THANKFUL THURSDAY by ZEBRAFINCH (guest blogger)

Thankfulness and gratitude are daily and simple because my daily life is centered around simple things. The idea of waking up from a comfortable bed, having my animals nearby, enjoying a simple routine of coffee and some time alone create a whole cycle of well-being. I have a chronic illness, but even so, the simple joy of being keeps me going.

I also get very sad about the illness or my life from time to time. In those cases, over time I have come to see gratitude, and the expression of thankfulness especially, to be a “reset” button. If my system stops, I need a tool to fix it. I can almost use thankful like a “restore point” the way a computer does, except that it moves me to a future point. Gratitude can take me to where I was in my heart before the problem, eliminate the problem or modify it. Then, I feel as though I have taken a sort of leap forward.

This is not a dramatic process for me. It was so subtle at first, that I missed the point for decades.

In healing from Lyme disease, one sees, as my doctor puts it, “three steps forward, two steps back.” But thankfulness as a regular exercise is not just about healing, sometimes it is just about life. Isn’t all of life about healing, really? It is about growing, perhaps most would agree. Even if you don’t reach for gratitude for healing, when is gratitude not useful as a reset? Being thankful changes things.

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THANKFUL THURSDAY by ZEBRAFINCH (guest blogger)

All too lately, I have been creating thankfulness resting spots, times, vessels and instruments in life. I have been seeking ways to rebuild my life from the heart up and out. Thankfulness is one way to do this. This blog’s “Thankful Thursday” is a sanctuary for the process. In it, gratitude can seek out its rhythm and expansion, become increasingly available and, I hope, respiratory.  

There has been plenty in my life for which to be grateful. I haven’t read much about thankfulness, but I know a lot has been written about it. I’ve had some hard lessons in it. I wonder why I don’t feel it quite a lot more. I wonder if I block thankfulness continually without even realizing it.

If being thankful is defined simply as being “conscious of benefit received,” I also think of it as response. I rarely show it in tangible ways, to my great regret. Today, reflecting on thankfulness, I was surprised by questions that flooded my mind:

What do I notice when goodness comes my way?

When do I notice it?

What does it feel like?

Do I feel it or simply acknowledge it?

Do I express anything in response?

How do I express it?

Why does it take me so long to express it?

Will being grateful make anything or anyone better?

How can I make thankfulness last?

How is gratitude different from or the same as love?

Where do I begin or stop the feeling of thankfulness or start feeling something else?

Goodness, the questions seemed designed to keep me from ever actually being thankful.

I decided to express thankfulness at certain times and to create the places in which to do that. Otherwise, as a friend had taught me, how would I hold the value of thankfulness? Would thankfulness otherwise be too ephemeral? Then, I would build bridges between those moments and places one expression at a time, until a solid pathway could be etched into my heart.

First, I needed a spot for tactile reminder. Short of having a forest, mountain or beach handy, I decided that my spot could still feel like a natural chapel. Removed from nature by an illness and “shoebox” city living, I chose my alcove desk. I devoted that space to gratitude (and to my work). It is the last thing I see in the morning, and the first thing I see upon returning home. As I walk in my front door, I see the glowing alcove with a clean writing surface, paper and pen waiting, colour and imagery that makes my heart happy. It “bookends” my day’s experiences. I began to use that space as my anchor for appreciation.

Then, I needed a time. Every night, or when I remember to do it, I began to use Twitter to express a few words of evening gratitude. These things belong in journals. Is it a vain, navel gazing exercise to say them aloud? I wonder. I benefit from the grateful words of others.

With those beginnings, I hope gratitude will become my first response to literally everything. Not in a sentimental way, but in a natural way, assuming that the highest good for all is manifesting before my eyes. Easier said than done for me. Today, I am thankful for this blog. It is a gentle invitation to reconnect with my own heart, and, I hope, a more loving exchange with life.

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Using myself (my life’s experience) as a measure of how to obtain balance and breath in happiness every day including fulfillment in the life being lived, the secret I believe is in simplicity.  Also humility, lack of greed, stayed pride (checking ones pride into submission), along with a conscience effort to be gentle. Not just being gentle to each other and not just to the world at large, but specifically to Mother. Allowing good judgement to over-ride poor judgement.   

Many times poor judgement is powered by “I want it to be – So I’ll make it be”.  An absolute walk down the Black Path. Bolstered by ” I can make it be so if I try hard enough”.  Not that having goals, dreams and desires is bad. They are not and we should strive toward making them come true.   True?  That is the pivotal point of this discussion.  What is true for the Black Road is an illusion. We never see it coming until it hits us usually knocking us down changing everything as we know it.  We worked so hard for it too.  For most Walking The Red Road means giving up the illusion of what we think we want.  With that sacrifice comes peace creating genuine fulfillment. With it the Red Road appears luminous before us.

My estimation of the Red Road or the correct Path to walk is many things:

1) we choose to walk it.

2) we were born to walk it.

3) we were forced upon it.

Explanation: We choose to make correct decisions based on living a humble and simple life choosing to be stewards of Mother and each other and all creatures.  It is believed that he Red Road is our destiny. That we were born to walk it and that we many times fall off of it.  This I believe is true. Many times we walk paths that we believe we are meant to walk only find that they come to an abrupt cliff edge leaving us teetering or falling into the depths. Why? Because those Paths were only meant to prepare us for the true Red Road. Sometimes we find ourselves walking Paths we did not choose for ourselves and again they end abruptly at some point  forcing us to finally make a choice against opposing forces striving to make that choice for us. Bottom line is we have choices…

A message from “Republic of Lakotah”

The RED ROAD vs The Black Road

There are many roads in life, but there are two that are important; the Red Road and the Black Road. They represent good and bad in every one’s life. It’s the two choices people have to make frequently in life. The Red Road is the good way, the good side, and the right choice. It is a road that is difficult with dangers and obstacles that are hard to travel on. The Black Road is the bad way, the bad side, and the wrong choice. The Black Road is wide and easy to travel. The Red Road and the Black Road appear in our lives not as roads but as the personifications of right and wrong, good and bad, light and dark.

The Lakota never were known to accumulate material goods. It was never done in pursuit of wealth; it was done to get around hard times or to help someone who ran short. Generosity has its rewards. The lack of it has its consequences. It was not practical for a nomadic people to accumulate too much because it only meant more to haul when the camp moved, which could be up to three or four times a year. The more you owned, the more you hauled. 

Truth is the marker along the roads we travel in life. The Red Road has many markers. If you choose the Black Road, there is only the illusion of truth. We can be influenced by the truth or by illusion. Sometimes truth is like the wind.  You cannot see it, but you can see the effect it has. Truth is also like the sunrise and sunset. We see the sun come up over the eastern horizon in the morning and then disappear behind the western horizon in the evening.  From the perspective of our existence on a spinning globe, the sun appears to “rise” and “set.” In reality the sun does neither. Living a humble and giving life keeps one on the path of the Red Road…

Continued here

Something to think about.  How we live our lives and the consequences of those choices and of those lives lived.

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