As I think about Gratitude this year on Thanksgiving I scroll through my photos and see, well, the things I love: big old trees, yoga poses, (blurry) pics of birds, friends and Sam, my partner. All things I love and for which am grateful. Sitting with this blending awareness, I become aware that gratitude is easy for the things for which I have no expectations. That big old live oak that I stand before in awe for minutes on end, just looking. That Lewis’s woodpecker we drove almost an hour to catch a glimpse of—and did! Even watching the “Little Brown Jobs” (LBJs– a colloquial expression for the common, mostly not distinctive small birds) in our back yard.
Pure joy and no expectations: I don’t need anything from these beloved moments; it is simply, easily pure joy.
And then I gaze at pics of my friends and family. While the feelings that arise are also joy and even a light-hearted giggle for some, I also sense sadness for the one who is in chronic pain, hope for the one who seems lost just now, and a feeling of prayer for the ones I want to keep close. I have hopes and fears — in a word, attachment — for the people I love. Then there’s the Yoga. I look at quick pics of me playing with poses for a new sequence, and some from a workshop I taught recently. They are hasty snapshots of an endeavor meant to be experienced over many years. Yet what I sense is a quality of being very engaged and in a word, love.
