Dear Wise Women,
The past few weeks have been deeply challenging. We have experienced immense grief and sorrow at the unimaginable loss experienced by our beloved Sangha member Jen, her family and her larger community.
This week, I felt with resounding clarity the call to explore gratitude. Not in the love and light kind of way that has the tendency to sweep over the darkness, but a willingness to look past the surface and dive into the real energy of gratitude. The true essence of it. To explore a gratitude that is independent of our circumstances.
The readings I chose helped guide us and the additional insights shared during our circle solidified the sensation of true grace and gratitude.
I gratefully add in our dear Brenda’s contribution, though she was unable to attend our circle this morning, she emailed me these profound words last night and they simply blew me away:
“For me, the energy of gratitude feels bright and expansive. It feels like my True Self, my Higher Self, the same energy of who I truly am. It is a unifying energy that helps me to connect with the web of life and all of its parts. It feels very nurturing to all my bodies (physical, mental, emotional, etheric) and soothes me with a feeling of home. The energy of gratitude is a magical place where the voice of my ego is silenced and I feel like I am being suspended in a beautiful, warm, golden light.”
As always, I am feeling very connected with what each of you shared. It is as if my heart is able to jump inside and cozy up next to your heart and deeply relate to what you are feeling…and yet to do so with a neutral compassion that I can only describe as pure Love.
“I RAISE THE pipe of my being to the rising sun in openness and humility. With my eyes closed, I give Thanks to the Life Giver and ask for the strength to be humble through the course of this day. I smudge myself with sacred medicines and give thanks for the blessings that are already present in my life. I ask for nothing. I only offer Thanks. Then, in gratitude and humility, I enter the journey of each day. This is wakefulness, this is becoming, this is ceremony - and I am made more. ”
“ME: What if we’re wrong?
OLD WOMAN: Wrong about what?
ME: All this ceremony, prayer, meditation. What if at the end of, all there is is nothing?
OLD WOMAN: Then we still come out better people.
ME: How?
OLD WOMAN: Can you think of a better way to live than in gratitude? Can you think of a better way to be than to be kind, loving, compassionate, respectful, courteous, truthful and forgiving? Even if we’re wrong, can you thin of a better way to breathe than through all of that?
....
I couldn’t. I can’t. I continue. ”
GRACE AND GRATITUDE
“Grace is always present. You imagine it is somewhere high in the sky, far away, and has to descend. It is really inside you, in your Heart. Grace is the Self. . . .You are never out of its operation.
—Sri Ramana Maharshi
Whether life appears to bring tears or laughter, it is all grace. Grace fills the world, but only a heart awakened to Love will taste its depths. In awakening we understand that grace is always present. There is a basic trust in life’s movement and its goodness. We realize that whatever is here in the moment is a gift, if we can receive it as such. Whatever is here expresses life’s wholeness and can be an invitation back to its Source.
Awakening allows us to freely appreciate the gifts of impermanence and continual flow, no longer bound by the suffering that comes from perpetually wanting “more,” different, or unending experiences.
When we realize the movement of grace in our lives, the natural response of the heart is gratitude. Gratitude is not simply being thankful for things we deem beneficial or pleasurable. It is really a way of living and an expression of the peace we discover that is right here in all circumstances. We may find that:
It is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy.
-Brother David Steindl-Rast
”
Our circle of sharing was followed with a deep and long qigong practice infused with gratitude and graced by the power of a smile.
Truly, truly, truly grateful for our practice!
xoxo
Patti
“Keep a heart of gratitude for all that life brings you.
Everything is in service to your awakening from this long sleep of delusion into your real Self so full of life and love.
Say thank you to life.
Say thank you to God.
Say thank you to your most inmost being.
Even if you cannot see at the moment what to say thank you for, keep on saying thank you.
It will change the vibration inside and make you light and open and full of love, forgiveness and joy.
In the end of all things: Don’t worry.
All is in God’ s hands.
Everything is good.
Everything is good.”