As we move closer to Thanksgiving, a holiday I truly enjoy, rather than ask us to reflect on the individual gifts we are grateful for, I invite us instead to touch the feeling of gratefulness that comes when we connect to all of life around us, to remember our interconnected nature with everything. We are in a time when separation and division, feelings of belonging or not belonging, ideas of us vs. them are heightened and palpable. Connection and separation wax and wane in life -- in our personal lives, in our relationship with ourself, in our community, country, world. Sometimes we feel more connected and at other times, less. Those tend to be the more painful times. This Thanksgiving, placing the emphasis on the larger picture of our interconnectedness can help nurture us out of our more self centered ideas of what we personally have to be grateful for and into our collective gratitude that recognizes that we are part of a whole, all connected, and appreciative of this larger web of life which we could not exist apart from.
Why does that matter? Because we can forget. We, by no fault of our own, can get wrapped up in our tasks, in our needs and wants, in our pleasure, pain, fear and confusion, and forget to see that there is much more to what is going on. What feels so personal is not. Everything comes to be because of causes and conditions, many of which we can't see and we don't know. Many of which were set in action way before we came around. When we step back a bit, we realize that we are part of it all -- what happens that is favorable, what happens that is not so favorable, and everything in between. When we can do that, we end up feeling much more connected and full of gratefulness because we don't see things as "my fortune" or "not my fortune," we see things as related and that our gifts (and struggles) are everyone's.
When we are aware of our connection, we know that what we do (our thoughts, words, actions) matters. Then, we make choices that benefit the world, not just us. We won't do this 100% of the time. I can speak for myself and say, I am far from that. But when we start to feel separate; when we get caught up in worry, wants, fears, mired in binaries of right/wrong, good/bad, enough/not enough, we can return. It's a relief to step back and remember, very simply, I am made of water, minerals, the sun, the air, of all people past and present. All of us are made of these things. We can pause and get our perspective back. We can be thankful to this life that was made possible by so many other lives; that is made possible by this earth, sun, air, and water. To support you in this practice, I welcome you to listen to my meditation on Remembering Our Connection. You can find it on the Insight Timer or here on my website (scroll down to the title). Remembering our connection naturally brings gratefulness.
May your days leading up to Thanksgiving be full of the insight of interconnection and the love, compassion and openness it brings.
Jean
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