I really was going to write about something else today, on the eve of Thanksgiving. I thought it would be way too predictable to write about gratitude. But sometimes we are in control of our decisions, and other times we are guided towards a different path.
I have kept an inconsistent digital writing practice for about 6 years now. It’s now 475 pages long. When I have an idea for a topic I want to write about I will sometimes go to this document and search for some ideas to get me started, as I’ve likely written about many of these topics before.
Tonight as I searched for a word that will now be next week’s focus, I came across a passage that really spoke to me and felt write to share with you all today. In the same preparation period I also found a funny note on my phone that also prompted me to focus on “gratitude.”
For some reason, my iPhone often autocorrects the word “gratitude” to “fearful.” I made a note of this because it hit me that we are often programmed for fear and away from gratitude in our society.
Gratitude can be such a powerful way to reject the fear that surrounds us, but it also requires us to trust ourselves and anchor in some of the few things in this world that provide us with hope and certainty.
I wrote this passage in 2021 and have edited it for today’s Warrior Wednesday, as I feel the emotion of it captures much of what has been on my, and probably many others’, mind these days.
It is convenient for us to squelch the inner wisdom, the intuition, the knowing that is instinctual to us. The questions we have for our purpose, our desires, our decisions, our future, all have answers that have already been written. We busy ourselves to ignore these answers and instead continue to come up with more and more questions.
Why do we do this? What is the comfort in questions?
This counterproductive process prevents us from finding the answers that we seek. The answers that are already within us, were we to stop and listen.
When we ask our mundane questions of the world, we often reject the answers that are given, especially when they are “gray.”
We are uncomfortable with uncertainty just as we are uncomfortable with silence.
We make up our own answers, using external influences and half-truths told by others who are also afraid to be uncertain. We attach ourselves to these stories because at least they have an ending. We deprive ourselves of curiosity and open-mindedness by establishing an unspoken rule that to not know the answer is to be weak, powerless, incompetent and untrustworthy.
When we pause to ask more questions, or when we ourselves are comfortable enough to say “I’m not sure,” or “it depends,” without taking on the judgment of others who view this as a copout, we start to connect with our inner truth, and we start to expand our possibilities for growth and new experiences.
We let go of fear and move toward trust and gratitude.
What would the world be like if we could honor and praise the unknowing? If we could see it as a gift, that there are mysteries we will never solve, but that we can ponder and wonder about and find comfort in the opportuinties presented by that unknown?
If we could open our eyes each morning and pretend we’ve never been here before, and then understand that it’s not pretending.
We are different each day, literally on a cellular level, and the day itself is also different. Our schedules may be the same, our activities and our duties and responsibilities may be the same, but our experiences as we traverse those activities can’t possibly be the same.
The world is different, we are different…”No woman walks through the same river twice, for she is not the same woman, and it is not the same river.” (paraphrased from Heraclitus)
What if we could challenge ourselves to find something unique in the “everyday” that we typically find mundane?
What if we could find gratitude for something that is dependable and constant, like the daily sunrise or the change of tides, in a world that is filled with so much uncertainty that we are not yet comfortable with?
As we grow towards being more comfortable in the gray, we will always have those anchors, those boundaries, those constants that the universe holds for us to re-center, re-ground and re-set.
Begin again.
Nature is one of those constants that provides us with this opportunity.
It is so important to connect with nature whenever possible. If they are open to it, every being on earth can feel an electricity and a rejuvenation after an encounter with the natural world.
Even the grumpiest, reluctant hiker dragged on to a trail by their friends when all they wanted to do was stay inside and binge watch Netflix experiences this phenomenon. Though they may be fighting themselves to admit it, it doesn’t matter, because they are getting that natural “hit” on a cellular level.
The fresh air, the sunshine, the rain, the snowflakes, the clouds moving above, the stars punching holes in the black canvas of sky… they are all sending ions to the skin and into the depths of our body containers.
