Lessons in Gratitude Day 941

Posted on October 11, 2014 by mtchamblee

This week I rode Mephistopheles the mechanical bull. I’m not sure when I invented Mephisto, but he continues to be an apt metaphor for the kinds of twists and turns my life appears to take in a given moment. Or rather it is not so much the twists and turns of my life as much as it is the emotional reactions I have to what’s going on in the world around me. When I find myself in mental turmoil over what’s happening around me, I climb on to the bull, dig my legs into it’s side, grab the rope, raise my left hand and nod. The ride turns on and Mephisto spins in a circle, whips side to side, up, and down in wildly unpredictable ways. I hold on for dear life, sometimes lasting the full eight seconds required to score in a rodeo and other times I go flying, either rolling and landing neatly on my feet or slamming with a thud into a wall or onto the floor. Of course this is all metaphorical, right?

I got through these various wild rides the way I usually do: through simple appreciation of natural beauty, by immersing myself into music and singing or dancing, and of course by the daily expression of gratitude for the blessings in my life.

I’ve been writing this blog for over two years now. Two years of gratitude in one form or another. What have I learned from this experiment? I have learned that no matter how challenging life gets, it is still possible to smile and to find the good thing in any given day. I can safely say that I’ve had days in the past few years when I woke up feeling strained, stressed, and sad about my situation and have gone through the entire day and at night time concluding that the day had been completely awful start to finish. And yet, even in the midst of that kind of day, I found myself at the end of it seeking blessing, researching through the day to find something to be grateful for. And while I could not always make myself feel good at the end of a bad day, I could still point to at least one thing I could express gratitude for. Sometimes, almost inexplicably, I would manage to feel better, even at the end of an difficult day. That is the kind of resilience that comes from an inner wellspring of spirit. I cannot take credit for it, it is simply there.

I have been and am in the midst of some turbulent times, some of which are of my own making. Irrespective of the source, I must still navigate my way through these times with what I hope will be as much grace as possible. During these days, gratitude serves as an anchor when I am drifting, a buoy when I am sinking, a warm glow in the midst of cold darkness, and takes on a variety of forms that truly help me navigate life’s challenges. And while there are days when I wish I didn’t have to look so hard for something to be grateful for, or when I wished I was celebrating a truly momentous, wondrous occurrence that would make me wildly successful, happy, content, I am nonetheless grateful for the many small blessings that dot my life on a daily basis. And so I continue to offer gratitude each day and will continue to do so as best I can for as long as I can. And so it goes.

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 940

Posted on October 10, 2014 by mtchamblee

This has been a remarkably long week, and I find myself exhausted at the end of it and grateful to have two upcoming days when I can sleep a little later and relax a little. I decided to spin the wheel this evening and repost an earlier blog. When I spun the wheel of the Random Number Generator, I happened to come up on Day 229, the day I returned from a few weeks away from writing. It seems a good place to land on a Friday evening. I will post this and then sink gratefully into the oblivion of sleep. Enjoy this post originally written in February 2012:

Tonight signing into this blog site was a bit like walking into a room you haven’t been inside of in a long time. “Is this how I left this?” I ask myself,looking around at the vaguely familiar layout of the place. “This is a really cool room. I used to do a lot of fun things in here.” A funny thing happened during my hiatus from writing my daily gratitude blog–I lost some of the power that had come from focusing each day on one or more blessings I am grateful for. I still expressed gratitude in some form many times a day;but I definitely lost something when I fell out of the habit of taking this time of deliberate focus on gratitude. It’s going to take me some effort to reestablish the momentum I’d gained from writing every day for  nearly eight months. I imagine that the wall I hit a few weeks ago when I’d written the last blog before my hiatus will still pop up in front of me from time to time. And,as I did so many times on those days,I’ll push through and find a way to say what I am grateful for that day. Right now I am simply grateful to be back thinking and writing about gratitude.

I am grateful this evening for this walk of faith that I’m on at the moment. The fog of uncertainty that has characterized much of the past year is at times as dense as it’s been since the early months of 2011 when the rug got pulled out from under me. But then there are those brief glimmers of clarity,not so much about what I’m “supposed”to be doing with my life,but clarity that it’s somehow alright not to know and that I’ll know what I need to know when I need to know it. And until then I just keep walking forward doing the best I can with what’s in front of me. Now THAT,folks is faith.

