Author: barryschade@gmail.com

My two kids taught me this. Gratitude is more than simply saying “Thank you,” or giving thanks in the many ways the culture encourages us. Gratitude is a genuinely felt experience that comes only after a deep awareness, after truly paying attention. Gratitude is not in the words or kind gestures but in the experience that proceeds.

I noticed this as my young adult kids were opening gifts on Christmas. Their whole manner reflected a growing ability to experience gratitude and how to express it. All this has developed independently of the customary expressions of saying “Thanks”.

This Christmas, each one took the time to examine each item, mostly kitchen tools for the apartment they are about to occupy. They took turns explaining how they might use the gift. They showed a maturing understanding of how to manifest gratitude. They were attentive to each others gifts as well as their own. They showed an ease and freedom to react in genuine and insightful ways.

I think they each actually experienced a level of gratitude and were able to express that gratitude.

I don’t think this was an accident. It came from years of practice and paying attention. As young kids, they often would open gifts one at a time, taking turns. They might then proceed to play with a new toy for an hour or more.

They learned to be attentive, to pay attention to each item before rushing to open the next gift. We sometimes would urge them to move on with gift opening as the hours of the day passed by. Because they took the time to pay attention, their experience was richer and the feeling of gratitude, of true appreciation was able to develop.

Paying attention is not easy and has to be practiced. I think it is not natural and has to be learned. Attention has to develop before gratitude can be experienced. Gratitude is a natural development that arises out of attention.

Solstice is a fine invitation to allow myself to slide into darkness. Yet I resist, and think mostly about light and its return, as do many others. I am aware that most animals, seventy percent of them, are nocturnal and are more active during the time of darkness. I am an animal that typically shields himself from the grasp of night time. I even tend to want to escape darkness.

I shutter myself from the night that surrounds a large part of my day, and I attempt to avoid the peril other humans introduce into darkness. My home glitters with many tiny lights during this winter time of darkness, helping me to avoid my feeling of discomfort. I imagine they bring me joy. The trees in my garden are dressed in light that I can see as I look out the windows.

Today, I light candles as a reminder that light will truly return to fill a larger part of my days.

Darkness is an uncomfortable stranger to me and most of my species. Friends tell me of the sadness that creeps into their life during this darker time of the year. They blame it on the lack of light. There is much resistance to what feels foreign to those of us who seem to thrive better in light. There is a feeling of security and safety that light seems to bring.

I don’t understand it all, why darkness is so much less comfortable than daylight. I wonder about it. For me, it is a mystery that goes beyond simple explanations of biological human evolution.

Wanting to become friends with darkness is for me somewhat similar to my inclination to plunge into emptiness . Darkness holds some of that mysterious quality of emptiness. Like emptiness, darkness involves the shedding of what I think I know, the dissolving of familiar notions of reality, the release of curiosity into a realm of unfamiliar dimension.

Today, on Solstice, I want to become just a little more comfortable with darkness. Even while I will walk in light for part of the day and light candles to bring illumination into the darkened evening, I will allow the darkness to creep a little more deeply into my felt presence.

I will let go of the focus light brings into my life today and get a little more cozy with the unseen, the undefined. I will attempt to settle more into the darkness and all its undiscovered mystery.

I walked in the garden this morning though I never left the soft warm covers of my bed. Outside, I am surrounded by the unmistakable signs of winter. The ground is frozen, there is snow wherever I look, the air has a sharp edge of icy cold. Winter lights glisten from where I hung them on trees in my garden.

But the garden remains alive and and verdant in my whole body. It is a wonderful lingering experience.

I see the gentle movement of the green leaves and touch the gentle petals of blooms. The scent of the earth rises to welcome me as I move along the uneven contours of the brick path. From time to time, I hear the faint murmur of the wind in the leaves of hostas. I am aware of the soft sound of birds.

Branches of bushes reach out to touch my skin and brush against me as I pass. I feel the luxurious carpet of long green grass and smell its fragrance as I cross the yard. I observe what has changed and what remains the same. The old and the new blend in my walk.

