as an event, joyful or jarring,
a moonrise or traffic jam—
anything that feels heavy with change.
It may open like a webpage
or a book in my brain
to a passage with insight
or specific direction.

But the loveliest of signs
are those that require
no effort or translation.
They simply arrive,
transcendent reminders
of Something-Divine.
~~~

 

12 Days of Thanksgiving: Day 9, Angels

12 Things I Am Grateful For This Year
Day 9:  Angels

Angels

It is difficult to believe
in angels
but I am learning

I have often said
of my closest calls
that there was nothing
between me and death
but an angel

then I would return
to my quiet illusion
of self-sufficiency

I imagine there are thousands
of rescues that were performed
for me
and I thanked no one
because I did not even feel it
I just got to where I was going

One day I needed help
and I simply asked
do I have a Guardian One
really, or is that just in a museum
painting

I do

an angel
radiant, shapeshifting,
strong enough to hoist a steel bridge,
soft enough to sing with snow,
light enough to recline
on a flower petal,
waiting
for my next call
close or otherwise

~~~

 

12 Days of Thanksgiving: Day 8, Shelter

12 Things I Am Grateful For This Year
Day 8:  Shelter

Wherever you go, may you find shelter
in every form you desire: cabin, friendship, paper
with words that tell a story,
or a golden tree that jingles in the breeze
and sends down a currency that sustains and delights.

~~~

An American Beech Tree in Autumn

One story of the word “book”  starts with the beech tree, on which ancient runes were carved.

Old English bōc was rooted in German. Branches spread. Paper made. Books written.

 

And the beech continues to give.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

12 Days of Thanksgiving: Day 7, Bliss

 

12 Things I Am Grateful For This Year
Day 7: Bliss

When you slip the word bliss onto your wrist,
it becomes a bracelet of invitation.
As the year progresses, you discover gifts
accumulating, one after another,
experiences that might slip unnoticed
by the naked wrist,
like the time you swam underwater
in the crystal clear pool
on a hot, summer afternoon,
the refracted rays of the sun creating
on the aqua floor a sea of shimmering diamonds.

You wear the bracelet so many days
that it becomes a prayer of thanksgiving,
an act of beholding every moment of bliss
you have been given,
those you remember, and those now forgotten.

~~~

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

12 Days of Thanksgiving: Day 6, Help

 

12 Things I Am Grateful For This Year
Day 6: Help

Help

Without you, I would not be giving thanks
beside this golden tree.
This beautiful path,
the strength I now claim,
would be sore dreams.

When I was weak,
you were generous.
What I could not do myself,
you did for me with compassion.

What you cleaned, prepared, wrapped, carried
was really a pearl—
a thousand pearls—
and I wear them always.
How can I not?
Help received is always a gift.
And I am forever changed
by its luxury.

 

~~~

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

12 Days of Thanksgiving: Day 5, Water

 

12 Things I Am Grateful For This Year
Day 5: Water

Water blesses those
who take the time to wonder
while in its presence.

~~~

I still bless my water every day.

I also ask that rainwater be a blessing to all whom it touches.

And I am so grateful for the many ways in which beautiful water has flowed in my life this year. Here are a few photos from my travels.

 

The Hudson River, from Hoboken, NJ

 

Hudson River and Manhattan

 

Hudson River and the Freedom Tower

 

Raritan Bay, NJ. There’s always a beautiful breeze here, and the smell of salt air.

 

 

We moved this year to a new area where there are streams and brooks everywhere. This is one of them.

 

And here’s another local brook.

 

Manasquan Inlet, NJ: looking out into the Atlantic Ocean.

 

The Hudson River in Piermont, NY

 

The Hudson River where we kayaked in Cold Spring, NY. Incredibly beautiful and natural.

 

Ogunquit, Maine.

 

All the pictures from my Day 3 Thanksgiving post on Ideas were also taken from Ogunquit, Maine.

For me, water is a powerful, restorative presence, always a source of comfort, inspiration, and nourishment. May water be a blessing to you, too.

 

 

 

 

 

12 Days of Thanksgiving: Day 4, Discipline, Patience, Tenacity

 

12 Things I Am Grateful For This Year
Day 4: Discipline, Patience, Tenacity

Make of these a braid,
one strand over another,
and see what changes.

~~~

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

12 Days of Thanksgiving: Day 3, Ideas

 

12 Things I Am Grateful For This Year
Day 3: Ideas

I cannot stop my brain.
It generates ideas,
gray sea making waves.

~~~