Words+at+Work

I googled "gratitude quotes" and found some gems of wisdom on www.wisdomquotes.com:

The Pilgrims made seven times more graves than huts. No Americans have been more impoverished than these who, nevertheless, set aside a day of thanksgiving.

H.U. Westermayer

 and...

To those who followed Columbus and Cortez, the New World truly seemed incredible because of the natural endowments. The land often announced itself with a heavy scent miles out into the ocean. Giovanni di Verrazano in 1524 smelled the cedars of the East Coast a hundred leagues out. The men of Henry Hudson's Half Moon were temporarily disarmed by the fragrance of the New Jersey shore, while ships running farther up the coast occasionally swam through large beds of floating flowers. Wherever they came inland they found a rich riot of color and sound, of game and luxuriant vegetation. Had they been other than they were, they might have written a new mythology here. As it was, they took inventory.

Frederick Turner

There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are messengers of overwhelming grief...and unspeakable love.

--Washington Irving

It was one of those days where nothing seemed to be going right. I felt irritated for no reason. Everything bugged me. It's been overcast and rainy for the past few days and my plans to go for a walk and take pictures of the fall colors evaporated in the mist that seemed to permanently surround my brain. At this point, the trees are starting to look defrocked and there are more leaves on the ground than on the branches.

After returning earlier this month from my week-long Living Buddhism class at a monastery, I had been trying to meditate for at least twenty minutes a day and be more "mindful." I'd also been trying to practice gratitude even when things don't always seem to be moving in the direction I'd hoped (such as lining up more freelance projects). Suddenly today I felt terribly out of sorts and wondered if I was regressing back to my default cynical/realistic self. "I guess I'll never make it as a Buddhist" is my general fall back attitude when that happens.

One of my new initiatives upon returning home has been to look at my surroundings with new eyes--kind of like being a tourist in your own back yard. So lately I take my camera with me everywhere I go in the hopes that I can snap a great shot (yes I'm still living in the prehistoric era with my 35 mm camera).

Thus, I was on my way to meet my friend T. for a belated b'day dinner this evening. As I drove down our street, suddenly I noticed the light was changing as the sun was setting and the background of the sky against the leaves on the trees looked absolutely gorgeous so I stopped to snap a picture. I found myself headed down Golf road when I noticed that the setting sun was leaving a glorious shade of color in its wake with hazy whisps of clouds overlaying the color palette so I snapped another shot at a red light.

Suddenly, I felt one of those moments of grace that sometimes catches you unaware. Amidst all my irritation, frustration and just downright glumness, I felt a glimmer of happiness come over me and life felt pretty ok after all.

We've all had the experience of driving in a torrential downpour or snowstorm where you can't see more than a foot in front of you and you feel like your safety depends on a wing and a prayer. Sometimes life can feel like that too.

As I noted in a previous post, I don't remember my dreams very often. I either a) don't dream or b) typically move out of the dream state and have no recall of my dreams. When I do remember a dream, I try to record it or think about it further. Was my subconscious trying to send me a message?

I recently was awakened in the midst of a dream where I got in my car on a sunny day to drive home--suddenly large drops of water started appearing on my windshield. Then I noticed that my windshield wipers were missing and just the bottom part was swishing back and forth. As the water continued to pour down in streams across my windshield, I kept driving somehow trusting that I would be ok. 

Maybe I'm just feeling like I can't see more than a few feet in front of me right now, but I have to keep "driving" and have faith in myself and a higher power to help me find my way back home.

I see these things with an intense joy

and while I observe, there is no observer, only a beauty almost like love

For an instant, I am absent, myself and my problems, my anxieties, my troubles: nothing but this wonder exists

-Krishnamurti