Joy List Monday -- Joy, Love and Wonder as Antidotes
Out my window robins are singing and crows are making a bit of a racket. I've had a slow, quiet morning. An ordinary morning. Coffee. Breakfast. Time in the garden. I filled a bowl with strawberries.
The devastation in Orlando seems very, very far away.
I don't have much more to say about it or any of the ugliness that seems to be all over the news all the time. What can I do to combat it? There's really only one antidote to it that I can see: put as much beauty and love and goodness into the world as you can and hold tight to wonder.
"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as if everything is."
--Albert Einstein
Those rowdy crows outside my window are a miracle. That bowl of strawberries. The coffee and morning conversation with Matthias. Another new flower open in the garden. All are wondrous, magic, miracles.
"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."
--Martin Luther King, Jr.
And so I'll write my Joy List this morning (and urge you to do the same). I'll share beauty and joy and love and gratitude because that's all I can do.
Joy List Monday:
a weekly ritual
a reminder to stop and pay attention to the little beauties and graces that make life magical and to set aside time for gratitude each day
- a glorious double rainbow at sunset opposite a fiery gold sky
- reading Susan Branch's two new memoirs: The Fairy Tale Girl and Martha's Vineyard Isle of Dreams
- salad, salad and more salad
- a day trip with my mom and Matthias to Madison (including time spent walking around the rose garden in Olbrich Botanical Gardens)
- a thrift shop linen dress
- Matthias' hair growing back in
- jumping out of bed and running outside just in time to see the International Space Station pass overhead (if that is not a thing of wonder, I don't know what is!)
- finishing crocheting the sweater I've been working on forever with just enough yarn and remembering a few crocheted flowers I can take apart and use the yarn from to sew it all together (I hope)
- finalizing my 2017 calendar design
- my garden; always, always always, my garden
Wishing you solace in life's beauties and joys.
There are plenty of joys on your blog today Anne. I am trying to avoid the atrocious news stories but somehow they find me. Like you, I am trying to focus on the good things in the World and trying to make it a daily habit too. I can't control what goes on in the World but I can control how I respond to it. Wishing you a wonderful week ahead full of garden delights, creative projects and lots and lots of books to read. :)
ReplyDeleteYou're so right. We can control our responses and we can control what we put out into the world. If we put beauty and goodness out into the world it can help to combat the ugliness and hate.
DeleteI hope your week is lovely, Simone.
Oh, I do love Susan's books.
ReplyDeleteMy Joy List
My son's wisdom tooth surgery went well and he is healing at great speed.
My first radish for a salad.
Making new friends at the Farmer Market I am involved in.
My garden.
xx oo
Carla
What another lovely list, Carla! And thanks for reminding me to look (again) for Susan Branch's newest books. The library finally did get them and I devoured them!
DeleteI hope you are having a joy-filled week and that your weekend will be wonderful! I'm still so excited about your farmer's market! Congratulations!!!