Mt. Shasta, Northern California, part of the Cascade Range that runs north all the way to Washington, and one of my most favorite places on earth. A mystical mountain, a powerful earth vortex, I have loved her since I first laid eyes on her as a little girl; feeling like John Muir who wrote~

"When I first caught sight of it over the braided folds of the Sacramento Valley, I was fifty miles away and afoot, alone and weary. Yet all my blood turned to wine, and I have not been weary since."

Today begins my year of finding one thing that I am grateful for each day and photographing it. Leading up to this day I have experienced many and varied feelings. Today what I notice is that I am surprisingly grounded, a little in awe, and like a traveler packed and ready, standing at the pier, stepping onto the boat, destination not quite known. Wow, how unbelievably symbolic, as this is my truest desire in actual life as well...

This morning I am anxious about the well-being of someone I love very much. What an opportunity (challenge?) this year is going to be to find one thing a day that I am grateful for even when the waters are not necessarily calm or life sailing smoothly along, even when I am worried or scared or sad or overwhelmed or depressed. I think this has been my hiccup above all others... how to be able to hold more than one thing at a time, how to mix the positive with the negative, the oil with the water.

And yet, I'm pretty sure that's the actual point.

As friend-on-the-journey, Elke, reminds us in her post about getting started on this project, it's really all about the practice. A wonderful reminder. Something I need to repeat again and again.

It's taken me a long time to get to this point, where I am open to this, and for me, anyway, it's a fine line between bypassing or resisting what is real and authentic in any given moment and being open to something different. I'm not interested in crossing that line toward the former, even by a toe's length, and the only way I could ever have undertaken this is to be genuinely in a place where I can feel gratitude. And seeing that that shift has happened, somewhere along the way crossing some invisible threshold, I truly am grateful.

My Day 1 Photo~