Yet there have been times in the midst of my writing my gratitude blog when I felt like an absolute fraud–here I was writing about gratitude and the blessings in my life when part of me felt panicky and freaked out and quaking in my boots that everything that had crashed down around me was going to stay crashed down and that I would never find my way out of the mess. I listen to myself tell people how even though life’s been challenging everything’s going to work out. I sound upbeat,optimistic,hopeful. But in the quiet of the night or wee hours of the morning,I sometimes wake with that liquid adrenaline coursing through my arms and legs like low voltage electric energy,wondering how I’m going to take care of everything that I need to handle to fulfill my obligations. Yet somehow I get up in the morning,bless the day,and tell myself that very same thing:everything’s going to be alright. Even now I shake my head. That is faith,I think.

I am grateful for what’s happening in my life at the moment. The blank canvas that is my next phase still stands on the easel waiting for the first touches of the brush to tap its flesh with various shades and hues transforming it into a vision of what I am becoming. That’s a fancy way of saying I still don’t know quite what things are shaping up to be for me at this moment in my life. I can’t recall ever having a less clear idea of anything in my fifty-plus years of living. It is an odd feeling to literally have everything in one’s life up in the air,but that is my truth of the moment.When that changes,you all will be among the first to know. In the meantime,thanks for walking along with me. It’s an interesting,windy,uncharted path. Definitely not for the faint of heart!

I’ll do my best to be back here tomorrow. I hope you’ll take my hand and join me once again as we walk the path of gratitude. So be it!

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 939–Mama Said…

Posted on October 9, 2014 by mtchamblee

Last night I fell asleep with my computer on my lap. I was in the midst of writing this blog. I woke, bleary-eyed, sometime after 10:30 p.m. and struggled to put the last few sentences together. I had no idea when I hit the “publish” button whether or not what I had written had made any sense. I haven’t gone back to read it to see if it did, but I did notice that I didn’t finish the title. It said, “Lessons in Gratitude Day 938–A Little.” A little what? I have no idea. I was writing about the lunar eclipse that occurred–gees was it only yesterday morning? It feels like days ago, a dim memory. Anyway, I have no idea what “little” thing I was referring to, but I did go back and delete that part of the title. Hopefully the dozen or so people who read last night didn’t notice the half-formed title or won’t notice it’s disappearance.

Today has been an emotional mixed bag. I recognize that this simply is going to be what it is. Mama said there’ll be days like this, I reminded myself as I slogged through the day. I am learning to be patient with myself during these times. Is it my imagination or do people seem to be more tired, out of sorts, weary? There seems to be a general vibe among many of the people I interact with that points to this. I don’t know who is affected, but definitely at my workplace and as I connect with other folks here and there I am starting to wonder about things. There’s always a possibility that it’s just me (actually, in some ways I hope it is), but there’s a feeling in the air that I am hard-pressed to accurately name. Perhaps I’ll get to it before I’m done writing this evening.

In the midst of this fog of yuckiness (very descriptive term), I am reaching for gratitude from deep within me. At my core, all is still, calm, and serene, and in those moments when I can manage to tap into it, my inner self and my outer self align in a space where I cannot be flapped by the wild winds that are blowing all around me but stand graceful and strong in the midst of them. I don’t touch it very often, but the beauty is that I know it’s there. That is a deep comfort to me. It is hard to describe this phenomenon, because it seems a bit contradictory. On days like today I struggle to maintain a sense of emotional equanimity: the impact of unsettled conditions at work, the weight of decisions I’m facing, and the effects of all that’s happening in the area, across the country, around the world certainly take their toll on my psyche.

