Gratitude

Gratitude is the music of the soul that has touched the chords of oneness, even if for a moment in time. A soul that has seen a glimpse of how each note has its own place in the octave, rising from the universal sound, shattering and sinking into the silence from where they are born each time. Where every note can reach the ecstasy of being one, only through the merging of itself with another. And when that happens, what dances and weaves itself with the pregnant, flowing silences and the stand alone notes that join hands in a joyous rejoicing, is the soulful music of gratitude.

Gratitude is the sweet self-forgetting of the birth of the now, a moment of holding the joy of creation inside, like a mother holding her just-born baby over her warm bosom, smiling for no reason except for being alive to witness a sacred moment of perfection. Gratitude is not a looking back, or a bitter-sweet remembering of the meandering, rugged path that one has traveled to get here; it is not a quiet self-sacrificing or a silent bearing of a burden, nor is it the elixir of life. It is what turns every step into a joyful skip, and a skip into a dance. It is a freeing of the soul where the cross transforms into a magical raft that carries it to the distant shore and beyond; where resurrection and death pale into insignificant ripples on the moonlit river of darkness. Gratitude is not a thanksgiving ritual for a bargain with life. It is not a celebration for getting all the round pegs in round holes; rather it is the fervent holding of all pegs round or square, complete or broken, in palms clasped in an unflinching devotion to all of life, without hoping to fit them in anywhere. It is about looking at your cup and smiling softly, raising a toast to life, without giving a thought to whether it is full or empty. Gratitude is the song of a heart full of love brimming over.