Category: seasons

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Thoughts on gratitude

img_4959I am glad to be alive today.

We had Thanksgiving dinner with 15 family and friends — and since our house is tiny, we hosted it at our art gallery. What fun! It was an experience I hope everyone there remembers. Thanks everybody.

I am grateful to have had all the experiences of my life, every single moment. Even moments of despair, grief or anger. Gratitude is big enough to hold every thing. Connection. Loneliness. Delight. Full belly. Music.

It begins by being deeply present in each moment. Too often I forget to be present. Then somehow we orchestrate a day like today and I’ve made up for those times I forgot to notice the preciousness. The fleeting sweetness. My treasured family and friends. Remembering is gratitude.

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Look at all of this before us: your eyes and smiles around the table! The bounty of our beautiful earth and of our labors! The beauty and artistry on the walls, on the table, in our bodies. Take it in- the laughter and dancing and goofing and helping and eating and washing and sharing. The sharing!

Thanksgiving 2016 – post feast dancing from Maureen Shaughnessy on Vimeo.

I appreciate you all. Each one. I have no regrets for the difficulties and hard times, though I am sorry if I ever hurt you. We are who we are because of all that. We are who we are because of who loves us and who we love and who has been vulnerable with us and who we have shown our hearts to. And. What we do about it.

Gratitude demands that we do something to bring the emotion to life! That we create a ripple in the surface — simply because we are aware, thankful, changed. That we take some kind of action. So I ask myself tonight, “What do I do, to honor what I love, to advance what I value, to create more of what I long for?”

Bow deeply to the sacred in each person you meet.

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Contemplative Art in the Garden

Closeup of wing-like leaf

A garden is a peaceful place to connect with every part of creation . . .

Buddha Statue in Garden
Resting Among the Ten Thousand Things ©Maureen Shaughnessy 2008

I have worked with my son, Gabe and his best friend Jack, on spring garden cleanup for some of my design clients. I love hanging out in these gardens! For me, that is one way I know I have succeeded in a garden design. Another sign of a successful design is that my clients are happy in and with their own gardens, even years after the first installation.

The almost life-size Buddha (above) rests among the “ten thousand things” in a Contemplative Garden we have installed over the last two summers. “Ten thousand things” is a Buddhist expression representing the interconnection and simultaneous unity and diversity of everything in the universe.

Each one of us is here for a reason and the world would be incomplete without us.

 

In the Huichol spiritual tradition my husband and I follow, there is a similar concept, that each of us has all of creation inside our hearts:

“Huichols say we are all joyous beings of light. We were created out of love, from all the elements of the natural world — fire, air, water, and earth. Because of this, each of us is a miniature universe, a mirror of the natural world outside of ourselves, and also a mirror of the spirit world. All the knowledge and secrets of those two worlds are also inside of us, and everything is perfectly arranged. Our job is to tap into that arrangement, to understand it and to live in harmony with it.” — Brant Secunda, Huichol Shaman and Healer

If we strive to deeply understand and perceive our world as inseparable from ourselves, then we will have empathy for every part of creation. We are an integral part of everything. Every one of the ten thousand things is, in the true sense, part of us. And everything is perfectly arranged!

This — whether we paint, draw, sing, pray, dance, cook,write code or write poetry — this empathy makes every one of us an artist and a spiritual being.

So, today, go out into a “Garden,” no matter where it is and see your connection to nature as a work of art and as an act of prayer: in a wildlife refuge, in your back yard, on your balcony, in a city park, in a plant nursery or just in a clay pot on your kitchen windowsill.

Find your connection with nature: watch the unfolding of leaf buds and see not just a “plant” but also freedom, flight, wings, wind, the lightness of a heart. Can you see your own life in the artistry of the natural sculpture in the photo below?

Closeup of wing-like leaf
Winged One, © 2008 by Maureen Shaughnessy
LINKS:
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June Calendar

Welp, it’s that time of month … guess I’m a bit early this month, but wanted to get out the June calendar because it’s the month my family (my mother and siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces and nephews) are having our 2007 Family Reunion and there is lots of planning still left to do.

Sooooo…. please feel free to print the calendars for your own use — I publish downloadable calendars monthly as a gift of appreciation to my readers, for sharing your lives with me through your writings and photos and comments on my blogs.

To download, click anywhere on the calendar and you should get a new window with the image. Click on the photo again in that new window to go to the large version of the calendar. Right-click to download the calendar. It should print out 8.5″ x 11″ — if you have a printer that requires a margin, please print this slightly reduced to fit on a standard letter-size paper.

Printing Tip: set your printer to the highest quality print setting and use a heavier weight paper, preferably matte-coated, to get the best quality prints.

