Gratitude

I want to be grateful.
I want to remember to set down the "issues", the little annoyances, the things that "they" do that makes my days more cumbersome and complicated, or the sights and sounds that are noisy.
I want to pick up the mantle of love, appreciation, awareness, remembrance more regularly, NOT just when it is easy or comfortable.
I want to remember that being grateful is not the result of being happy, but being happy is the result of being grateful.

Here is my song, my poem of gratitude for today. Were I to add music to the words, they would sound like bird song, gentle breezes, silence.

I am grateful to this earth. To the sustainable soils, the richness and sweetness of the seasons. To the "always-ness" of the earth. For its deep and hidden places. For its changeability and its constancy. For those things that are buried within, calling it their home. For temporary things. For the core, the energy within. To it's mass that keeps our feet firmly on its surface.

I am grateful to the plants. To their ability to reflect the weather, the seasons. To their cleansing and gentle ways. To their oxygen chemical reaction, to their nutritious and life-giving grains. To the fine root hairs for gathering up the wealth of the soil and sky. To the flowering and blooming things that give our senses sight, smell, touch, taste, and sounds found in no other place. For the many ways they touch us. For the many ways that they move through their life cycles that have nothing to do with us.

I am grateful to the air and atmosphere. The soaring, swift, silent breath of our atmosphere. To our gravity, our weather, our colorful dawn and dusk. To the cleansing breezes and to the lift of birds all around us.

I am grateful for the animals and all living things. To their wildness, to their tameness, to their secret ways, to their way of moving along in the midst of our pain, reminding us that nature always moves forward, the true model for healing. For their friendships and gentleness and beauty at living in freedom.

I am grateful to water. For the cycle of release, storage, movement, revitalization, release again. For that that is so much a part of us, of which we are so much a part. For the elemental foundation of our existence, that which allows life on this planet. For it's cleansing, healing, connection, life-giving, infinity.

I am grateful for the sun. For that hydrogen-pulsing life giver. For the energy stored within it's mass, for the stored energy beneath our own crust from the sun's past energy transfer. For it's warmth, for it's light, for it's healthy energy to our bodies. For it's cycles that lengthen, shorten, lengthen again and bring the patterns of the seasons. For being our home, our parent in the cosmos. For being the closest and most necessary life-giving source.

I am grateful for the sky and beyond. For it's mystery. For it's beauty. For being a part of each of us, within us. For the uncountable stars and objects that make us all that is. For being beyond our comprehension, our know ability. For being that which is greater than us.