<div class=”irc_mutc”></div>
<div class=”irc_mutc”><a href=”http://thesoulsource.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/gratitude3.jpg”><img class=”alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-2920″ src=”http://thesoulsource.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/gratitude3-150×150.jpg” alt=”gratitude3″ width=”150″ height=”150″></a></div>
<div class=”irc_mutc”>We are on the verge of gathering for our Thanksgiving celebration — a time when most in our culture press the PAUSE button to gather to acknowledge the many blessings that we enjoy and to express our gratitude.</div>
<div class=”irc_mutc”>Some have traveled to join family and friends while those separated by great distances will connect through their hearts as we pause to celebrate the bounty that fills our lives. Most who are hosting the annual feast have finished the long preparation. What remains is the quiet time to prepare one’s list of gratitude.</div>
<div class=”irc_mutc”>My list of things to be grateful for remains virtually unchanged from year to year.</div>
<div class=”irc_mutc”>To the SOURCE of all that is, I offer thanks for the breadth of life, my senses and faculties, mobility, health and the well-being that I enjoy living in this incredible universe. I am grateful for my mind which is free to express its creativity while contemplating my purpose in life and my relationship to the creative force from which it came and to which it will return.I am grateful for the love that abounds — family, friends, associates, canine and feline cuddlers. Each day is enriched with the experiences that I share with them. I am mindful that without them my life would be absent sooooo much joy. Like others who have lost a beloved I am so, so very grateful for the time we had together to share love, joy and adventure and I am heartened in the knowing that we will reunite again to share more experiences as we traverse eternity.
Also on my list are Mother Gaia’s gifts of beauty, habitability and sustenance including food and water the value of which cannot be overstated. It includes the over arching circumstances within which we live: freedom, peace, security, democracy and societal order and ensuing benefits created for opportunity, prosperity, comfort, abundance. In contrast are daily reminders that my blessings are not enjoyed universally. Disease, famine and natural disasters rob millions of life. War, political and civil unrest pre-empt peaceful co-existence. Repressive regimes cultivate oppressions and produce conditions that result in victimization and exploitation. These reminders of the suffering of millions who are denied the opportunity to share the bounty that is common place for so many of us intensifies my gratitude for blessings!
I am so very grateful that I have come to appreciate that serenity and joy don’t depend on any of these external circumstances of my life. Inner peace, happiness and bliss are products of the inner world. They are available to those who go inward, who find stillness and silence amidst busy and hectic lives; those who are in touch with their inner self; those who know that SOURCE is the ultimate nourishment and bounty.
After decades on life’s fast-paced treadmill I have found the entrance to the interior world — the quiet space where one can connect to SOURCE. My time there tops my gratitude list. As you enter into the season of celebration and sharing, I hope that you will carve out time to enter this space, to dive into the stillness and while doing so discover the serenity of your soul. Take time to meander the inner world knowing that it is the place of eternal peace.
During this season of gratitude, I hope you will experience the peace, joy, harmony and bliss that is the INFINITE!
<em><strong>Joanne</strong></em>
</div>
[separator top=”40″ style=”shadow”]Join us on FaceBook to keep the conversation going. Click here to join the discussion.[social_links colorscheme=”171752″ facebook=”https://www.facebook.com/pages/Soul-Source/129395900407104?ref=hl”]
