A space to reflect on the university experience and the wider educational journey of life and love.

Sunday, October 12, 2014

Givingthanks

Dear Source,
 
I don't thank you enough.  So here goes, on the one day of the year dedicated to gratitude (my favorite holiday of all, perhaps) I devote this blog post to sharing how thankful I am for all you have given.
 
Let's start with Life.  I'm glad to be alive, here and now in this present moment with these living breathing beings around me.  Thank you for this healthy body. I'm thankful to be comfortable and well-provided for and to have the ability to provide for myself.  I'm thankful for the light that streams in through my sheer curtains every morning and the way the living room looks when people are all lit up inside too.  I want to thank you for showing me dark and light - a deconstructed dichotomy.  Two things inextricably linked and tied to another - I guess I want to be grateful for the deconstruction.  For the decolonizing.  For the knowing and the learning, the failing and the growing, and of course always for the mystery.
 
Now let me get personal.  Thank you for the people I was born to, my loving and dear family.  The people who have shaped me, nurtured me, loved me, had picnics in hospitals with me, the people that have picked me up, dusted me off and told me that everything will be okay.  I want to reach out and tell my friends that they are the best in the world. Thank you Source, for teaching me that strangers are just friends you haven't met yet.  And for continually sending me the coolest souls.
 
So thank you to the ones that guided me.  The ones that empathetically and compassionately held me. Thank you to the ones that told me to smarten up.  Thank you especially to those who held up a mirror and encouraged me to polish the mirror of my heart.  The ones that listened on the other end of the line even when they didn't understand.  The ones that picked up the phone in the first place.  The ones that prayed and sent love. And of course, the ones who told me to be strong and allowed me to be weak, vulnerable and scared, too.  The ones that didn't shy away when the fire began to burn too bright.  The ones that stayed.
 
Now give me the pleasure of being grateful for the ones that left.  The ones that were scared or hurt or angry or lost.  The ones that couldn't stay with me.  Thank you for the lessons they taught me, for the way they illumined my insides.  The ones that taught me how to be alone and to find peace.
 
I cannot help but be thankful for all of it.  For the both/and.  The sadness, the joy.  The giving, the receiving.  The tide that flows and ebbs and the moon that rises and sets.  We are made of stardust.  Thank you for that.  Thank you for the sun and the stars and the constellations I don't know anything about, the ones that I marvel at anyways. 
 
Yoga has been a big part of it.  Here's to the deep Namaste.  Here's to my teachers - Dan, Katie, Jot Prakash.  Here's to my students, all of them teach me more than I can say.  Here's to the practice.  The path.  Each to our own, yet interconnected and crossing more and more.
 
Thank you Source for the ugly parts of Emmy.  For the drama queen, the control freak, the quirky weirdo, the seductress, the "nice" person, the clutz - all of the strange and interesting parts that make up who I am.  The parts I am uncomfortable with.  Thank you for the imperfections that make me perfect.
 
And Love.  Always Love.  The only thing that is real is Love and for that I will be forever indebted and eternally lastingly beautifully grateful.  Love is what ties us together and gets us caught in knots and then laughing as we become undone.  Love is the glue, the pieces, and the mosaic.  Love is it all.  Love is us and we are Love.
 
So dear Source, how could I ever say thank you? I can only live my life in joy and let the Light be spread far and wide.  That is my path, my journey.  To heal.  To speak.  To be true to who I am, who you made me....who we have become together.  And be there as a witness as others do the same.  And to smile wide.
 
Thank you for keeping the Earth spinning.  This beautiful green-blue planet of abundance.
 
From the sky to the core, I am thankful.

Thank you.
 
Yours,
Emmy
 
 
 
 
 
 

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