Gratitude

Beginning each day with grounding

dawn-bright
clouds flame orange as night ebbs
Venus disappears into day

Pink and red light spread across the dawn skies this morning from east to west, the path of the sun. Venus, so bright at the end of the star-filled night, vanished as the sky warmed from black to blue. I walked out and down the draw, listening to the day begin, grateful to be here on this numinous earth. 

I begin my days with yoga, a series of exercises that for me are both physical and spiritual. I live with Lupus, an autoimmune condition that asks me to pay attention to the wisdom of my body or else succumb to the intense pain and dysfunction that result when stress throws my body out of balance and my immune system tries to clean up the mess.

The gentle stretching of yoga releases the pain caused by fluid accumulation when I sleep, re-starts my sluggish metabolism and knits mind and spirit firmly back into my eccentric body for another day.

Yoga is worship in motion. —Susan J. Tweit

The spiritual side of yoga is just as critical to my days, grounding me in place and strengthening my terraphilia. As I wrote in my first memoir, Walking Nature Home, A Life’s Journey:

I hold each pose for a few breaths, counting inhalations and exhalations by reciting the cardinal directions in the order the sun travels through them, east to south to west to north. For each round, I visualize the landscape around me: the bumpy ridges of the Arkansas hills across the river to the east, the mass of Methodist Mountain rising over town to the south, to the west, the pyramid-shaped peak of Mount Antero in the Sawatch Range, to the north, the double-humped summit of Buffalo Peaks. I add the rocky earth under my feet, the sky overhead, and last, myself, right at home. …

(I wrote that passage when Richard, my husband, was alive and we lived in the Upper Arkansas Valley in central Colorado. Now I visualize the landscape where the Southern Great Plains lap up into the Rocky Mountains.)

Breathing in, I focus my attention inward, listening to the stretching and singing of muscles, ligaments, and nerve fibers; feeling the strength of bones, hearing the pulsing of blood and the respiration of cells, as well as the voices of those legions of other beings that inhabit the ecosystem I call my body. Breathing out, I reach out, focusing my awareness on the world beyond my skin boundary…. As I link inner and outer worlds in the rhythm of breath and movement, the earth turns, bringing the new day.

Grounding ourselves in place and finding gratitude is a powerfully positive way to begin the day. Here’s a simple practice:

Stand upright (or sit, if standing is not possible) and take a moment to breathe into your belly and feel the earth beneath your feet. Face east, and visualize some landmark in that direction—preferably a natural one, but a building or structure will do. As you visualize the eastern landscape, bow and greet that direction, saying, “East, where the sun rises.”

Then turn with the path of the sun and face south. Visualize the landscape in that direction, and bow your greetings: “South, where the light comes from.” Then turn west, visualize that landscape, and bow, “West, where the sun sets.” Turn once more, facing north, visualize that landscape, and bow your greeting, “North, where the cold comes from.”

Turn your gaze to the earth under foot, and greet our planet, “Mother Earth.” Look upward, and greet that dome of the sky, “Father Sky.” And lastly, “Self, here in place.”

Take a few deep breaths, exhaling fully, and let yourself feel grounded and grateful. Feel the grace of being alive. There. Now begin your day!

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How do you ground yourself in place and find gratitude to begin your day?