Gratitude

“If you cry because the sun has gone out of your life, your tears will prevent you from seeing the stars.”
~Rabindranath Tagore

What you need: a 20-30 minute space in which to creatively respond, paper and art supplies, a candle, fellowship should you choose to gather, light the flame, and cultivate gratitude collectively.

Where have you had your fill, indulged to that saturation point of inebriation whence the respite of sobriety is welcome remedy?

Read through the quotes and poems and feel into what they evoke, who and how and what you’re grateful for at precisely this moment.

Who are twelve people or twelve things or a combination of both that you are grateful for right now?  Jot down and make a list.  Imagine twelve ways to express and show your gratitude for each, every month of the year remember to do so. These could be in the form of a handwritten missive, a simple posy, a kind word, something you baked, a poem, a piece of art, a pebble picked up on the banks of the river, a feather with a note, a shared meal, a packet of seeds, bulbs from your garden, your imagination’s the limit!

Write your own poem, invocation, or paint, sketch, doodle, or color a depiction . . . you could combine them or do none at all, just be with what’s evocative.

Gratitude ~Mary Oliver

“What did you notice?

The dew snail;
the low-flying sparrow;
the bat, on the wind, in the dark;
big-chested geese, in the V of sleekest performance;
the soft toad, patient in the hot sand;
the sweet-hungry ants;
the uproar of mice in the empty house;
the tin music of the cricket’s body;
the blouse of the goldenrod.

What did you hear?

The thrush greeting the morning;
the little bluebirds in their hot box;
the salty talk of the wren,
then the deep cup of the hour of silence.

What did you admire?

The oaks, letting down their dark and hairy fruit;
the carrot, rising in its elongated waist;
the onion, sheet after sheet, curved inward to the
pale green wand;
at the end of summer the brassy dust, the almost liquid
beauty of the flowers;
then the ferns, scrawned black by the frost.”

“You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen in the ink.” ~ G. K. Chesterton

Iroquois Prayer

“We return thanks to our mother, the earth, which sustains us.
We return thanks to the rivers and streams, which supply us with waters.
We return thanks to all herbs, which furnish medicine for the cure of our diseases.
We return thanks to the corn, and to her sisters, the beans and the squashes, which give us life.
We return thanks to the wind, which moving the air has banished diseases.
We return thanks to the moon and the stars, which have given us their light when the sun was gone.
We return thanks to the sun, that he has looked upon the earth with a beneficent eye.
Lastly, we return thanks to the Great Spirit, in whom is embodied all goodness, and who directs all things for the good of his children.”

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