But in the midst of all of that I still smile as I watch the squirrels in my front yard chomping on acorns and chasing each other up and down trees. As I walk through the door after an exhausting day at work I often take several minutes to play ball outside with Honor and scratch her belly when she flops down and flips onto her back. I laugh at some of the ridiculous videos that people post on Facebook. I enjoy simple blessings: the beauty of the natural world around me, the warmth in a friend’s smile, a really good cup of coffee, so many things that can be brief and fleeting, but beautiful nonetheless. I am buoyed by the love and support of family, the awareness of my own inner strength, courage, and capacity to love, and the practice of gratitude that continues to ground me in awareness that no matter how “terrible, awful, no good, really bad” my day might feel, all is well and all shall be well. This is not some “fake it til you make it,” positive psychology, feel-good strategy (though there’s nothing wrong with those). This is simple fact.

So yeah, I had a lumpy, bumpy kind of day. But at the end of it I can still smile and remember what was good in it. That is a gift I will not take for granted. It really does keep on giving. And for that capacity, I am most exceedingly grateful.

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 938

Posted on October 8, 2014 by mtchamblee

This morning I chased the moon and caught it. Like many people around the world, I figured out what time the total lunar eclipse was going to hit our part of the country. I had heard somewhere that it would occur at 6:25 a.m. out here in the East. It’s a good thing I “happened” to turn on my radio at 6 a.m.–which I hardly ever do–because the broadcaster said, “The total lunar eclipse is happening right now!” I jumped up from bed, where I was sitting sipping coffee and writing in my journal as usual at 6:00 a.m., threw on some clothes and jumped into my car to drive to find a good vantage point away from the trees. Because the eclipse was happening essentially at moonset I was hoping to catch it before it set, dipping beneath the horizon. I didn’t have to drive far. No more than two blocks from my house, I pulled over, having spotted her in a clear spot, hanging above the treeline.

The last sliver of white of the moon was still present when I arrived, and as I watched it got smaller and smaller as the earth moved into place. After a bit, I was joined by a man and his young daughter. I could hear them talking as they approached my vantage point. He was explaining to her what was happening as she looked up with interest at what was happening. He turned to me and remarked, “Isn’t it amazing to think about–our ancestors probably stood like we’re standing watching this same phenomenon. I wonder if they were afraid.” I smiled at him. “I think they were probably in awe as we are,” I remarked. I had to smile because I had written about that in earlier blogs as I sat staring up at a brilliant full moon.  Yet another family also came down to view the moon. By this time it was nearly 6:30 and we now had a community gathering down on the corner, all of us gazing at the moon.

Blood Red Moon Lunar Eclipse Near Totality

I am grateful this evening for still having a sense of wonder and excitement about something as random as a lunar eclipse. I’m grateful because I still find such things awe inspiring, worthy of song and verse. There is such beauty in the world around us that I could stand and do a 360 from just about anywhere outside and find something beautiful within a very short radius from where I was standing.

“Open your eyes and see things, open your ears and listen, cause if you go through life with your eyes half closed you won’t know what you’re missing,” I wrote in a song a very long time ago. When you have an occasion and opportunity to capture a memory, a piece of history, whatever it is, you have to go for it, even if it means jumping into your buggy to go chase the moon.

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 937–Seasons and Cycles

Posted on October 7, 2014 by mtchamblee
“And summer’s lease hath all too short a date…”
~William Shakespeare

My friend J loves the summer; even with all of its heat and humidity, she relishes it. So when the cooler, shorter days of autumn begin,  and she finds herself turning on the heat that first really cold evening, she grumbles about it. For her, summer’s lease indeed is far too short. I myself do not mind the summer, though I am not a fan of heat and humidity. But it is autumn I love, even with its shorter days–rising in the dark morning and driving home in the dark evening, and the cooling days brings an end to some of summer’s peskier problems. Like those little red ants that I’ve battled with all summer.

I first experienced the ant invasion last summer and received a variety of suggestions from friends across the country about how to handle them. From the outright slaughter spraying them with Raid or some other toxic treatment to all natural supposed ant repellants, it has been an ongoing struggle. I had to laugh when one of my former meditation teachers smilingly encouraged me not to kill them while another said when you’ve tried to be patient and humane and that’s not working, the ants have to go. I ended up somewhere in the middle, using a messy mixture of baby powder, cinnamon, and cayenne pepper outlining the perimeter of my kitchen counters and on the edges of my shelves in the cabinets. It worked a bit better last year; perhaps I’ve created a cayenne-resistant strain of ants or something. These buggers were not much slowed down. BUT, autumn is coming and after that winter, and I can wipe away the traces of the dried concoction off of the counters until next June when the ants reappear.

