Hints of Gladness: Stop, Listen, Be

Also, an amazing sunset (See photo below)

I turned this post into a guided mindfulness meditation. You can listen here if you like…

Preamble

Hints of Gladness is a project that I started in 2022 with the encouragement of my business coach.

As we were talking about, what am I encoded to do? What I came up with was taking pictures of nature and creating and leading meditations. So here we are.

The title for this blog actually came from a Mary Oliver poem. Called “When I am Among the Trees” and the first stanza goes like this…

When I am among the trees.

Especially the willows and the honey locusts.

Equally the beach, the Oaks and the Pines.

They give off such hints of gladness.

I would almost say that they saved me.

And daily.

[*Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver. New York: Penguin Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC,2017.©2017]

My business coach came up with a couple of good names, but I can't remember what they are or what they were at this point. They didn’t work out because the domains weren’t available, so I started looking around at some poetry and when I came across that line and this phrase, hints of gladness, I thought, oh, this has to be it. And as one does, I went and looked to see if the domain hintsofgladness.com was available and it was. Why wouldn't it be?

So I thought I would just read today's reflection, sort of as a meditation. Or a mindfulness meditation.

Reflection

Is it really January 10th? Time is flying by.

I’m a little in my head this morning.

It’s time to ground myself. That said,
I’m thinking about something that I eventually
want to write about which is dealing
with addictive urges. Later! Maybe!

Hints…

The cool morning air
or some might say cold morning air.
It’s so refreshing.

A high tide again this morning.

As I’m walking away from the Inlet,
the thought hits me,

Stop.

Listen.

Be…

The sound of the geese

Tiny birds flying around in the underbrush.

Occasional water drops
falling from the trees and shrubs.

The feeling of presence.

Being present to presence. That might be
what the encouragement to stop was all about.

More…

Breath.

Be still.

Be…

The sound of the rushing river.
Fuller than usual
because of the high tide
and the rain.

Evening Hints of Gladness…

Around 4 pm I went for a jog
and the sunset was amazing.
The pink sky started in one small
area and then just kept expanding
and expanding. Joy!

Take good care,

Rod