In Appreciation

Gold and auburns glimmer and sparkle in this early morning dew. My breath plumes and rises as I survey my sleeping garden from my old porch. Torn spiderwebs drape the corners, weaving a sad tale of seasons: the burst of new beginnings, the sowing, the rearing, the reaping and the dying, the dessication and dissipation as bones crumble to dust and are swept away...

My fingers poke through my gloves as they curl around a steaming mug of coffee. I breathe thanks to the delicious aroma and warmth, as my cold nose seeks the rich, hot steam.

My nose does not like the cold. But I don't mind so much.

Dishes clatter in the kitchen as my husband begins his Thanksgiving ritual of joyful preparation. I muse about the quicksilver streams of culture that disperse as our families are separated, generation by generation, as younger members move away and marry out of their own cultural contexts. These now single strands of culture mingle and create independent family nodules, often outside of a contiguous community, within which tradition becomes a blend of two fragile, disparate streams, to be further diluted and dispersed by the next generation... hmmm.

Mind does love to wander!

I shift my attention toward the carpet of infinite tiny rainbows dancing on the frost, creating a haze of irridescence as the sun filters through the trees. The sky is severe clear and crisp. I feel my heart fill and swell, as if the warm vapor pools into golden honey as I inhale, pooling and filling each resonant, thumping chamber with a pulsing beat, beat, beat of gladness, until the cup of my heart truly does run over, first in spurts, then in buckets and torrents, even as the cup in my hand empties...

Yummy. My belly dreams of Thanksgivings past, grumbling impatiently. I swear I will not abuse my tummy this year. I have had a whole year to process and resolve issues of gluttony and master the dynamics of intent and will. Yes I have. But the proof is in the pudding, as it were, or in this case, as it will be!

But that is another chapter...

Today I practice the opening of my heart in appreciation. I am glad for this opportunity to celebrate this particular magic we inherit, the ability to give thanks, and to honor this amazing spigot of love, light, laughter and creative fire that we call the human heart.

Sometimes we have only barren times, when it is hard to appreciate, easy to yield to fear. Fear is what closes the spigot, shuts down the golden flow of life-sustaining manna that emerges through a mysterious conduit from the deeps of our deepest deep, through the anomoly in our core, the mysteriously folded paradox in the center of our center....

In its absence we experience a pettiness in ourselves, and are prone to judgment, to attack or avoid. We contort to the dictates of the shadow-mind, cling to our opinions and lose ourselves to our desires. Our attention narrows and our minds coarsen to fixate on the concrete aspects and superficial appearances of things. Our ability to tolerate or negotiate ambiguity and change is alarmingly curtailed.

The opposite happens as we glory in the wonder of it all. As we truly appreciate, our heart opens and fills, our awareness broadens and deepens. We are able to make very subtle distinctions, and are no longer confined to the gross aspects of things. We shed the skins of obsolete rationalizations, and in gladness and grief we free ourselves from the now meaningless and suffocating energetic entrapments once so cherished and stingily hoarded.

We are able to love with abandon, knowing with full certainty that the love I experience is the love that pours forth from that eternal and infintie ocean within. That the love I experience is the love I give to you. It is not dependent on results. It is not jealous. And it is not afraid.

Our hearts are so beautiful and wise, so very resiliant and strong. And the stronger for good exercise on a frosty Thanksgiving morning, sipping a from a generous cup and thinking of you!

Many, many blessings to you and yours! We are connected in the strength and sophistication of our appreciation for one another, as we speed by each on our own quicksilver stream from there to here, to there again.

What is that wonderful smell from the kitchen?

;-)