It is, of course, a walk in my imagination. It is a vivid memory of what has been. It is also a preview, a premonition of what is yet to come. The garden is simply with me. The clutches of time have been relaxed for these moments. It is a place of untime. What was and what will be have become one in a moment of luscious presence. Knowing garden presence has taken me out of time.

I roll over in my soft bed, still in the embrace of blankets, no longer feeling the touch of leaves. The garden slowly fades away. But the ardor of its presence remains and lingers in my body. I carry it with me as I step into my timely routine.

I have grown up with movies where tea pots had eyes, brooms freely moved about on their own and animals spoke to one another. The whole world seemed animated in the imagination of the movie story-tellers, and so it has become for me. There is animation in all things, whether they be trees, people, rocks, stars or spoons.

The threshold of being alive sometimes has seemed to be related with movement. But I know now that movement only tells the easily visible part of reality. Not only do I now see that plants move, something I once saw as a distinction I once reserved for animals. Now I know there is movement in rocks and water and stars. I see animation in all things in my material world and I realize that I have simply been limited in my ability to perceive it.

It is perhaps a broad notion of animation to attribute aliveness to all things. But it is how I see my world. There is movement within all things, even if my senses are unable to grasp it easily.

Perhaps it is enough to see the movement simply as energy, although I also see animation as having many other characteristics as well. I recognize it as having many faces. It is the deep power that surges in all material reality, contained and constrained by structures I scarcely understand. It appears as love which courses through all things and unites us all. It gives us unity and oneness with all that exists. It pours out as expressions of compassion, wisdom and loving kindness.

It is life that oozes through all the crevices of everything I see and touch. For some, it is the face of a deity that is alive and so animates all things.

I prefer to focus on the nature of this animation as a manifestation of love. I like this way of absorbing and embracing the nature of aliveness in all things. This notion allows me to feel the force of compassion that compels me into a loving unity with everyone and everything I experience.

I like a world that is naturally animated by a principle of love, uniting us all. It is the alive source of fountains of loving kindness. All I have to do is jump in.

The way the story is told, Snow White was awakened by a kiss from Prince Charming. It is a cute Disney story, and it has drawn a fair amount of snarky commentary about women being rescued by their prince. I think that surface view of the story is appropriately dismissed. But the myth goes much deeper than that modern interpretation.

For me, the myth of Snow White has a new and deeper meaning about awakening. It has become an archetypal tale of the awakening of the feminine in each of us, whether we identify as male of female. The kiss is indeed a magical touch that awakens the feminine in Snow White but it also awakens the feminine in the Prince. Snow White and the Prince are as one.

What has been asleep is now able to be brought into the open. What was touched can now be embraced. The deep compassion evidenced by the Prince awakens and summons the wise, rich and beautiful feminine that dwells in all of us. This awakening magic happens no matter which gender we identify with.

The shallow, one-sided and popular telling of the Snow White and Prince story does not convey the deeper richness embedded in the myth. The wise feminine in us may lie dormant and asleep, but it can be awakened by compassion shown by ourselves, another person, or both. The magical kiss can come from many and surprising directions. It can happen many times and with different kids of intensity.

In this view of the story, the wise feminine also penetrates and awakens the compassionate male. For me, a different kind of awakening than I often have perceived. I am awakening now with a smile of recognition of what has always been, but was not so obvious to me. All these years, my muse companion has truly been feminine. She has walked both beside and within me. She is a lovely face to awaken to.

Sometimes I have lived my life as though I was tightly holding on to all my precious things. I did not want to lose them, did not want them to be harmed. There have always been things that I held dear, keeping them safe in tight bundles close inside my heart.

I am beginning to learn the joy of abandonment. My life is full of dear and precious things, but I hold them more with a open hand than a clenched and protecting grip. Nothing feels more precious to me than my own heart, and now I allow it full freedom to be carried away like fleeting seeds dancing in gentle winds.

