Remembering Gratitude

I just ran across a blog post I wrote at the end of 2023, a year that began with a prayer for liberation “whatever it takes.” The universe answered my prayer with cancer, not exactly what I had in mind, and yet it was the perfect opportunity for me to decide if I really meant “whatever it takes.” I decided that I did mean it, even if liberation meant dying. It was a powerful year, and my prayer for liberation was granted. I didn’t die that year, but I made my peace with death. What a gift. And I ended the year with such humble, profound gratitude, not for my survival, but for the liberation of total surrender.

Since then, I have lived in gratitude for every day, for every breath, for every moment of awareness of the magical mystery of this amazing existence. Finding and rereading this blog post reminded me of the intensity of that year, and I found myself once again humbled in gratitude.

Here is what I wrote then:

A few days ago, I sat on a driftwood log, watching the seagulls swoop over the waves crashing on the shore. All I could think was, “Thank you, God, for letting me live long enough to have this day.” That’s how I feel every day. Life. So exquisitely precious in its extraordinary ordinariness. The mundane and the magical shifting in optical illusion until you don’t know which side you’re looking at because they’re both the same. There is no separation. All creation is connected in one infinite network of shimmering vibration. Existence is relationship. There is nothing else.

What a year, right? Wow. Not one I’ll soon forget. A year that taught me that the universe always answers the deepest prayers of our heart, answers them with a wisdom that often defies understanding yet carries within it the love of all creation, singing beauty in our soul.

Today, several years after I wrote that, I have lived long enough to see another grandchild born, to discover the deep intimacy of partnered love, to meet soul friends, to say goodbye to loved ones, to be fascinated by new interests, to grieve with compassion over tragedy in our world, to be grateful for it all.

Open my eyes to the beauty that surrounds me that I may walk through this day with the kind of awareness that calls forth grateful living. ~Macrina Wiederkehr, Seven Sacred Pauses

PS – And here is a wonderful song giving thanks for this day. Enjoy!