Giving Thanks

Instead of orange and brown leaves, drops of rain clothe the tangled branches on the plum tree outside my front door. Blessed moisture. Long awaited liquid. During the night I heard the metered drip from a broken seam in the roof gutter near my bedroom window call cadence while the dark hours passed in review. Once I awoke to the mild roar of a deluge pounding on my roof. I gave thanks for that roof and its protection.

Now, looking at this natural scene, I see there are measured spaces between the drops on the branches. The only deviation comes where a twig has broken off. These pearls of water cling there, until a wind or a bird bumps the tree and scatters water everywhere.

I am thinking about the value of repetition, of routines too. I have not been one who liked schedules or measured configurations as I am seeing. I never wanted to color inside the lines. I wanted to draw or paint my own picture.

In fact, I’ve been known as a rebel from an early age, looking for different ways to accomplish the same task. I have mixed different combinations of ingredients whether it be for casseroles, facial products, color coordination. I have rarely followed the same recipe twice.

Yet as I have aged, I have begun to understand there is a value to routine, doing the same thing in the same way every time. I learned early in my nurse’s training that I couldn’t ad lib a catheterization. Making a bed was best done a certain way with the least amount of effort especially with a patient in the middle of soiled linen. Preparation for a bedside procedure in 1965 demanded organization because the handy tools did not come packaged in a plastic container. I had to gather each item from different sterilized pots and bring them safely to the patient’s room. If a doctor found that I had forgotten something, his scowl chased me back through the cubicle ward and then the public ward to the nurses’ station. We weren’t allowed to run either.

SO, with 50 years of nursing under my belt, thirty-three years of participating in Native American prayer ceremonies, and 34 years as a Reiki Master/practitioner, I am definitely seeing the value of established patterns and routines.

In churches and synagogues, with yoga, qigong, Tai Chi, chanting etc., a certain set of movements, prayers, sounds … brings us all an opportunity to join our voice, our energies, our focus and intent towards the same ends.

We bond in a way with consciousness and yet also within a magical form of non-consciousness, even if we are miles away from each other, even when doing the same thing at different times.

Today is Thanksgiving. We may not all be doing the same thing, eating the same recipes but there are so many of us who are giving thanks: for our homes or any form of weather protection, our survival if we have lost everything, our family, warm coats, and, well, just all of those things which bring us whatever comfort we can feel. Gratitude for what is right around us is the best thing we can do to gird our loins, so to speak, for whatever is coming next. Giving thanks just takes a deep breath and an awareness of where and who we are. I have a long list tonight.

May the blessings we can count continue. May the wounds and sorrows, joys and possibilities be embraced. May we know we are each unique and special. May we join voices to sing or hum or speak our gratitude for All That Is, All That Has Been, and All That Can Be.

May we all be kind to one another and to ourselves and to the wondrous elements of our world: water, earth, air and fire. May these life-affirming essentials be allowed to come into Balance.