Mindful, Day 28, Red and White

Who could resist a bite of these beautiful radishes? Makes me think of spring gardening at home while I am here in southern California.

Mindful, Day 27, Typewriters in the Desert

We went for a drive up to Pioneertown, outside of Yucca, CA to see what there was to see. We have been there before and one of the things I love is a "garden" that someone has created with cast off stuff. And in the garden there is an arrangment of old school desks and typewriters.  They make me smile.

Mindful, Day 26, Bedazzled

Hiking this morning, I am going up one side of the ridge just as the sun comes over the top and bedazzles me. A great way to start the day. A reminder that every thing can look new again every day.

Mindful, Day 25, Time is Passing

On my walk today, I am glad that the sun is shining again after days of rain. We have been coming to Palm Desert for the past four years and have never had a time here with as much rain and cold  (relative cold form what it would be at home). But I am thrilled to see the sun again and be able to get out and move and see the blue sky and the mountains (now covered fairly far down with snow). Everything is bright and sharp and glittery.

I pass the sundial which shows clearly that the sun is doing it's job! It is also reminding me that our time here is passing and to take the time to enjoy it thoroughy.

Mindful, Day 24, Say Thank You

Two days after the Women's Marches I am mindful that one march is not going to change things. It is going to take concerted effort to keep the issues that matter front and forward. I am also mindful that I need to say thank you to all the women over the past 100 plus years who helped makde it possible for us to have the rights we have, and thank you to all those who marched to remind us of those rights. The excerpt below says it well.

From Sleep. Eat. Write. 

Say Thank You

Say thank you. Say thank you to the women who gave you a voice. Say thank you to the women who were arrested and imprisoned and beaten and gassed for you to have a voice. Say thank you to the women who refused to back down, to the women who fought tirelessly to give you a voice. Say thank you to the women who put their lives on hold, who –lucky for you — did not have “better things to do” than to march and protest and rally for your voice. So you don’t feel like a “second class citizen.” So you get to feel “equal.”

Thank Susan B. Anthony and Alice Paul for your right to vote.

Thank Elizabeth Stanton for your right to work.

Thank Maud Wood Park for your prenatal care and your identity outside of your husband.

Thank Rose Schneiderman for your humane working conditions.

Thank Eleanor Roosevelt and Molly Dewson for your ability to work in politics and affect policy.

Thank Margaret Sanger for your legal birth control.

Thank Carol Downer for your reproductive healthcare rights.

Thank Sarah Muller for your equal education.

Thank Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Shannon Turner, Gloria Steinem, Zelda Kingoff Nordlinger, Rosa Parks, Angela Davis, Malika Saada Saar, Wagatwe Wanjuki, Ida B. Wells, Malala Yousafzai. Thank your mother, your grandmother, your great-grandmother who did not have half of the rights you have now.

https://medium.com/@dinachka82/about-your-poem-1f26a7585a6f#.pdihs0u05

Mindful, Day 23, Left, Right, Left

I think the way this cactus grows, alternating its new pads left, right, left is interesting. Why does it grow that way? Balance, maximum sun, more area exposed to predators? In any case, it feeds my need for pattern and symmetry today!

Mindful, Day 22, Less than Perfect

I am mindful today of this advice from the blog - Marc and Angel Hack Life
www.marcandangel.com

Let things be less than perfect. – Smile every chance you get; not because life has been easy, perfect, or exactly as you had anticipated, but because you choose to be happy and grateful for all the good things you do have, and all the problems you know you don’t have. You must accept the fact that life is not perfect, that people are not perfect, and that you are not perfect. And that’s okay, because the real world doesn’t reward perfection. It rewards people who get GOOD things done. And the only way to get GOOD things done is to be imperfect 99% of the time.