My birthday was really beautiful;

I am grateful and happy to be 38.

I celebrated with friends and with my children and with a special dinner out with Fred. Sunday was a gorgeous sunny day after a really rainy week. I've been doing a series of sun salutations most mornings and my yoga instructor gave me the teaching of inhaling the sun's rays into my heart chakra and exhaling my energy back to the sun. Inhaling and exhaling a continuous cycle of ten sun salutations opens me up and Sunday when I woke up (late at 8AM because Fred got up early with the kids)I felt the sun coming through the window into my room, and deeper into my being, into my core.

In the morning we walked to a little arts festival down the street and I stood in line with June so she could go on the moon bounce. June loves jumping on a moon bounce probably more than anything else in the world right now and that's saying a lot, because she's just like mom in that she has quite a lot of passions. It was hot out and we did wait a while and after she got her turn to bounce like crazy for five minutes, she asked me if she could get in line again. We did. Another parent told me I have the patience of a saint and I laughed.

It isn't patience, exactly. It's more a sense of deep presence that's come to life in me more and more. The truth is, it was a beautiful sunny day, it was my birthday, I was overwhelmed with gratitude for my life, and there was really no where else on earth I would have wanted to be besides standing in line with my daughter so she could bounce on the moon bounce again. What would have been more important, more urgent

than to see her, 3 and 3 quarters years old, jumping, suspended, weightless, then crashing into the earth full of laughter?

It is important for me to cultivate a sense of joy in my children. They actually don't need much help from me, beyond me stepping out of their way. I mean this truth sincerely; I think it is one of my most important jobs as a parent. To give them room to experience joy--

because going through these last hard months, I am overwhelmingly thankful for my passions, for my deep desire to be alive, for my ability to take in joy from things small and big; reading a psalm or a poem, doing a sun salutation, talking to a friend, watching "The Office" with Fred, teaching, hanging out with my family, taking walks, buying groceries, dancing, listening to my favorite songs again and again. All of these things fill me with joy if I am present and open to them and going through life joyfully, aware makes the hard things, which are natural and inevitable, easier to bear.

So standing in line to let Miss June jump for joy made me joyful and I also hope was an investment, that she should grow to have an open heart and spirit (like mom) which will help her live deep.