What comes my way, I try to give myself completely to it. The infinite joy of free-fall has infected my heart, and I abandon myself to it routinely. The freedom of neither grasping to possess or shielding to avoid pain has slowly taken me into a world I did not know existed. It is a place of abandonment.

I have had to abandon so many notions to feel this great undefined presence. The fearful void of emptiness is now a beckoning haven, an embracing wholeness that is without bounds.

To enter this realm, I remove all that seems to impede and limit me. I not only leave my shoes at the door, but all that falsely clothes me is left there as well. To experience wholesome abandonment, I am entering the deep well without a bucket, giving myself wholly to it, not attempting to contain it.

I am immersed in the full swirling spring of energy and desire without any attempt to hold or contain it. I am abandoning myself to the flowing stream of my life. I am amazed where it takes me each day.

I do not allow myself to feel regrets. There is very little in my life which I hold with regret. I think regrets are a kind of self-serving, shielding from acceptance of the reality of what has transpired and which I might have been responsible for. I try not to have anything I regret or might yet regret.

Refusing to regret is part of my way of accepting, embracing what is and what has been. I choose not to live in a world of wishing how things might have been or even what might be. I want only the present to be real for me.

I may learn from the past, even make resolve after reviewing the past. But there is nothing I can do or want to do to change it. I cannot regret it away, so why bother? I have no agency over the past. I only have agency in the present. I have no agency beyond the present. I have no agency about the past or the future.

I want to live today in such a way that I will not be tempted to have regrets. I want to embrace each moment with the conviction that this is what I choose, this is what I want to be, this is now a permanent part of me. I choose to have no regrets.

It is happening once again. What I half expected to discover has become a tangible reality and an intimate part of me. I am being surprisingly transformed once again, and a little as I suspected I might be. My anticipated future has become my here and now, but with its own unforeseen and surprising savor.

The discovery and awareness is once again bursting with surprise and excitement, even while it has so many contours of an expected familiar.

It may have begun, though I am not certain, several years ago. Something like an inner eye, a new, penetrating and formless vision suddenly took hold of me. It has been an experience I half expected, I thought it could happen. But it also caught me completely by surprise.

The sudden newness frightened me. It had such a new and unfamiliar patina that I at first thought I had surely harmed, damaged my physical mind. Though half expected, even encouraged, this opening of awareness was unlike any previous experience of awareness.

I instantly felt an openness that was so formless, without dimension, seemingly empty of space. I had entered into something new that still felt somewhat familiar in vague ways. I had an earlier notion that this way of seeing with altered vision might exist, but the sudden experience was bubbling with strange newness, fresh uncertainty, engulfing encounter.

Now I find that I can revisit what I discovered without the same fear and surprise. Daily, I go to many experiences with the same warm, soothing and familiar openness of on-going discovery.

The same feeling has arisen in my encounter with mushrooms who brought with them a similar discovery. I had vaguely expected that they might have an effect on me not unlike my open full and formless experience that had already become familiar. I half expected something like I experience with deep concentration.

And so it turned out as they worked their age-old magic on my body, and all of me fell under their spell so willingly. The feeling was so familiar as my awareness expanded intimately to all that came to my senses. For me, the main difference was that the awareness came as an effortless movement, even though I am certain that my anticipation and intention gave freedom to the mushrooms. I was open to all I came across. It was so new, exciting and bright. Still the discovery felt so familiar and welcoming.

So has my sudden discovery of the real and fictitious Molly once conjured by James Joyce and now appearing before me. The discovery is a surprise mainly in its timing and depth. Yet it is such a strange, enchanting blend of bright newness and comforting familiar. The experience is beyond anything I had previously experienced. And it feels like a place I have been for several years.

My senses are excited by a fresh and crisp newness. My awareness is intoxicated by a reality I suspected but never knew existed. Yet the discovery is also so familiar and has fit like a hand in a glove. The feeling is as familiar as my habitual morning walk through my garden.

All is nestled, it seems, in the expanse of that opened vision that occurred several years ago in the midst of fright, surprise and familiarity. It is the same nestling of open newness and free-fall familiarity I experience daily on my meditation pillow and that I have felt in the embrace of mushroom.

