Daily Gratitude: Love

Day 19/365: I am so grateful for the outpouring of love of my two aunts Lerrea and Wanda in my childhood. Looking back through these long years, I realize that I learned how to love in large part from those two amazing women.

Other thoughts on learning love:

“Love, too, has to be learned. In the end we are always rewarded for our good will, our patience, fair mindedness, and gentleness with what is strange; gradually, it sheds its veil and turns out to be a new and indescribable beauty:—that is its thanks for our hospitality. Even those who love themselves will have learned it in this way: for there is no other way.”
-- Friedrich Nietzsche

"Some day, when we have harnessed the power of the sun and the waves and gravity, we will learn how to harness the power of love.  And then, for the second time, we will have discovered fire."
-- Teillard de Chardin

"Woe to the man whose heart has not learned while young to hope, to love - and to put his trust in life."    
 -- Joseph Conrad

 

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Daily Gratitude: Peace

Day 18/365: I am so grateful for all the organizations and individuals in the world who work for peace, hold peace in their hearts and fully intend to have peace in the world.

As I head to Santa Barbara this morning for the "Pondering Peace in a World of Turmoil" gathering created by Pacifica Graduate Institute, I am thankful for my own journey into peace.

I found this piece of art that I did at some point in the past. It reminds me that my journey is more of a spiral than a road. I keep coming back to the same themes ... and I keep forgetting them ... until I remember them again.

I'm hopeful that the spiral is a gently upward and outward moving process. Creating art helps. My gratitude journal helps.

Other thoughts on peace that I am taking with me day are:

"If we want to see changes, first of all we need to be in peace inside ourselves, and then we need to be patient with the ones that have not yet arrived in that place of peace."
-- Grandmother Margaret Behan, Cheyenne Arapaho, 13 Grandmothers

"If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other."
— Mother Theresa (1910-1997)

"Here then, is the problem we present to you, stark and dreadful and inescapable: Shall we put an end to the human race; or shall mankind renounce war?"
— The Russell-Einstein Manifesto, 1955

 

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Is There a Limit to Gratitude

Squaw Weed

"Things happen. Things that we want and things that we don’t want. Being grateful does not ensure that we will live an easy life. It does ensure that we are alive, feeling the moment we are in."

 This thought comes from one of my articles that was published by The Change Blog, which offers new posts every week about happiness, mindfulness, and all things related to change. Check it out.

The question about limits to gratitude invites us to look at all aspects of our lives, the joyful and the painful to see what lessons or "gifts" come with those life events that are difficult or challenging. Read the full article here.

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Daily Gratitude: Beauty

Day 15/365: I am grateful for beauty in all its many forms: art, nature, loving faces, movement of the human body or an angry sea, steam rising from a cup of tea.

More thoughts on beauty:

"Beauty is not a luxury, nor an art. 
It is the soul's breath of life." 
 -- Joyce Wycoff

"Whenever you are creating beauty around you, you are restoring your own soul." 
-- Alice Walker

“What can we say beyond Wow, in the presence of glorious art, in music so magnificent that it can't have originated solely on this side of things? Wonder takes our breath away, and makes room for new breath.”
― Anne Lamott, Help Thanks Wow: The Three Essential Prayers

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Daily Gratitude: Walking with Missy

Day 13/365: I am grateful for my daily walks with Missy, for her willingness to explore and for her stubbornness when she wants to go a different way and show me things I might not otherwise see.

"Be content with what you have;
Rejoice in the way things are.
When you realize there is nothing lacking,
the whole world belongs to you.
-- Lao Tzu

"The walk is the important thing.  I can sleep on a problem without finding a solution.  But when I'm walking, an idea will come to me."
-- Naguib Mahfouz

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Daily Gratitude: Wonder

Day 11/365: I am so grateful to live in a wonder-filled Universe that keeps me in a child-like state of awe and appreciation.

"We are all born with a sense of wonder.
Wonder and awe allow us to transcend the ordinary.
 
Wonder inspires us to open our hearts and our minds to engender gratitude."
-- Louis Schwartzberg

Daily Gratitude: Public Art

Bloglovin'
Day 7/365 - I am so grateful for public art. This bit of beautiful whimsy was found in Morro Bay, CA. Unfortunately, the artist is unknown. If anyone knows him or her, please let me know.