Feeling Full

Today is turkey day and I am in a land of wild turkeys, spending a couple of days with my husband's family...well my family too! I love it up here. They live in a beautiful spot in a beautiful part of this beautiful state of California. My three year old and I took a walk this morning and I breathed in the moist air, so different from the air down where we live in Pasadena. Here it is moist and full of the smell of giant trees that surround the house. Very tall pines and lots of oaks and layers of fern beneath that and mosses of every color under that. We walked and stopped and looked under rocks and found grubs and other tiny creatures and then we walked some more and looked out over the grand vista from up on this beautiful hill and there we saw a hawk just landing on an electric pole and two deer standing along the side of the road eating grass. We had earlier communed with the bull that lives here and some lamas that also share the property so we had all these interactions with four legged creatures wild and domestic. To my daughter there is no difference. She is entrances by all life no matter the size of it. She was as happy feeding the bull as she was touching a slug. We didn't see turkeys today but they were on my mind because it is Thanksgiving and because I have seen them here many times before.

Turkeys represent gratitude and I was feeling very thankful as I carried her back to the house, even while my arms ached from her weight. She is too heavy for me to carry very long but she was tired and I was really enjoying it. I was thanking God for the moment and for being able to still carry her in my arms. It was just a beautiful day, the sun was warming my cheeks, her body was soft and wiggly, her face fully happy. We had seen so much on our little walk. We had dug under some velvety leaves to feel the moist earth and smell its rich fragrance. We had picked flowers. We had met a dog. And there we were again, stopping at the side to get some weeds for Ferdinand the bull and the way the tall grass was bending over the little stream and the emerald green moss was a perfect little art installation. This is one of my favorite places because it is so stunning and I am very grateful to be here this day. The greatest artist is making installations all around me and she is a lot of fun to watch.