It’s playtime and time for “no-thing” in particular (Dawna Furfaro-Strode)

It is summer time! Summer brings the gift of joy and partnership. It is time to play and tell stories and laugh. Notice how you feel and what you are doing in this season of warm energy. What makes you smile?

The Practice: For this week how can you intentionally find moments of joy and partnership? What little joy can you insert into your life every day?

Can you even find delight in the not-doing...the "no-thing."

Little joys in my week:

• Eating wild wine berries and raspberries on the bike path

• A evening bike ride to dinner

• Serendipitous meeting of a friend at the farmer’s market

• Skipping stones on the stream, then building a stone tower

• A catch up with a high school friend not seen in 36 years

• Lightning up the work load!

• The cute baby bunny eating my flowers

• Lightning bugs!!!

• My long shadow on the path late in the day

My Shadow

By Robert Louis Stevenson

I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,

And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.

He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head;

And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed.

The funniest thing about him is the way he likes to grow—

Not at all like proper children, which is always very slow;

For he sometimes shoots up taller like an India-rubber ball,

And he sometimes gets so little that there's none of him at all.

He hasn't got a notion of how children ought to play,

And can only make a fool of me in every sort of way.

He stays so close beside me, he's a coward you can see;

I'd think shame to stick to nursie as that shadow sticks to me!

One morning, very early, before the sun was up,

I rose and found the shining dew on every buttercup;

But my lazy little shadow, like an arrant sleepy-head,

Had stayed at home behind me and was fast asleep in bed.

I wish you a wondrous week of discovery with intentionally finding joy in small moments and larger ones.

In Joy and Partnership

Jan