Such are the seasons of life: our days, our year, our lifetimes follow the ancient cycles and rhythms in very much the same ways as our ancestors did. The earth revolves around the sun, the seasons change and with them we change as well. Our lives mirror the changing seasons. I am well into the autumn of my life and headed into winter. In some traditions, each of the four seasons and the four cardinal directions are also associated with times of life. The East represents springtime and early childhood, the South is summertime and adolescence, the West is autumn and adulthood, and the North is winter, elderhood and transition into the next life.

The autumn is the season of harvest, of looking back over all that we have done over the course of the past year–the seeds planted in spring and tended throughout the summer–and harvesting the fruits of our labors. It moves us toward winter, a time of pulling in, withdrawing, hibernating, and introspection. It brings a cessation of external growth–the leaves dry up and fall to the ground and plants on the surface appear to “die” and turn in on themselves and go fallow. But under the surface of the earth energy reserves are being built up and stored, waiting to provide life and sustenance for plants in the spring.

I am grateful for each season of the year, as well as the seasons of my life. I am glad to be moving into my role as elder and a time of asking myself questions, of turning inward and seeking answers. Perhaps summer’s lease is too short for some, but for me the timing is just right. I’ll look forward to the departure of the ants, say goodbye to “sun tea” for the season, and look forward to carmel apples, hot tea or cider, football and other harbingers of autumn. And for the many blessings in my life through each season, I remain exceedingly grateful.

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 936–Loving the Questions

Posted on October 6, 2014 by mtchamblee
“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue.”
~Rainer Maria Rilke

These days it seems like I have more questions than answers.  I suppose it is part of some quest I’m on for trying to make sense of what’s happening to and around me. I haven’t had a great deal of success figuring things out, so I am learning to sit with unanswered questions, unexplained occurrences, unsolved mysteries. This has not been easy. I am like most people, I sort of like to understand what’s happening, know what’s going on, have some measure of control. But of course, control is an illusion, so I’m learning to be patient.

Huh, why did that happen?
What could I have done differently?
Who needs something from me today?
Should I fast or should I eat?
Why would someone want to do something like that?
When’s the last time I spoke to my friend?
What will happen if I change my mind?
Why can’t I have my cake and eat it too? I mean, what’s the point of having the cake if I can’t eat it?
How long should I wait before I call them back?
What do I want?
Where did I put my spare key?
What would Mom have done about this?
How do I choose between two really different options?

Some of my questions are deep and thought provoking: what is my life purpose? Who was I born to be? What do I need to be learning from some of the more challenging experiences I’ve had? Other are of far less life-affecting impact but are questions nonetheless.

So the lesson in gratitude this evening is really about being grateful for having developed the capacity to simply be with the questions. Of course I’d like to know “what’s going to happen” with my life and all the questions I have about what I’d like to be doing with it. But I’ve never been one to skip to the back of the book and read the ending. Even if I could know, I think that somehow the business of life happens in the unfolding; the questions keep me pushing forward toward greater learning. Rilke goes on to say this:

Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”

So it would seem that for me, for now, the task is to live the questions. They are here, so I might as well accept them, sit with them, try to love them. If I can truly sit with the questions, live them as Rilke suggests, from a place of gratitude then I have to believe that I am richly blessed indeed. And with patience and as calm a heart as I can muster, perhaps I will indeed at some point live into the answers.

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 935–The Soundtrack of Life

Posted on October 5, 2014 by mtchamblee

I continue to be profoundly grateful for the role that music plays in my life. As a singer-songwriter, composing and more importantly singing and sharing my songs gave me a voice, a form of expression I didn’t have early in my life. Songwriting gave me permission to access and express a much fuller range of emotions than any other medium available to me. I had long been a writer of stories as well as personal journaling; but I discovered and stepped more into my power when I began to play and sing my truth than I had experienced from simply recording my thoughts and feelings. I’m not sure if it’s the physicality of singing the words, of vocalizing the feelings behind them that gives it this power, and I’ve long since stopped wondering about it. There is a distinct power to it, a coursing of energy through my body as I sing, and when I sing before an audience–even if it’s only a single individual–there is an exchange of energy between me and them that is palpable, at least to me.

