With Gratitude

Yesterday, I came across a picture I took last summer of the cormorant who sometimes joins me when I row on a pond that sits in the countryside near our home. It’s quite a well known pond  where Henry David Thoreau made his home. Walden Pond is a peaceful oasis away from the summer heat and a place we head to as often as we can during the warmer months. There I can row endlessly across the water with nothing more than the sound of the birds and the wind. The cormorant in the photo reminded me of how grateful I feel when I am surrounded by nature and he is at my side. 

In this winter season of rest and reflection, I am reminded of how grateful I am for so much. I am grateful to choose to slow down, simplify and savor the magical moments that happen. I am grateful to be mindful. Though I have always practiced appreciation, I’m not sure I consciously practiced gratitude. 

I do practice gratitude now and it brings me joy. When I am conscious of being grateful for something, I am much more likely to value it. So it goes with my friend the cormorant. 

I began to include a section in my morning journal where I list things I am grateful for, things I have made happen and goals I will work towards. It’s a very short but powerful reminder that what we value drives/ motivates our hopes and dreams. And that by making those intentions known in our written word, we are practicing being mindful. 

Being grateful for small things has improved the way I see the world. String together the small magical moments and my outlook improves. It just makes me feel better.

I am reminded of a poem that sticks in my head when I’m thinking about being grateful for something. I think it’s the phrase “kills me with delight” that gets me every time.

Mindful 

Every day

I see or hear

something that more 

or less kills me with

Delight,

that leaves me

like a needle in

the haystack 

of light.

It was what 

I was born for -

to look, to listen, 

to lose myself

inside this 

soft world - 

to instruct myself 

over and over 

in joy, 

and acclamation. 

Nor am I talking 

about the 

Exceptional,

the fearful, the dreadful, 

the very extravagant -

but of the ordinary, 

the common, 

the very drab, 

the daily presentations. 

Oh, good scholar, 

I say to myself, 

how can you help 

but grow wise 

with such teachings 

as these - 

the untrimmable 

light of the world, 

the ocean's shine, 

the prayers that are 

made out of grass?                          

- Mary Oliver