All is fresh and new with discovery and still has such a familiar tone and tempo. It feels like a continuity with my sweet early-morning garden walk. It is in step with how I experience the world since the veils fell from my inner vision several years ago. Once again, the discovered experience is beyond anything I had imagined and it has the flavor of what I also suspected might be. Anticipated but without preconception.

Discovery is an interesting, almost paradoxical thing. It only occurs when I intentionally look and somewhat anticipate what I might find. It also occurs when I am uncommitted and open to be surprised by what I might find. Rising from open anticipation, discovery continues to bring me something totally unexpected, surprising and exciting.

I suppose it can sound a bit profound to describe a good life as being the pursuit and experience of joy. For me it is becoming more of a pursuit and experience of fun.

Having fun, of course, is typically joyful. I think having fun is replete with joy for me. There is also a kind of relaxed bliss when I am having fun. Joy almost feels a touch stoic and staid by comparison. I relish the exuberance that typically accompanies fun. There is a release of control.

Joy has the feeling of depth and engagement. Fun is all that too, but with more laughter and shouts. No second thoughts. It just exists, with confidence and without reflection.

I often experience joy as a gardener and I think I am moving more into a realization that I am simply having fun. Gardening is no less serious, it embodies no less experience of awareness. Gardening has now more lightness and exuberance for me. Much less thought about success or outcomes, even when those linger in the shadows of fun.

What might have once been joyful work I often recognize as having now become simply fun. The same actions, the same motions are present, but they have changed slightly. Gardening has become a little different. More fun.

Maybe I am simply becoming more child-like. Like a child, I like having fun. Life is more like a playground. It has affected how I meet my friends. I am pleasantly aware that my companions give me joy. On that I am deeply focused. I also know my time spent with them is fun.

There have been many people I have developed a relationship with and they have typically been a source of joy. I realize there was a common degree of seriousness in those relationships that attempted to ground those joy filled experiences. Perhaps it was an attempt at anchoring. With them, I sometimes saw our shared joy revolving around tasks as simple as working on projects or as complex as raising children or implementing programs.

As I age, I seem less connected to intended outcomes in the time I choose to spend with companions. I have less interest in knowing where this is going, what we intend, what we want. I have entered a time in my life when simply living this moment and having fun in it takes precedence.

I guess I like having fun, and that fun is built on a depth of experience and awareness. Is that what old people experience? Is that what we finally ripen to be able to experience? It certainly has become a measure and feature of my life: am I having fun?

It never ends, does it? I mean the peeling back of the layers that conceal mystery. As much as I already think that there is much I understand and perhaps even know, there is more to be understood and known. It lies just beyond my reach, just beyond the margins of my mind. And I love the pursuit.

I know it will not end, at least not in this current reckoning of time. My plunge into mystery will never exhaust me, and I intend to never tire. All things, everyone I meet is an invitation for me to explore further. I enjoy and delight in the gradual, tantalizing reveal.

So often these days, I find myself saying “may I realize that I no longer have a path to travel.” I do want the path to end, to reach the other shore, but perhaps today is not that day. Today is another time to unfold the mystery of every thing and every one that crosses that path I still travel. That unfolding of the next layers of mystery will continue to give me an abundance of joy.

I realize that I carry my own mystery that I am constantly exploring and revealing to others. I do not want this to be a rushed project because I think that the deep experience of intimacy is in the gradual explore, the gradual reveal of mystery. I want there always to be the part of me that is not yet obvious to me or to anyone else. The time will come when all will be revealed and known in the most intimate way possible. At that time I will have learned to experience my degree of intimacy with all things. I will eventually experience how I am connected to all things.

But that time has not yet arrived. I know in slight and revealing ways that I am connected to everyone, to all things. But there is still great mystery about that connection. Today is another opportune time to peel back the layers of mystery just a little bit more. It is another time to reveal and to discover. It is a wonderful time to plunge into the mystery that awaits.