In January, we had heavy winds for this area. They were impressive, but I think winds are much stronger in other, drier parts of the world. The trees here don’t seem to have deep roots, considering their size. It rains constantly. Trees don’t have to work for water, growing down deep to find it during a drought. So when the winds come, even the oaks topple.
There’s a lot of bad news floating around and winter is dark, so January needed a lot of persistence.
This month, we went walking in the forest again. This harvest of logs made me see the forest damage in a different way.
What is ready to harvest in our lives that we haven’t noticed? What (who :)) has grown up in our lives that we are grateful for?
We don’t have to wait for a “storm” to point it out.
- What do you want to do?
- Who do you want to love?
- What do you want to make?
- What do you want to see or hear or touch or taste?
We can be grateful for it now. I think being ‘grateful’ is like visiting a garden, checking on the chickens, and fixing the family credenza so it lasts a little longer. Gratitude is a way of nurturing something while it’s still small, so it can grow up.
Joanna Penn of The Creative Penn had a recent interview called Balancing Craft and Commerce. Some of it was about programmer and author Nathan Barry’s ConvertKit e-mail marketing service, but the part that resonated with me was this:
We didn’t sign up to be writers or creators or entrepreneurs to get to a certain income level and then check out. You’ve got to keep pushing those limits and you have to keep learning but at the same time, you have to do it with gratitude. Ambition and gratitude together, I think, are really, really powerful and then you don’t get trapped in a frustrating cycle.
How has your winter been so far? Does it feel like trees are falling everywhere? Or can you see signs of hope?
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