Gratitude as Celebration

Gratitude is the celebration of needs met.

1. Ongo journal

2. Love meditation

3. Days of Passion

1. Ongo journal:

I'm taking a 12-week non-violent communication class. Week seven is Forgiveness, and the focus today is on celebration and gratitude.

I've had a hard time with the word gratitude for many years, but as soon as I read that the need is celebration, my heart felt light. "...thoughts are simply the mind's way to celebrate or mourn - they are like the mind's tears of gratitude and regret."

That's a lovely way to frame it! If I see gratitude as how I celebrate the Needs that were fulfilled, I can reach it more easily. When I draw up the memory of yesterday with Grandson #1, I can feel the celebration of connection, ease, affection, hope, and humor.

Conversely, when I remember the fight I had with W. I feel the mourning of lack of equanimity, respect, and understanding. 

 

2. Love meditation:

Every month after the full moon, in the quiet-energy yin time of the waning moon, I practice a love meditation that progresses from receptivity, to gratitude, to generosity:

Day 2: Practice a love meditation, and end by feeling and expressing gratitude - send a prayer to the universe of thanksgiving for all I have in my life. 

Today I list these needs that are being met: Air, food, water, light, warmth, rest, movement, shelter, comfort, peace, beauty, order, love, belonging, tenderness, being heard, contribution, inspiration, celebration, independence, self-expression, and humor.

3. Days of Passion:

On Fridays I make a plan for Nature-Culture flow and writing through the next week. My Nature-Culture theme this month is life and death, animals, and preparing for winter. I'm also working on the idea of the intersection of Nature and Culture: Is there a balance point, like a Yin yang, between the two? How can I better incorporate a sense of my wild animal instinctual being into my days, and thinking like an earth dweller rather than a person from mars?

• Writing: Awareness of animals (and self as animal), Walking meditations; seed collections; Natural living: Regenerative winter gardening, Plastic free holidays; Give Back: Write a Habitat Haven neighbor letter, Share the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address, Plastics advocacy and education; Sanctuary: Wild winter garden, pinecone bird feeders, Mason bees
• Creativity: Start a positivity abstract (about butterflies?); Butterflies in bathroom; Sewing project (little nature prints?); recycled plastic bags project
• Garden: Sow native seeds; Clean Mason Bees; Build hugelkulture, plant clover and natives; Remove ornamental iris from 2nd street bed; Move soil, remove thimbleberry; Remove English ivy in hedge
• Community: Schedule a sign-making day; Organize Haudenosaunee address; Teach N-C to kids; Finish EC trifold; Post plans to web page.