It’s unavoidable, we receive it either on a subconscious level, or, if we are able to let go and immerse ourselves in it, we receive a deeper conscious experience that we can store and retrieve as needed when we re-enter our daily routine.
Nature is our anchor, our constant answer to all of the questions we have, and a constant source of comfort when it feels like the unknown is suffocating us.
For the last 6 years my husband and I have hiked up Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park to view the first sunrise in the US.
Hiking up Cadillac Mountain in the dark there is an abundance of uncertainty–unstable ground, lack of clarity on where the trail is, questions around what might or might not be lurking in the dark woods that could harm us…but coming out of the woods into the first clearing around 4:30 a.m., the night sky during a new moon sent a strong message to us that we are never alone.
There is a constancy to this universe of ours that can not be swayed by anything we create here on earth, particularly anything that we create in our minds, either individually or collectively, as humans. The infinite covering of stars and the iconic Milky Way streaking above us is something I rarely see in my routine life, but looking up that night I was reminded that it is always there.
Why don’t I look for it more often? Why don’t I step outside of my house at night and gaze up at this wonder? When I did so during that hike I felt complete, safe and comforted.
We hiked upward about 1000 feet to the peak where hundreds of people had gathered to watch the sunrise over the Atlantic ocean. The reds and pink bands at the horizon had already begun to blossom during the last part of our ascent and we dutifully fixed our eyes on the ever-changing life-size watercolor painting for 20 minutes awaiting the ascension of the perfect fireball in the sky.
For a moment I considered what would happen if the sun didn’t rise that morning. Was it possible? It seemed like a vision from dystopic science fiction novel. There is such a story by Ray Bradbury called “All Summer in a Day,” where a young girl moves to Venus and there is only a 2-hour window where the sun is going to appear once in her lifetime.
I considered what it would be like if we hiked up this mountain to see IF the sun would rise, rather than knowing that it would.
I imagined the crowds around us waiting with anticipation to see IF this was one of the days it would actually happen.
I imagined the groan of the crowd if the estimated time of sunrise came and there were no fireball ascending above the distant whitecaps on the ocean surface. I then played out the opposite, where the community gathered would clap and cheer loudly when the sun appeared right on schedule at 6:04 a.m.
I brought myself back to reality and thought that we should applaud for this miracle every single day, even when we “know” that it’s going to happen.
And yet, when the sun appeared that morning it was silent around me.
I felt a shudder go through my body when the full body of that brilliant golden sphere took its place in the sky, along with that familiar feeling of fighting off the urge to cry that I’ve held so many times in my life, pushing back emotion when it seemed “inappropriate.”
I took a deep breath and let the tears flow. I don’t know why they came, but I wanted to give them the path they sought without fighting them.
Why should I fight it? This is beautiful. And life has been hard, and uncertain, and here was something to remind me, remind all of us, that there is still a constancy and certainty in this world of ours, and it is fucking beautiful.
Absorb it, relish it, swallow it and let the sunbeams bathe your insides with warmth and light and energy that can not be taken from you. Reflect on the thoughts within your mind as the sun reflects on the water; in fact, the reflection of the sun was visible before we saw the fully body of it appear. It’s almost as if it were taking its time to consider the possibility in its journey before taking the stage and making its daily statement.
What would it be like if we all did that with our thought? What if we took our time before we speak, before we decide what we believe, and before we attach fear, anxiety, anger, frustration, or finality to those thoughts?
What if we gracefully entered each space in conversation and connection with the sensitivity of the sunrise?
There is discomfort in the gray, the unknown, the uncertain, but there is also a beauty in the reflection, the curiosity, the wonder and the letting go.
If you are afraid, just remember that the sun will rise and set each day, and that may be just enough certainty to allow us to find comfort and possibility in the vast unknowns each day.
This is the gift that nature gives to us. It holds us safe in a strong foundation so that we can move and think freely, if we choose to trust that foundation, let go of fear, and let GRATITUDE prevail.
Happy Thanksgiving, Warriors.