So it no longer surprises me when I am listening to a particular song or piece of music that something absolutely breaks open in me and emotions spill out that I hadn’t realized I’d been holding in. This morning as I was going about my usual Sunday routine, I thought I would listen to music as I prepared my breakfast. I thought I might listen to some gospel music, as that’s what I was hearing in my head, but hadn’t prepared any good playlists that had any favorite gospel tunes in one place. So I ended up selecting a playlist that was titled, “Assorted.” When the second song came on (Tears in Heaven, by Eric Clapton), the power of the music connected to a place in my heart where I’d been holding a lot of emotion, and I burst into tears, finally releasing it.

A combination of grief, sadness, and kindred feelings merged and fused and swirled through me as I sang the words through my tears and broken voice. And I was grateful, oh so grateful, for having unlocked the places where I’d been holding them hostage.

Music has that kind of power for me. My life has a soundtrack, a progression of notes and chords and melodies that play through each scene, that underscore each experience. I could list a Billboard top 100 of songs that play through the various corners of my life at any different time, from the instrumental (and probably little known) Amy’s Tears, by Al Petteway to the internationally well-known favorite, “Fire and Rain,” by James Taylor, music floats in and out of my day, every day, connecting me to the divine that exist within and outside of me.

I have listened to “Fire and Rain” hundreds of times (at least) over my lifetime, but in spite of the repeated listening I am still struck by the emotions and the story behind the well-known words to the song. I can remember sitting in my car in the parking lot at work many years ago as the song came on as I was pulling  into my space. Something about the words, “I always thought that I’d see you again,” struck my heart like a physical blow, and I put my head on my arms across the steering wheel and wept. You see, that line, which I’d heard and sung many times before, suddenly reconnected me with my mother’s death. On the day of her funeral I had not gone to look at her before the service began in part because I knew I was going to sing during the service and I wanted to keep it together enough to perform the song. I had mistakenly thought I would see her again to say goodbye before the actual burial. But as it turns out I had missed my last chance. I always thought that I’d see you, one more time again…

I confess that much of the music in my life has been played in minor chords, sometimes sad and a bit melancholy. At one point when my mother was listening to me play some of my songs she remarked to me, “I love your songs, but some of them are so morose, do you have any happy songs?” I retorted that I preferred the term “melancholy,” and that when I found something happy to write about I would definitely have more happy songs. My brother similarly remarked at my tendency toward sad songs. “Perhaps I’ll buy a banjo,” I told him, “it’s harder to write sad songs on a banjo.” Some years later I actually did buy a banjo, but I still haven’t learned how to play it.

I am so grateful to have music in my life and to have the physical ability to be able to experience it. For some people it’s the visual arts, for others it might be the beauty of the natural world, and still others might find their power in some other medium. I am not sure if anything is more powerful for me than music (though connecting with nature is also restorative.) So very grateful and feeling the music in my bones, in my spirit, in my soul today. If you have a few moments, find a time to put on a song or a CD or a record or maybe even pick up or sit down at your own instrument and let your soul connect to the music, the rhythms of your heart. Let it bubble up, rise up. And if you can’t hear it, feel it, the vibration, the buzz, the hum of it, and be grateful.

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 934–Persistence Revisited

Posted on October 4, 2014 by mtchamblee

This evening I conked out with my laptop on my lap, chin on my chest. I am still exhausted from the long week and find myself yet again digging into my repository of earlier posts for tonight’s lesson. To determine which lesson I will share, I “spin the wheel,” that is, I ask a random number generator to pick me a number between 50 and 500, then I go to that particular post in the Lessons in Gratitude archive and if it’s a pretty good post, I go ahead and use it. That is what I’ve done this evening. Please enjoy this post from Day 392 that talks about the power of perseverance. If there’s one thing I learned, particularly in the difficult days of 2011, it was all about perseverance, persistence, and resilience.

