What Shelly said is that we should think of and/or do things that give us joy, and feel the gratitude we have for them. I'm getting a little head start here because I love writing. I thought writing this would get me in the right frame of mind.
At the end of my yoga practice each week, there is a moment for me to think of just one thing for which I feel grateful. I love that part of my practice. Sometimes it's people for whom I feel grateful and sometimes it's something as simple as the rain. Most of the time it brings tears to my eyes. I guess that's because gratitude comes from the heart and when my heart is touched I cry.
There was a documentary on the television this evening about an informal group of people who were squatting on a piece of the coast on the west side of Vancouver Island. Some of them had been there for close to twenty years because the owners of the land lived in Seattle and never came to visit. The interviewer went to talk to them and find out why they were there. They were a varied group and were there for many different reasons but all of them had rejected what they saw as the frenetic, materialistic and often avaricious life of the urban communities they had experienced, in favour of a simpler life that didn't rely so much on money and things.
They didn't have much but they were incredibly grateful for what they did have. They loved their work even though, in most cases, they didn't get paid for it. It gave them great joy to work outdoors, to watch the ocean and the weather and the nature around them. Their work was their life. It was precarious and physically hard to be sure but it was devoid of traffic, government forms, media, pollution and bills.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not pining after that sort of life. I like it where I am. Well, let me modify that; I mostly like it where I am. There are a few things I could do without but that is probably true of most of us. What does inspire me is the simplicity of having pared back to the basics. It's not as basic as their lives but it's simpler than how I used to live. One of the outcomes of simplifying is that I feel more grateful for everything I do have than I think I did when I had more.
I'm very clear about what I find optimal for my life:
- deep, loving relationships - close by or accessible by phone
- books & ideas - preferably including a good library
- sustainable food
- communication tools ... a computer to write on, an Internet connection so I can get on the web and send/receive emails, a phone
- water - rain, sea, lakes, rivers
- parks, trees, plants, flowers, green, up-and-down terrain, and birdsong
- peaceful, caring, creative, open-minded community with a variety of ages, races, skills and cultures
- my health and affordable, equitable, comprehensive health care
- time to think - every day
- regular conversation to stimulate thought
- a secure home - may it be ever so humble
- a temperate climate
- colour
- the ability to work at what I do best
The list is longer than I had thought it would be - for a simple life! I thought it was a simple life but maybe it isn't so simple. But clearly I don't need shopping malls.
I get joy from most of the things on my list but a list doesn't capture things like the sound of children playing, or the noon horn in the city park, or the smell of coffee, or being able to read out loud, to myself, something I've just finished writing. There really aren't words for the eureka feeling I get when a client has a breakthrough. And how do you describe a smell that brings back memories? My mother used to have a tin in which my grandmother had kept her hankies when she was alive. For many years after she died, I used to open the tin to take a deep sniff before I clapped the lid back on so as not to lose it. I still have the tin but the smell, and the joy of our relationship is in my memory.
When I focus on joy, there is so much of it. I could go on listing things all night. Isn't that a wonderful thought. On that note ... off I go to 'fire the grid'.
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