Ten, Nine, Eight...
This week we gather to celebrate a holiday of gratitude built on a lie - or at the very least, a series of partial truths. I am reminded of a practice that my friend, an acupuncturist, introduced me to: in times of discomfort and adversity, go through the list of what is happening and say Thank You - for everything. It might sound something like this: Thank you for the threat of extinction and humanity's slow response. Thank you for the nanoplastics we are ingesting. Thank you for the baby bobcat walking along beside the deck. Thank you for my sun-filled living room. Thank you for the bird who flew into my window. And so on.
In spite of its new-age-y tinge, the practice of all-inclusive, non-subjective gratitude is surprisingly spacious because it holds both acceptance and struggle. Paradoxically, the act of witnessing, even painful things, is often twinned with appreciation - of what we have been given, what has been lost, and what we have chosen. For me, it pries open the grip of despair that keeps me awake at night and, in that interstitial moment of relief, there is room to breathe, to consider the deeper nature of the dilemma, and hold it in an open palm so as to see it more clearly. In those moments, I sometimes remember the two principles of healing that still seem to hold: the wisdom of the breakdown (every dilemma contains the seeds of its solution) and borders and edges (look to the periphery, the edges, rather than the center, because that's how wounds heal, and in nature, that's where the vitality is). Where the shore meets the sea, grains of sand are moved, rocks are worn down, tidepools are bathed in sunlight and minerals. In the unseasonable warmth of this November morning, if I close my eyes, I cannot distinguish my skin from the air.
Sometimes, at night, when my mind hamsters and whirs, the edge takes the shape of a question: How, exactly, to align with Nature's generativity, with joy and wonder, and, failing that, to hold my inconsolable heart and the hearts of others (especially those who seem to care not one bit about suffering Earth and humans) with the same tenderness as we would hold the scalded Koalas fleeing the fires in Australia. When the demons grip the microphone, gratitude helps me recognize the kinship beneath the calamity. I calm myself with steady box-breathing (inhale-2-3-4, hold 2-3-4, exhale 2-3-4, hold 2-3-4) and the decision is renewed moment to moment, to remember what matters as I say to myself, I align with the Mystery and the wisdom of Earth to repair and restore. We do not yet know what is possible. Be grateful. Breathe. Align. Repeat.
Sometimes, as the glyphosate seeps into us, and the headlines proclaim that greed is still winning, I remember to wonder what is co-arising with the specter of catastrophe. Maybe it's something primal that can only come if we stop thinking, admit to not knowing, and align with the larger intelligence that arises from our kinship with everything. A story comes to mind from Robert Macfarlane's The Wild Places:
In 2004, a father and son were sailing in the Gulf of Mexico, when their yacht was capsized by a gust of wind, sixty miles offshore. They clung to the hull, as it was carried on the powerful currents of the Gulf. After night fell, the water became rich with phosphorescence, and the air was filled with a high discordant music, made of many different notes: the siren song of dolphins. The drifting pair also saw that they were at the centre of two rough circles of phosphorescence, one turning within the other. The inner circle of light, they realised, was a ring of dolphins, swimming round the upturned boat, and the outer circle was a ring of sharks, swimming round the dolphins. The dolphins were protecting the father and his son, keeping the sharks from them.
The sharks are not the villains here. Nor is the wind. Neither are the father and son victims, nor the dolphins s/heroes. Each is merely behaving according to its nature, nothing more and nothing less. And so, as we name our gratitudes, we may find ourselves looking for our inner dolphins, the ones who are at home in dark waters, surrounded by hungry sharks, and lit by microscopic beings of light. We encircle what is precious and vulnerable, swimming together until the dawn comes and the tide has turned.