One of these days when I sit down to write my book about gratitude there’s going to be a huge chapter on perseverance, persistence, and resilience. If I were to do a search of this blog over these 391 days and entered the word perseverance, my guess is that at least two thirds of  the blog posts would pop up. And that makes sense. Over the course of the past year and a half, perseverance, persistence, and resilience have been among my most oft-called upon attribute. While I am indeed grateful to have an apparently strong reserve of perseverance in my tank, I would love to develop some of my other valuable such as my ability to offer wise counsel, mentoring skills, generosity with financial resources as well as time and energy. But for now, it appears that perseverance is the particular muscle I’ll be flexing most.

The dictionary defines perseverance as, “steadfastness in doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success.” I like that better than the definition of the verb form to persevere, which says, “continue in a course of action even in the face of difficulty or with little or no prospect of success.” Ouch! It kind of makes it sound like anyone who continues in such a course of action is completely daft–if there’s little prospect of success, why would one continue in it? Similarly, the word persistence is defined as “firm or obstinate continuance in a course of action in spite of difficulty or opposition,” and to persist is to “continue firmly or obstinately in an opinion or a course of action in spite of difficulty, opposition, or failure.” Yikes, this hardly seems like an attribute to be celebrating, given the definitions. Nevertheless, I am going to stick with my gratitude that I am able to stand steadfastly in the face of difficult circumstances and do my best to move forward. I remain hopeful that there are at least a few prospects of success. And as for obstinately continuing in a difficult situation, where obstinate means “stubbornly refusing to change one’s opinion or chosen course of action,” I have no choice but to conclude that I must be even more daft than the average person, because I’m pretty determined to persist.

What is the alternative then? What does it mean to not persevere? When I looked up persevere in the thesaurus it include this impressive list of words and phrases:

“persist, continue, carry on, go on, keep on, keep going, struggle on, hammer away, be persistent, be determined, see/follow something through, keep at it, press on/ahead, not take no for an answer, be tenacious, stand one’s ground, stand fast/firm, hold on, go the distance, stay the course, plod on, stop at nothing, leave no stone unturned; informal soldier on, hang on, plug away, stick to one’s guns, stick it out, hang in there.”

Likewise, under perseverance it listed these synonyms:

persistence, tenacity, determination, staying power, indefatigability, steadfastness, purposefulness; patience, endurance, application, diligence, dedication, commitment, doggedness, assiduity, tirelessness, stamina; intransigence, obstinacy; informal stick-to-it-iveness; formal pertinacity.

Under antonyms there was a single phrase: give up. That’s it?? “Give up?” What does that mean? When one is in the process of healing and transitioning through a challenging phase of life, what does giving up even look like? When I consider the fact that I had people depending on me and my ability to stand strong and stay sane over these past 18 months, I could not afford to even explore the notion of giving up. I could not shrug and say, “Oh well, I give up. Things are hard and there’s no point in trying to do anything because ‘there’s little or no prospect of success.’” No, you put your head down and bull through as best you can because you cannot afford to give up, too much depends on your finding whatever minuscule prospect of success there is to be had. No, I don’t think giving up was or is an option for me at the moment.

Mind you, I understand the concept of surrender in the sense that you cease fighting and struggling long enough to quiet your mind and heart and get a sense of what the universe might be trying to tell you about what’s happening in your life. I can definitely resonate with this concept of surrender, but that is not at all the same thing as giving up. I will spend a bit more time pondering this notion of persevering and it’s alternative (whatever that is…) but until I am solidly convinced that there’s a better way, I’ll keep right on persevering, thank you very much. I am grateful for the measure of strength that I have and do not take it for granted. I am glad that I can’t imagine what giving up would look like–I hope I don’t ever figure that out. I would love to not have to employ the gifts of perseverance and persistence on a daily basis as I do now; I look forward to easier days and can still imagine what those might look like. In the meantime, I will continue to stand strong as best I can, even with the occasional wobbly knees,drooping shoulders and tired mind. I will do so obstinately and proudly and with deep gratitude that I can.

Posted in Gratitude, Overcoming Challenges, Perseverance | Leave a comment

Lessons in Gratitude Day 933

Posted on October 3, 2014 by mtchamblee

This morning as I was driving to work I had some ideas about what I was going to write this evening. That was this morning, over 12 hours ago. I’m sure that whatever it was was going to be good, but I don’t remember. So tonight I am once again staring at the blank canvas that is the window where the blinking cursor flashes balefully at me, waiting, waiting. I know, sounds dramatic, doesn’t it?

