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Create Harmony
This is a podcast about setting an intentional rhythm, savoring life’s blessings and learning how to use our imagination as a way of listening to God. If you want to learn more about how to bring stillness and gratitude into your life you’ll probably find a lot here that you love. To find out more about what's going on in the Create Harmony world, check out www.mycreateharmony.com.
Create Harmony
Harvest of the Soul
Ever feel like you're constantly rushing from one task to the next without pausing to acknowledge how far you've come? "Gathered In" invites you to shift your perspective from what still needs doing to what you've already accomplished.
Drawing wisdom from the farmer's rhythm, Sally Burlington guides listeners to recognize their personal harvests. Just as farmers pause to celebrate before preparing for the next planting season, we too need moments to honor our gathered blessings. This deliberate pause isn't merely sentimental—it's essential for restoring our spirits and preparing us for what lies ahead.
The episode offers practical exercises for recognizing abundance in your life. By listing completed tasks and acknowledging life events that required your attention—graduations, moves, career changes, construction projects—you might discover surprising richness where you previously saw only exhaustion. This simple practice often explains feelings of fatigue while simultaneously granting permission to slow down in a culture that rarely values rest.
"Gathered In" builds on previous explorations of quietude and mindfulness, taking that journey further into feeling grounded, secure, and supported by all we've collected along life's path. The episode concludes with an announcement about the upcoming Peaceful Pathways Seasonal Series launching November 1st, featuring immersive meditations and curated items designed to deepen your experience of seasonal rhythms.
Listen now to discover how embracing your personal harvest season can transform your relationship with accomplishment, rest, and abundance. What kind of harvest could you celebrate in your life today?
To learn more, go to mycreateharmony.com
Welcome. You're listening to the Create Harmony podcast, so as we get started, I want you to imagine stepping into a space where the pace is unhurried and where the noise of your life fades to the background, where you can hear the soft rhythms of nature guiding your heart. Here we together, notice small wonders. We let the turning of the season shape our rhythms, reminding us that there is a time for growth, a time for rest, and beauty is in every stage in between. So settle in. You might want to grab your favorite cup of tea and join me as we explore everyday joys and relish our abundant blessings. So this is episode 143, and I am your host, sally Burlington. So today's episode, the title of today's episode, is Gathered.
Speaker 1:In.
Speaker 2:So before we step into today's theme, I want to take a moment to look back. So over the last few years, we've been talking about the importance of settling our minds, finding that quiet center.
Speaker 2:And last week we did an episode about quietude choosing to be quiet mentally and choosing to focus on the goodness that's all around us. And today is simply the next step in that journey. It's learning to see life through the lens of abundance. It's feeling grounded, it's feeling secure and supported by all that we've gathered along the way. So we're taking that quietude vantage point. We're moving away from a place where we feel depleted and restless and burnt out to one where we have all of our resources renewed. So we're going to picture ourselves at that point. This is the season of gathering and harvest. It's a time when the seeds we planted in our work, in our lives, in our families, in our love, they've grown into something and are ready to be brought home. And just as the fields this time of year turn golden and the harvest baskets grow heavy, here we want to honor the work it took to arrive at this very moment. We want to pause to savor what we've been given and try to share it with those around us, and we let the rhythms of nature remind us how to do that. So today we're shifting our focus from what still needs to be done to how much we've already accomplished. So you can think about it this way If you were a farmer, the work would never truly be finished.
Speaker 2:There's always something to do. You still have to tend the soil, you have to plant the seeds, you have to protect your young shoots, you have to water, you have to weed, you have to guard against pests, you adjust to whatever changes the weather brings there might be storms and after all of that, you still have to gather the harvest. And with that never-ending list, the farmers. It's tempting to feel like a farmer's work is never done. But if you notice, farmers do pause to celebrate a good harvest. They do take time to honor what the season has brought before turning their attention to the next cycle. And it would be easy to skip that celebration and start worrying about the work ahead. But that pause matters. It restores your spirit for what is to come, and the same is true for us.
Speaker 2:Now, if you're anything like me, it's easy to keep looking at the tasks still undone. I tend to get into that mind spinning moment I'm projects that are awaiting my attention. What is my next big thing? Get going on the the hamster wheel of worry. But if we never stop to notice and celebrate what we've already gathered, then we miss the sweetness of our own harvest season. So one of the ways that I've practiced that is to circle back from time to time and make a list of the things that I have gotten done. Now, for me this is very healing, it's very affirming, and I'm really often very surprised when I write it all down how much is on the list what I have gotten done? When I write it all down, how much is on the list what I have gotten done?
