Sun, Glorious Sun!

I love it here - the sun shines so much more often than it did in the other two places we lived, in the past 15 years. When I wake up and the world is lit with a beautiful warm light, I'm already in a good mood before I ever put one foot out of bed. My dogs love it, too, they go out, find a good spot, settle down,and sigh with deep satisfaction. I like to take my coffee out onto the back deck and wander along watching the plants in the pots leaping into life. I sometimes have to step over a dog lying belly up, toasting his or her undersides.

From the ODAT, page 63:

"Let me realise that the Al-Anon program is not a magic potion that will instantly cure all my ills, but a pattern of living that will serve me to exactly the degree that I work at it."

I like that reminder. When it comes to this marvellous "pattern of living" I get back what I put into it. Just like anything else in life. We learn to do by doing, not by talking, or reading, about doing.

If I want a closer contact with my Higher Power, I must be willing to do whatever is required to achieve it - praying, meditating, working whatever layer of program is there before me to be worked. Some days are a holiday, they move smoothly and delightedly from beginning to end, full of joyfulness and glee. Some days are like digging a trench in thick heavy mud, every shovelfull is an effort that feels almost beyond me. If I'm only willing to work my program when it's easy to do so, how committed to my recovery am I?

I can look back to the person I was, and feel compassion for her pain, and also feel great swooping floods of gratitude that I am not in that place anymore.

My husband and I were talking the other day about something to do with the business, and I said "Perhaps we should _____" Within less than one day, we got a pretty loud and clear message from our Higher Power to do precisely the opposite. It was so emphatic and easy to understand that it made both of us burst out laughing.

I'm grateful for those, too. I'm grateful for everything today - this blog, and those who read it, people, dogs, plants, and the sun, the glorious golden delicious sun.