Gardener of Joy

“When you transform your mind, everything you experience is transformed.”― Yongey Mingyur, The Joy of Living: Unlocking the Secret and Science of Happiness

“Because in trying to articulate what, perhaps, joy is, it has occurred to me that among other things—the trees and the mushrooms have shown me this—joy is the mostly invisible, the underground union between us, you and me, which is, among other things, the great fact of our life and the lives of everyone and thing we love going away. If we sink a spoon into that fact, into the duff between us, we will find it teeming. It will look like all the books ever written. It will look like all the nerves in a body. We might call it sorrow, but we might call it a union, one that, once we notice it, once we bring it into the light, might become flower and food. Might be joy.”― Ross Gay, The Book of Delights

May you be a gardener of joy.
Tilling, seeding, feeding, waiting.
Bud to bloom.
Winter to spring.
Looking for the good in others, self, the world.
Beyond first reactions, lingering longer to await understanding.
Bursting with wonder, awe and delight.
Change the narrative, write a new story of beauty, light and joy.
We can change our thoughts and soften our hearts.
May we all be a gardeners of joy, coloring the world anew.

“To see beyond what despair sees—to move from the feeling toward the possibility—calls for things we have in abundance: love, imagination, and a willingness to simply tend the world as best we can, without guarantee of success.”― Ayana Elizabeth Johnson