January 4, The Eleventh Holy Night - The Inner Intention to Express Gratitude

[Note: please consider the thoughts, perhaps re-reading and visualizing a few times. Then do as many of the exploration steps as you have time for.]

  Thoughts  

With wonder and awe, the other comes toward us. The soul welcomes with thought and moves toward feeling the other.
With reverence, we permeate the other with warm feeling.  Reverence is a gesture of pure feeling.

Now we begin the reaching out from our heart with feeling will. We express gratitude for the existence of the other. Remember, other is anything and anyone that is not self.

Although, during the Holy Nights, we work with images that live in the radiance of spirit, pure and unselfish, held without limit, known without prejudice, we often need to begin our understanding of the images from a more mundane position.  If it works better for you to think of love as a romantic experience, a feeling for family and friends, for your job,  for your cat, your favorite pair of shoes or song, begin there.  It is much better to have an authentic feeling than to pretend an exalted one.

With this intention of expressing gratitude, we are not talking about the feeling of gratitude, but the act of gratitude. With awe and reverence there is a mood of gratitude that permeates the two intentions, but not the act of gratitude. As a deed, gratitude is its own gesture, a powerful, transformative gesture.

“I thank you for being you.” “I thank you for being in existence whether for a moment, a lifetime or eternity.” I thank you for being there, separate from me, yet part of my consciousness, my life, my attention.”

Gratitude energizes life and energizes spirit. Wow! Without gratitude, love has a dullness, nothing is reflected, nothing shines. Love is passive without gratitude. Gratitude keeps love alive and present.  I smell the perfume of the narcissus flowers that are blooming in my room right now - if I felt no gratitude the perception would have no life.

We also celebrate gratitude in retrospect and recollection - when gratitude offers bittersweet pangs.  When I think of lost friendships, I mourn because I am grateful. When I throw out an old pair of beloved sneakers, I throw them out surrounded with gratitude for all those walks. 


Since most of us were raised to say, “thank you,” we have more of a sense of gratitude than the other four intentions of love. I have never heard a parent say to a child “Wonder!” or “Feel awe!” or “Revere!” but I could never count all the times I’ve heard a parent admonish their child to offer thanks. It’s a custom of politeness but we need to raise gratitude to its true gesture of love.  Love is never polite and it is always grateful.

We also need to realize that many of the people, things, events and everything else in our consciousness that we feel and express gratitude for have caused us difficulty, challenged our peace of mind, disrupted our daily routines, our habits and our identities.  It may take time to express gratitude for the unpleasant and uncomfortable, but remember gratitude is the foundation of intentional maturity. 


On the Eleventh Holy Night, be grateful for gratitude.



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Make your gratitude list. Make your weird gratitude list, not the easy one - the list that makes you giggle, weep and breathe deeply.  The list that grows your capacity for love.

Make sure you write “I express gratitude for.......... .”


Don’t forget to be grateful for the body parts that you have always wished were different.  Without this gratitude, self-love will never be in your unconditional heart.