Counting Our Blessings

“ Hear blessings dropping their blossoms around you“ ~ Rumi 

”Listen to your Life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness, touch, taste, and smell your way to the holy hidden heart of It because in the last analysis, All moments are key moments and Life itself is Grace.” I don’t know who wrote this beautiful quote but I keep it by my cozy, red, squashy armchair where I sit every winter morning, with a cup of tea and my journal, writing down all the blessings of the previous day.

This has been the hardest blog post to write. I’ve been editing it for 2 years. Gratitude means everything to my soul and has illuminated my Life beyond my imagination, but every time I try and write about It, the words seem trite. I’ve decided to rely heavily on quotes and poets. Poetry can express great truths in Life far better than my prose. Honestly, I think keeping a journal, one that focuses on Gratitude, has blessed my life as powerfully and as radiantly as the sun.  

There is a vast amount of research on the health benefits of being grateful. Cellular experiments now show that emotions cause actual chemical changes in EVERY one of our cells. This news really popped my eyes wide opened! In other words, being content and grateful bathes my cells in happiness and being sad bathes my actual cells in a bath of discontented chemicals?!! I choose the happy bath whenever I can:) Being thankful for your blessings brings more and more of those blessings into Life. If I can be thankful even for a “problem”, it becomes a challenge. This shift in perspective changes the way in which I am able to handle things. What a huge blessing to have more distance from hard issues, more spaciousness to see how best to dance with difficulties and that we are helped to grow from all challenges. 

Early mornings in the summer, I curl up in the pond house surrounded by flowers and breezes on the water, with hot tea and my journal. Watching the sun rise over the eastern hillside of Wood Pond, I write down all our blessings; tiniest and biggest. My entries are getting longer and longer. This quiet, still time before my beloveds awaken is so precious to me; it seems to get the day off to a wondrous start. Through my journals, I have learned to train my attention onto the positive. Is this why Life is beautiful in most moments? I don’t know. I am just following the advice of the wise ones all through history; it does seem whatever we think about and give thanks for, more comes pouring into our lives.

Praying

“It doesn’t have to be the blue iris, 

it could be weeds in a vacant lot,

or a few small stones; just pay attention, then patch

A few words together and don’t try

To make them elaborate, this isn’t 

a contest but the doorway 

Into thanks, and a silence in which

Another voice may speak.

                     ~Mary Oliver