X is for Exultation

February 8, 2026

“We are showered every day with gifts, but they are not meant for us to keep. Their life is in their movement, the inhale and the exhale of our shared breath. Our work and our joy is to pass along the gift and to trust that what we put out into the universe will always come back.”

~ Robin Wall Kimmerer

In these troubled times, we can’t help but be aware of and respond to the pain and injustice around us.

But. Today I am breathing deeply and allowing myself to take time to appreciate the joy and beauty around me - my family, my friends, good food and music and art, the green plants throughout my home, ice and snow and the green underneath it all, water flowing and rippling around chunks of frozen crystals, a brilliant blue sky, tall strong trees with bare arms reaching to the sky. I am breathing. I am exulting.

Again, the words of Robin Wall Kimmerer… “We are showered every day with gifts, but they are not meant for us to keep.”

I am imagining the world I want to see - one in which we each recognize the gifts before us and willingly share them, knowing that this will only help goodness grow. I glimpse a better world’s emergence in my own community and those more distant where people are helping people, often in the midst of very scary hard times. It is possible. We can help it happen.

I love the work of adrienne maree brown, a great imaginer of better worlds. In her words…

“Do you already know that your existence--who and how you are--is in and of itself a contribution to the people and place around you? Not after or because you do some particular thing, but simply the miracle of your life. And that the people around you, and the place(s), have contributions as well? Do you understand that your quality of life and your survival are tied to how authentic and generous the connections are between you and the people and place you live with and in?

Are you actively practicing generosity and vulnerability in order to make the connections between you and others clear, open, available, durable? Generosity here means giving of what you have without strings or expectations attached. Vulnerability means showing your needs.”

Breathe. Exult, celebrate, and share the gifts of life.

“A Gentle Prayer”

Alcohol and acrylic ink, liquid water color, acrylic paint on mineral paper

February 8, 2026