I am writing this at almost 4AM on Thursday morning and thought I would share some thoughts on gratitude and holding it close, especially in these uncertain times. Wherever you are reading this weather on Thursday or some later date or perhaps during the holiday rush to cook, prepare, run errands and buy gifts, I invite you to take a deep breath, unclench your shoulders and loosen your jaw. I invite you to take up the space to unfurl from expectation and from duty for a few moments.
Recently I had a conversation about gratitude in a small group and while many of us had gratitude practices, some people expressed how gratitude can fall into the flatness and cliché of ‘self-care’ right between bubble baths and capitalistic means of taking care of yourself. This isn’t that. This is me coming with an open heart and saying this time is hard for a lot of us. Under the best of circumstances there is often shopping and cooking to be done, there are the same half dozen holiday songs in every public place and the flurry of busyness goes against the Earth’s very call of hibernation and rest. I see you; I feel you. **BREATHE**
As I sit here in the peacefulness and buzzing energy of the middle of the night, I wanted to share what I am thankful for:
I’m thankful for the cover of night as the bastion for my creativity. I’m thankful for hot tea and art supplies. I’m thankful for journals and full moons and Sagittarius season. I’m thankful for a life partner and mate of my soul who understands and is cool with me, cocooning and creating and being who I am.
I’m thankful for my mommy for teaching me to be wholly myself, unapologetically. I’m thankful for friends and loved ones who keep sending love and love and love and trusting that even in my silence I’m boomeranging it back 10,000 times over. I’m thankful for my teachers, past and present. For the people who challenge me and remind me to do it scared! I am thankful for the woman writers and artists who were the light that showed me the path. I’m thankful for a grandmother who thought convention was overrated. I am thankful for a Godfather who saw the light in me before I saw it in myself. I’m thankful for cozy, warm corners of the internet that know how to hug and hold me when the world seems it’s darkest and coldest.
I’m thankful for love, wisdom, tarot and oracle cards, fresh air, and the lights turning on when I flip the switch. I’m thankful for disability and chronic illness for ripping away that which didn’t serve me and pushing me to be my whole and entire self, louder than I thought I ever could.
I’m thankful for where I am now and the direction I’m moving in. I am also often heartbroken by so much of what happens in our world. I can be both. I can feel my gratitude and lean into it without feeling obligated to be ‘happy’ all the time. It’s okay to be angry, frustrated, sad, grief stricken and it’s important to be honest about that. It’s okay to be exhausted and just curl up and rest, recover, treat the wounds. It’s okay to not feel like in the moment that the wound is the place where the light enters.
However, you are reading this is okay, it’s valid. I don’t want anything from you. I’m not selling anything. I just want to remind you to breathe and be however you are in the world. There is a place for it and you, I promise. Also thank you for being here. I’m grateful for you reading, for waiting for me to be able to come here. I am thankful for the care you take with me, and my words, and I wish you every single thing you need, now and always.
I pen this comment through emotional, tearful eyes. Thank you for brilliantly capturing the essence of Thanksgiving; a time for all of us to breath and reflect on all that is good and not so good in our lives and be thankful for those the creator and ancestors placed in our life. Thank you for always giving us what we need when we need it.