Speaker 2:And another angle, another thing I did this is another practice it's kind of the same idea but just slightly, a little bit different version is write down all the things that have been happening that needed tending Like. For us, we've had our daughter graduated from high school a few years ago and then last spring my oldest daughter graduated from college, and those types of things. They aren't really like to-dos that need to be done, but they are things that need to be tended to. We had a major construction project in our backyard. That's something that needs to be tended to, and so writing all of that out maybe you've changed jobs, maybe you've moved, maybe you've gotten a new puppy, whatever it is, writing all that out on the page can be surprisingly uplifting, and I feel when I do that. I wrote down some of those things over the last few years and I felt this sense of pride and gratitude about all of what had happened. So let's just take a minute to think about it.
Speaker 2:I'm going to ask you a few questions and I want you to ponder it for a minute. Give it a try and see what you think. What kind of harvest could you celebrate in your life? Where have you been toiling along on something and not really noticing your progress? And not really noticing your progress? Maybe you've lost a loved one or you've opened a new business, and those things take your bandwidth. Maybe you've changed jobs, you've moved to a new town, or maybe you need to recognize the progress you've made in your own career. Maybe you need to see the family you've built. All those things take a certain amount of energy to process and for me, once I looked at my list, it explained number one, why I was feeling tired, and it helped give me permission to take a break or at least slow my rhythm for a little while, and that's kind of countercultural, but it helped me invite more quietude into my life and whenever you feel that tug of guilt. Just go back to the image of the farmer. Remember that the farmer's work is never done, but farmers do usually take a minute to celebrate the harvest. So you could adopt that rhythm just for a little bit, not forever, but for a season. Just think about it gathered in where you feel shored up, where you feel protected and safe, and all your storehouses are full and you and you are living in abundance. You can dwell in that area. Now, speaking of harvesting a blessing.
Speaker 2:I want to tell you about something that we have planned for this fall, something that's going to be launching this fall. I've been talking about it a lot. It's our newest collaboration with Petal and Pink Mental Wellness Boutique and it is called our Peaceful Pathways Seasonal Series. So what that involves is, each season, starting in the fall, you receive a box and inside that box you will have a link to five guided meditations that are designed around whatever the season's theme is, and these meditations are not just, you know, breathe deeply and sit silently. They are like an immersive experience. You really get to step away and you're actually having an experience which helps your mind, sort of reset. That's what we like about these meditations. And also in the box you're going to receive gift items and things that have been curated to match the meditations and sort of deepen your experience, reinforce the calm and peace that you'll experience when you use all of these items that you'll experience when you use all of these items.
Speaker 2:There are so many possibilities of how you could use this. I'm sure you can think of lots of ways you can use this in your life. Our fall theme is cozy time. So we're going to think about baking bread and sitting by the fire, being in your cozy nook, drinking a cup of tea. All of those things are included in the Cozy Time box, and that is the perfect way to treat yourself to some self-care and really sit with your abundance, but it's also a great way to share abundance with other people and help them experience that feeling of being gathered in. So we've got this.
Speaker 2:The launch of the ordering of these seasonal series boxes is November 1st and that that will be coming up, so that's before you begin your holiday shopping, maybe, and you might want to add this to everyone on your list. It's just an easy way to get your shopping done when, after you receive the cozy time box, you'll receive three more boxes with the season. You're going to receive one in the spring that's going to be filled with fresh items that are spring like, with meditations as well, and then there'll be a playful summer box and then another one for next fall. So there is so much to offer here and you just don't want to miss out. So mark your calendar for November 1st, because that is coming soon.
Speaker 1:Now for our closing. Today I'm going to read a poem called Autumn by Lucia Spoeing, and it goes like this the days are growing shorter and the nights are getting cool. Most crops are in the granaries, the children back in school. The fruit has ripened on the trees, making limbs bend down From loads of fragrant, tasty fruit that will be sold in town. The days are bright and sunny, the mums with blooms abound and hickory nuts in plenty are lying on the ground. Blue haze lies on the mountains, the grass grows brown and sare Light frost is on the ground. Blue haze lies on the mountains, the grass grows brown and sare Light frost is on the ground at night. The autumn time is here. Autumn is the harvest time, the golden time of year when there is beauty all around us and weather's bright and clear. May it be so. Thanks so much for joining us today. Hopefully you found some good ideas that you can take out into your life. And until next time, peace, thank you.
