It is Friday, and we have Saturday and Sunday to rest, relax, run errands and remind ourselves we have a satisfying life. Be honest, how many of you even stop to realize your life is pretty terrific because you are alive and living?  We participate in day to day living which has a marvelous rhythm to it if we pay attention to this naturalness and not the distractions and cacophony that bombards us. There is grace to be found in reminding ourselves that we are alive and that is satisfying in itself. We have to do many activities to accommodate this being alive, but if we don’t get ahead of ourselves, if we are where we are and take life at that moment, all of the activities get done in the way that they need to get done. Keep doing that every day and the days take care of themselves.

If you were to die today, do you feel satisfied? Have you lived all that you are? Have you loved all that you can? Do you feel connected to yourself, the universe and at least one other person? If you can say “yes” to these four questions, then pat yourself on the back, hug yourself and tell this story to yourself on a regular basis. Let it be a mantra to decrease the stress and anxiety stories that like to hog the limelight. Keep telling yourself You ARE living a satisfying life.

The other day my husband was working outside in his “makeshift” shop (which is on the back porch). He was sawing, pounding nails or something like that when he heard a bunch of crows making a ruckus. He went to see what was going on and he saw a hawk swooping down to take one of our hens. Well, imagine, not knowing what you were going to find – dead hen, a taken hen, wounded and dying hen. The crows shooed the hawk away in the nick of time, so there were lots of feathers on the ground, but the hen remained alive, cowered by the fence. She was lucky because there was no blood, there were no wounds, she just had some missing feathers. Grant went to the shed to pull out some scratch to give to all four of our hens to calm them down.

This narrative might be a dumb chicken story, but it’s an important one as I ran out to the hen house to make sure all were still okay when Grant told me what happened. I had never seen this before in the city so now I know this might happen again. It’s not enough to worry about the rats, raccoons and the hens flying the coop themselves; I have to add hawk to this predatory mix.

So, the world is predatory, and hopefully, we have crows around to scare off our hawks, but it also helps to know we are satisfied with the lives we are living. Enjoy the weekend and take care ~ Beth