Happy Thanksgiving

by | Nov 22, 2023

Thanks Giving. Two words. Which means we are giving thanks for all our blessings. I prefer to think of it as Gratitude Day.

I ask you to spend the day focused on what’s good, what’s working in your life, or better yet, focus with gratitude in your heart on the things you take for granted. I bet doing this will make you happier!

Here’s a short list of things I take for granted (sometimes):

  • Windows that keep the weather out, but let the light in.
  • Climate-controlled houses.
  • Grass which is a solar collector that provides nourishment to grazing animals, protects our precious soil, and so much more.
  • Trees. Their deep roots, strong, yet flexible trunks, and leaves that absorb CO2. They are the lungs of the Earth.
  • Hats, jackets, and clothes in general that offer us protection from the elements.
  • Our cars are miraculous machines that get us quickly from point A to B.
  • Restaurants that give us a reprieve from cooking, an opportunity to dine around others an sample different cuisines.
  • Our grocery stores. Just stand outside before you go in and take a deep breath of gratitude for being able to access an astounding breadth of selections while strolling in a climate-controlled setting, pushing a cart. We are so freakin’ lucky!
  • Our gardens if you grow one. Watching the miracle of nature from seed to fruit or vegetables.
  • Air travel. It’s mind-blowing. We get into a metal fuselage with seats, hand over control to aeronautics and the pilot, speed through the air at 500+ mph, and arrive hundreds or thousands of miles from where we began. Marvel at that and be grateful the world is so accessible.
  • Democracy. Okay. I’m going here. Our right to vote in the United States. Our right as a collective to set our path, determined by the rule of law. I am grateful for democracy.
  • The internet. Connecting us with the entire globe, shopping with a push of a button, and research at our fingertips. It offers so much when utilized consciously.
  • Our mobile phones are miracles at our fingertips.
  • Our bodies and its natural intelligence. We likely take it for granted – our lungs, heart, and digestive system- they all know what to do. And how about our eyes to see, ears to hear, nose to smell, and hands to touch?
  • Our ability to learn and use words to communicate.
  • Our ability to transform raw materials into finished goods from chairs to couches to tables to houses to cars to trucks to machines to computers to simply taking a fruit such as an apple and turning it into a pie.
  • Alchemy, each and every day we are alchemists. We are creators. We are thinkers, doers, and be-ers.

Just writing the post has opened my heart and mind wide open… and brought me to these next few:

  1. When I wake up, I remember to say thank God I am alive in THIS body.
  2. To love, appreciate, and be grateful for our humanness, our unique journeys from our parents and ancestors as we migrate through life just trying to figure out our purpose and how to show up whole and happy.
  3. And my last one is to remember living is a gift. Live while you are living: love and be loved. This message was given to me when my Dad was transitioning.
  4. There are billions of other things to be grateful for, but this is the list that flowed through my pen today.

I urge you to begin a gratitude practice. It shifts your consciousness.

I am grateful to you for reading this. And for being part of my community. You add to the tapestry of my life.

And so it is, I wrote myself happy!