Harvesting Gratitude

 

Gratitude.

It’s my medicine for times when I don’t move with ease.  For times when I’m still stuck slogging through the mud (literally or metaphorically) despite the fact that it’s almost June.  All the rain of late is making the mud a mainstay; I may switch the saying to “May showers bring June flowers.”

Last night the clouds released their weight all at once, but instead of thinking of the fields that we’re not so patiently waiting for to dry out, I let the downpour drum me to sleep.  Soon enough summer will be here, and I’ll be grateful for the wet spring replenishing groundwater after last year’s drought.

This is what I’ve learned as a farmer: there’s so much more than food in the garden—each day we can harvest gratitude, too.

To think of a smile, or a friend, or the break of sun over the garden is like pulling up gratitude as if it were a carrot releasing from the soil.

So today, my gratitude:

Leaves bursting out, a wave of green splashing its way up the mountainsides

A cup of tea and birdsong in morning

The flower field, freshly planted

Lettuce and spinach and every green crop that thrives in the cool, wet season of spring

There are the mainstays, of course: my family, my dog, our home.  But the snippets lighten me, too. These small things find me in the in-between-moments, when no one else is around, and they smile at me, and I feel the corners of my mouth lift to smile back.

Tell me, what are you grateful for today?

leave a comment below; thanks for growing gratitude 🙂