Mindful Day 3 - At the car wash

I love going through the car wash especially those that have the swinging, sudsy worms that swish over your car! I can't capture the changing  patterns on the windshield from the water, soap and worms fast enough. In Mary Oliver's poem, Mindful,  she writes of finding joy even in the ordinary stuff of each day. I found it in the car wash.

2017, A New Year, A New Attempt at Keeping My Blog Going!

Mindful 2017

I am going to try and respond each day to this moving poem by Mary Oliver as my daily practice for 2017.

Mindful –

Every Day I see and hear something that more or less kills me with delight, that leaves me like a needle in the haystack of light. It is what I was born for – to look, to listen, to lose myself inside this soft world – to instruct myself over and over in joy, and acclamation. Nor am I talking about the exceptional, the fearful, the dreadful, the very extravagant- but of the ordinary, the common, the very drab, the daily presentations. Oh good scholar, I day to myself, how can you help but grow wise with such teachings as these- the untrimmable light of the world, the oceans shine, the prayers that are made out of grass?

January 1

Sitting in the flickering sunshine under the oleander tree here in Palm Desert,  I hear the hummingbird buzzing mightily directly over my head – such a big sound from such a small bird. To believe that the year could start with the sight/sound of a hummingbird is not something I would ever have thought possible.

January 2

One of the things I most like to do while we are in Palm Desert is to hike and there is a trail that goes up to about 500 feet through the desert scrub to a lighted cross that overlooks the city. Because there has been so much drought here even the desert vegetation is suffering. But on my way up the trail today I see what looks like an extremely dead bush… Until I get very close and I see small red flowers beginning to emerge. Happy New Year. Happy new life for this bush.