I hope you enjoy the monthly calendars, and please let me know if you have any problems downloading I can send them to you by email attachment.

Check back monthly for the latest calendars. To see a large version of just the original photo I used for June’s calendar, click hereor see the photo on my flickr page

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March Calendar: Dualities – Contemplation or Play

Welp, it’s time once again, my dear blog visitors, to publish my monthly calendar gift for you. Here are two March 2007 calendars for you to chose from.

This first calendar is full of exuberance, joie de vivre … the kind of outdoor fun that’s possible if you live in a place that has true seasons! Montanans don’t stay cooped up in their cabins all winter, that’s for sure.

Though I took both of these photos in February, I figure they’ll do for March images because, well, Montana still has winter. And snow. And ice. And cold in March. After all, these are Montana calendars! ;-D

I’m including the second calendar as a counterpoint to the first one of the sled dogs and musher — the rowdy one. This one has a peaceful, contemplative feel … maybe you are more into the curl up with a good book, quiet kind of March activities.

 

Please feel free to print these calendars for your own use — I publish these downloadable calendars monthly as a gift of appreciation to my readers, for sharing your lives with me through your writings and photos and comments on my blogs.

To download, click anywhere on the calendar and you should get a new window with the image. Click on the photo again in that new window to go to the large version of the calendar. Right-click to download the calendar. It should print out 8.5″ x 11″ — if you have a printer that requires a margin, please print this slightly reduced to fit on a standard letter-size paper.

 

Printing Tip: set your printer to the highest quality print setting and use a heavier weight paper, preferably matte-coated, to get the best quality prints.

I hope you enjoy the monthly calendars, and please let me know if you have any problems downloading I can send them to you by email attachment.

Check back monthly for the latest calendars. To see a large version of the original photos I used for March’s calendar:
Sheer Joy and Exuberance
Day’s End

Stay warm!

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Calendar for December

Hi everybody:
this month I am ahead by a couple of days with my calendar. Please feel free to download and print this calendar — I publish these downloadable calendars monthly as a gift of appreciation to you for sharing your lives with me through your writings and photos and comments on my blogs.

To download, click anywhere on the calendar and you should get a new window with the image. Click on the photo again in that new window to go to the large version of the calendar. Right-click to download the calendar. It should print out 8.5″ x 11″. If you have a printer that requires a margin, please print this slightly reduced to fit on a standard letter-size paper.

I hope you enjoy the monthly calendars, and please let me know if you have any problems downloading I can send them to you by email attachment.

Warmly,
Maureen

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November Calendar

Hi friends and family, I haven’t posted calendars for the last couple of months, but I’ll try to be more regular about it starting right now. So here, again, is my (almost) monthly offering to readers of my blog, this calendar which you are welcome to download, print, use for personal (not commercial) purposes.

Click on the photo for a larger version. It looks best printed out at 8″x10″ size on heavy weight matte photo paper, but any paper will do.

I’m always curious if anyone is actually using these calendars, so if you do, please leave me a comment. (that’s optional as always, though.) Enjoy! 

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Calendar for October: happy birthday to my mom


even though i didn’t write this poem, it conveys what i feel in my heart:

there are times in life when one does the right thing
the thing one will not regret,
when the child wakes crying “mama,” late
as you are about to close your book and sleep
and she will not be comforted back to her crib,
she points you out of her room, into yours,
you tell her, “I was just reading here in bed,”
she says, “read a book,” you explain it’s not a children’s book
but you sit with her anyway, she lays her head on your breast,
one-handed, you hold your small book, silently read,
resting it on the bed to turn pages
and she, thumb in mouth, closes her eyes, drifts,
not asleep — when you look down at her, her lids open,
and once you try to carry her back
but she cries, so you return to your bed again and book,
and the way a warmer air will replace a cooler with a slight
shift of wind, or swimming, entering a mild current, you
enter this pleasure, the quiet book, your daughter in your lap,
an articulate person now, able to converse, yet still
her cry is for you, her comfort in you,
it is your breast she lays her head upon,
you are lovers, asking nothing but this bodily presence.
She hovers between sleep, you read your book,
you give yourself this hour, sweet and quiet beyond flowers
beyond lilies of the valley and lilacs even, the smell of her breath,
the warm damp between her head and your breast. Past midnight
she blinks her eyes, wiggles toward a familiar position,
utters one word, “sleeping.” You carry her swiftly into her crib,
cover her, close the door halfway, and it is this sense of rightness,
that something has been healed, something
you will never know, will never have to know.

— by Ellen Bass, 1985 from Our Stunning Harvest