So after determining that I had neglected blogging long enough, and that I needed another or new outlet since I haven't posted here in so long... I decided to make 2018 the year that the blog resurrected itself...
And here we are.
I look at the coming year with many ideas.
However, I must be honest and state the first and most overwhelming emotion I have is GRATITUDE.
I have been learning a lot about gratitude these past few years.
What have I been doing that would lead to KNOWLEDGE about GRATITUDE, you might ask?
WELL.... that is a multi-layered answer coming right at ya.
First, I have been walking a Red Road, the Native American path. I have recognized and honored my Cherokee ancestors: two women who married my seventh and eighth great grandfathers. And I have apprenticed myself to a Hopi elder. Because she came into my life at a time that I needed her, and threw me a life raft I have been clinging to ever since. For this, I am eternally grateful.
She has her own presence on the World Wide Web - a place governed by Grandmother Spider (one of my teachers as well) - so I won't go into any detail here, outing her or giving any of her details here. My relationship with her is so important to me.
When the student is ready, the teacher appears.
I accept this as truth now.
I also walk with a being I knew at first as Grandmother Pipe Spirit, and now I know as the Grandmother Arrow, or Cherokee Arrow Woman, "Ani Yun Wiya," who has added much clarity and kindness in my life.
Because - if you have not gathered this by now - I am the type of person who is very hard on herself. I criticize myself and hold myself at a much higher standard than I do you.... I love you, but it's myself I can't stand, have a hundred reasons to change and things I should/need to do... and nothing that I do will ever be enough to satisfy my crazy standards....
So part of my lessons is simply to approach myself with clarity and kindness. This is not so easy for me.
And yet I feel gratitude because I feel I have been led to the place where I can finally work on these life lessons in a gentle and meaningful way.
So it is with gratitude that I stop at this moment, on the cusp on 2018, and beckon to you, reader.
Welcome to a new space.
Please come along.
And be gentle with yourself.
We are on this road called life together.
And none of us gets out alive.
Aho.
