December - The Grace of Well-being

“Many of us have made our world so familiar that we do not see it anymore. An interesting question to ask yourself at night: What did I really see this day? - John O’Donohue

December is a great month to start making O'Donohue's question a nightly spiritual practice that can nurture gratitude for our rare and precious planet Earth and for one another. Consider what you might see this month:

Holly Berries – nature is consistent, providing us with shiny green leaves and deep red berries year after year, and we never seem to tire of these colors. Maybe we could approach our wardrobes in their spirit.

The Northern Cross – go outdoors a few hours after sunset and look a bit north of west. Not far above the horizon you can find the constellation whose large stars form a cross, reminding us of the bigger picture and our place in it.

Snowbirds – look on the ground under your bird feeder for lovely juncos with their slate gray upper and snowy underside. Such pleasant company on a cold day!

Waning and Waxing of Daylight – daylight shortens about two minutes each day until the Winter Solstice when it begins to lengthen. The shortest of days and longest of nights calls us to celebrate the generosity of our daystar, the sun.

Skeletons – now that leaves have dropped, the lovely structures of tree trunks, limbs, branches and twigs delight us with their lacy intricacy. Such stark beauty.

Christmas ferns – take a walk in the woods looking for festive Christmas ferns which stay green all winter long, cheering us on a dreary day.

Animal Tracks in the Snow – if we are lucky and it snows, we can glimpse and follow animal paths, learning secret ways and circuitous routes of squirrels, deer, raccoons, and maybe even coyotes.

John Philip Newell writes insightfully that the grace of well-being accompanies a reverencing of creation; ignoring it is like missing an utterance of the Word. Maybe that is what O'Donohue was getting at when he invites us to really see and to recall this at the end of each day. We can sleep within the grace of well-being.

I have noticed that a contemplative seeing of any aspect of nature truly is accompanied by a feeling of well-being, and I appreciate considering this a grace. What about you?