Shelter and Write Prompt 12: Gratitude

Pick one thing that you feel particularly grateful for right now. It could be your dog, chocolate, the snow melting. Anything that has caught your attention and made you feel some gratitude. 

Write about it in detail. Why are you grateful for it? What does it mean to you? How has your feeling about this thing solidified or changed? Did you notice this thing in the pace of your normal life? Was it something you took for granted? Or has the way things have slowed down made you see it in a new light? Perhaps it is something you never needed or noticed in the before-times. Or maybe it is something you have always been grateful for. Describe it for us and help us also feel grateful for it.

This post is part of a series I am doing that includes 30 prompts for 30 days of sheltering at home. You can read more about my reasoning and also find other prompts here. I would love to see what you come up with. Feel free to share here or to tag your work #shelterandwrite.

switching on your own electricity (from Make Believe Boutique)

As I write this, I am sitting by the rooftop pool overlooking downtown Bangkok.  It strikes me in this moment that even the dense, urban hive of this city feels calm and tranquil on a Sunday morning.  It’s the kind of peaceful that still feels alive with possibility, the kind of gentle breeze that holds secrets of inspiration, the kind of quiet that pulls gratitude from somewhere deep in your chest.  There’s something quite special about Sunday mornings.

This kind of tranquil, introspective mood makes me want to share. And today, I’d like to share something from someone to whom I am quite grateful.  In Blue, from http://makebelieveboutique.com/, who is a fellow manatee-lover (!), nominated me for the Sunshine Award last week.

I feel quite honored, seeing as her blog is incredibly soulful and introspective.  Each one of her posts is a tiny morsel of food for thought, that leaves your tongue rolling over the thoughts again and again so that you can grok the fullness of her words.

 

Here is one I particularly like, pasted from http://makebelieveboutique.com/2012/02/12/1162/.

 

Enjoy!

 

 

switching on your own electricity

to fly or not to fly

Attempts to unravel the labyrinthian dynamics of art’s propulsion according to the categories of the reasoning mind will never replace the mystery with an explanation. The phenomenon simply exists. According to Jung, ‘the bird is flown’ when we attempt to explain the mystery….Shaun McNiff

Art Making & the Shadows of Your Work….

the strange shadows over treetops sometime between dark & dawn (always a miracle)

little baby feet curled around themselves

that peculiar letting go just before sleep (knowing it’s already gone)

the distance felt in a room full of beloved friends, like a dream

looking in night windows; glow & mist & warmth

walking with hands in pockets, filled with treasures; pinecones, stones, feathers

opening a book to the perfect poem

a song flies you back to a time of converse sneakers & blue nail polish

cold hands find a warm teacup & the world is perfect

suddenly aware that you’re being & not doing (oh, that’s so rare & good)

In our night-time, there’s always the electricity switched on, we watch ourselves, we get it all in the head, really. You’ve got to lapse out before you can know what sensual reality is, lapse into unknowingness, & give up your volition. You’ve got to learn not-to-be before you can come into being…..D.H. Lawrence

there can be no doubt when you tiptoe through your own life gently…