I love the way this poem speaks to beauty as something life is always offering, even when we are not always in the place to notice it. It made me think about gratitude as something deeper than a practice. A kind of devotion, maybe. Not pretending everything is beautiful. Not ignoring the harder parts. But becoming more willing to notice what is still here. Sometimes life’s loveliness is not hidden because it has gone. Sometimes it is hidden because we are looking only at what is missing. This week, we are exploring what life is still offering us. You are very welcome to share one small offering you noticed today. This week’s Gathered Gold comes from Sara Teasdale’s poem Barter. link: https://poets.org/poem/barter Barter by Sara Teasdale Life has loveliness to sell, All beautiful and splendid things, Blue waves whitened on a cliff, Soaring fire that sways and sings, And children's faces looking up Holding wonder like a cup. Life has loveliness to sell, Music like a curve of gold, Scent of pine trees in the rain, Eyes that love you, arms that hold, And for your spirit's still delight, Holy thoughts that star the night. Spend all you have for loveliness, Buy it and never count the cost; For one white singing hour of peace Count many a year of strife well lost, And for a breath of ecstasy Give all you have been, or could be.

This week’s Gathered Gold is from a poem I wrote after an early morning in Chiang Mai. I was waiting to get picked up by bus to travel to Chiang Rai for the day. as I waited in the quiet morning hours as the sky changed shades, I found myself in the moment. Noticing each second as though it were being played out just for me. the feeling of witnessing those moments stayed with me, and so I wrote about it. The distant chants rising through the air, the city lights slowly turning off one by one and feeling the night chill around my arms before the day warmed up. I think that is what I love about writing. It teaches us to notice the moments that might otherwise disappear behind the practical things. A walk. A morning sky. A page. A breath. Sometimes the ordinary moment is only ordinary because we have not looked at it long enough yet. Silver to Gold the pale non-committal sky vacant above sleepy Chiang Mai, distant chants rise in smouldering scents night lights blink cursing the dawn lingering chills stir soft mountain air a cloudless sky breaks - silver to gold, growing shadows long searching for warmth barbets fly hollow jetstreams a day holding breath morning sky, moonlit silk wanes to blue as the sun crowns the day

This week’s theme is gratitude in ordinary moments. To begin: name 3 ordinary things you’re grateful for today. Nothing fancy. Nothing polished. Just three small things that made life feel a little more held. 1. My desk - I dream, write and create at my desk - my whole world on a table top. 2. The sunshine - feeling so free and warm, walking along the beach in the sun is like meditation for my bones. 3. Coffee in the morning - it's an act of love in a cup x

This week we stayed with the theme Small Joys, Big Medicine and truthfully, it has been one of those weeks where I have really felt that. Behind the scenes, I’ve been making a few lovely updates to the community. The journal links are now in place in the Classroom under Journals, and I’ve also updated my About page. I held my very first Silver Circle this week too, which I thoroughly enjoyed. That replay will be added to the Classroom soon as a free archive for Kindling members. ⭐ I’ve also been enjoying time in other communities this week. I particularly loved the masterclass from @themoneygoddess - Money in Your Stars. I highly recommend having a look if you haven’t already. It was fascinating on so many levels, including some I hadn’t even considered before. ⭐ I’ve also been reading Miracles Are Normal, now out in paperback, co-written by Lauren Kinghorn @miraclesarenormal. It’s such a lovely pick-me-up, and it felt beautifully aligned with this week’s theme. A reminder that often the smallest things carry the deepest medicine. As we move into next week, our new theme is Gratitude in Ordinary Moments. That feels especially meaningful to me right now, because today I realised that many of my ordinary moments are not ordinary at all. We work so hard to shape the life we live, and this morning I felt such a strong shift into the present. Not pulled back by the weight of the past, and not reaching ahead for answers from the future - just here. Safe. Real. Present. It felt deeply freeing. So that is the intention I’m carrying into the week ahead- to be present in the moments that make up my life, and to meet them with gratitude.

“It always seems impossible until it’s done.” That line from Nelson Mandela has really been carrying me lately. I’m in one of those seasons where I’m building something I care deeply about, but it is asking so much of me. Every day I seem to be learning something new, because so much of what I’m doing, I’ve never done before. It’s draining, time-consuming, rewarding, exciting and honestly a bit overwhelming at times too. But I keep thinking about how many things in life felt impossible to me… until I did them. Until I learnt them. Until I overcame them. Until I realised I was actually capable of more than I thought. This morning I was reading a chapter written by my friend Lauren Kinghorn in Everyday Miracles, and it made me think about what miracles really are. Sometimes they are not huge dramatic moments. Sometimes they are the everyday impossibilities that stay impossible until we make them happen. And I think that’s where I am right now. Just quietly building. Quietly learning. Quietly proving to myself that I can do things I once thought were beyond me. So if something feels impossible to you right now, maybe it is not impossible at all. Maybe it is just waiting for you to keep going.