I write every day. In the morning, between about 5:30 to 6:20 I write two pages in my morning journal. It takes me a long time to write each morning, in part because even though I’ve been rising at 5:15 for nearly two years I still think my body protests and moves much more slowly in the morning than later in the day. It also is because my mind wanders numerous times as I sit writing, sipping my cup of coffee and rambling. I bookend my morning writing practice with this gratitude blog and much of the time it flows fairly well. Then I run into the periodic dry spell when my muses Thalia (comedy and light verse), Calliope (epic poetry), and Clio (history) all seem to have abandoned me, returning to their Greek roots and I find myself with virtually nothing to say.

I am grateful for the inspiration and the days when the words flow easily. I am grateful for the kind of creative flow that rises up and spills over filling the pages and computer screens with meaningful words. I think I must also be grateful for the dry spells when thoughts and ideas emerge sluggishly from my mind to words I can put down. While I might not enjoy those times, I am coming to understand and accept them for what they are, part of the natural seasons of life, the ebb and flow, the coming and going, the yin and yang. And so it goes.

This has been a long week, even though it has had the same number of days and hours as any other week. The pace has been hectic and now at the end of the week I am so grateful to be home and looking forward to a couple days of rest. While I have some things I need to do, the urgency to get a lot done is minimal. At the end of this week I find myself in thoughtful contemplation of many things–simple and complex, beautiful and sad. There should almost be a soundtrack to this contemplation, but I can’t quite hear the music. What I can hear is the sound of a soft rain pattering against the roof, the calls, chirps and whirs of the night creatures, and dozens of other tiny sounds all around me as my mind slows and I head toward sleep.

It is a time for simple gratitude. For offering thanks to “whatever gods may be” for all the richness and complexity of life and the many blessings that surround me all day every day.  And at the end of this day and this work week, I am grateful. What are you grateful for this day?

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 932–A Gift of Words

Posted on October 2, 2014 by mtchamblee

Tonight I am grateful for the written word, specifically tonight I am so grateful for poetry. I used to fancy myself a poet, and in some ways I am. The problem was that almost all of my poems rhymed and of course as everyone knows it’s not really cool to write poems that rhyme. Of course back in the olden days, rhyming poetry was quite commonplace, but in the 60s and 70s when I was growing up and coming of age, the coolest, hippest people wrote poetry that didn’t rhyme. It was much more chic than writing verse that did. Then one day something magical happened: I started playing the guitar and realized that my rhyming poetry just happened to  lend itself very well to being set to music. And a songwriter was born. You see, my rhyming poetry  was actually song lyrics–if you haven’t noticed, most song lyrics rhyme. It was no small comfort to realize that I wasn’t a bad poet, I was an pretty good lyricist.

So in celebration of poets and poetry, I offer with sincere gratitude two poems I really love. The first, Invictus, by William Ernest Henly became a favorite of mine particularly during some of the more challenging days in my recent life. Invictus reminded me that no matter how challenging things became for me I would stand strong, in spite of feeling bludgeoned by my life circumstances. It gave me great comfort and hope to say, “I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.” If you read my blog over the past two years, you are likely to see Invictus many times during the months after the series of unfortunate events that sideswiped me in 2011. I needed to encourage myself; I needed a rallying cry. This poem became that for me. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody,but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

The other poem is one by Mary Oliver that I likewise came to discover and appreciate for a completely different reason than Invictus had. My friend Mary introduced me to the poem when, as I was struggling to figure out what I was going to do with myself. She posed to me the question at the end of the poem that continues to resonate with me, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” I love the concept of one’s life being described as “wild and precious.” At the time Mary asked me that question that the poet Mary Oliver posed, I would have definitely characterized my life as wild, though perhaps not in the way the poet intended. But the combination of wild and precious still makes me smile. There have been many times of late when I’ve stood at the threshold of decision and asked myself that same question. I encourage each of us to ask it often. Enjoy The Summer Day and be grateful for your own favorite poet or songwriter whose words and ideas inspire you.

The Summer Day
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
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