Thanksgiving Gratitude

Take 11/23/2011 with the Toy Camera feature on my new Canon A 3300 IS.

Happy Thanksgiving, fellow U.S. dwellers! (Everyone else, I hope you had or are having a nice day.)

I feel off-kilter at the moment because my family isn’t celebrating until tomorrow due to the work schedules of some of us.  That said, to preserve the day as it was intended when it became a national holiday, I’m taking a few minutes to be publicly grateful.

I am strangely grateful to my most recent job for putting my back against the wall on a (nearly) daily basis, thereby forcing me to locate my metaphorical backbone and put it to use.  Also, it is pushing me to my edge in mindfulness and compassion practice, making me face my shadow, and acting as a catalyst for further clarifying what I truly want to do with my life, little by little.  It’s not pleasant, but sometimes the teachings we need aren’t.

I am grateful for family and friends, and for my co-workers-who-have-become-friends, without whom my life would feel empty.

I am grateful to have a warm home, a “just right” bed to sleep in, and that all my other basic needs met.

I am grateful for every beautiful and/or interesting thing I capture with my camera, for the power in all the arts, and that the arts persist, that people still hear the call to create and make those creations available.

There are so many things I am grateful for, this is just a taste.

Now, time to get offline and sink into the restfulness afforded by a long weekend, something else for which I’m grateful!