~ A Joy Warrior's Journey
You show us our greediness, autumn.
We walk through your perfect falling leaves,
through the exquisite textures and colors
of you, grasping the moment so tightly,
wanting it never to end, or at least to slow
so we can take in every detail. And yet
the dance itself is at the heart of the beauty.
And the song can only sing if
we let the music play.
You must love these days,
I say to the ancient maple,
as I stand beneath its spread boughs
gazing in awe at its leaves, orange
and lemon and crimson, dancing
in the sun. How could you not
feel proud and triumphant
to have produced such
a glorious display! How I hope
our human adulations
satisfy and touch your soul.
I hope you feel it. I hope you know.
This is what it’s all for, isn’t it?
These precious days of splendor.
The rest, the shade and whispering songs,
and seeds, and perches, and nests,
were simply gracious gifts that you
bestowed along the way because
your core is made of Yes and love.
And now we get to see it, writ large,
in flaming letters that dance in joy
beneath this autumn sky.
“Remember,” motivational speaker and author, T. Harv Eker told his audience, “What you focus on expands. As I often say in our training, ‘Where attention goes, energy flows and results show.’”
That’s far more than a slick little slogan; it’s an explanation of how things work.
Know anybody who’s always telling you about the things that go wrong, for instance? I don’t mean the little things that go off-kilter in a given day, like when you can’t find anything you’re looking for and you always put things in the same place, or in order to do what you want to do, you have to do something else first and then something else before that, or when everything you touch seems to slide right out of your hands. Not that kind of thing. I mean someone whose life, to hear him tell it, is a magnet for troubles, one grand string of crises and setbacks and blind alleys after another. You know one of those?
I had a friend like that once. And there was no denying that bad luck seemed to cling to him like a cloud. The things that happened to him weren’t trivial or his recounting of them overblown. But over time I noticed that he never talked about anything else.
One day I asked him if he ever heard about gratitude rocks and I told him the story about a man, somewhere in Africa if I remember correctly, who brought a handful of pebbles from the creek to his village and told his neighbors that they were gratitude rocks and possessed of a great power. If you carried one in your pocket, he told them, and every time your fingers happened to touch the stone you thought of one thing for which you were grateful, unexpected blessings would befall you.
The people began to notice all kinds of good fortune coming their way. Soon, they began collecting and painting rocks and selling them to others as gratitude rocks, and in time the entire village prospered.
I took a polished pebble from my collection and gave it to him. “Feel it in your hand right now,” I told him. “Feel its size and shape, its texture and temperature. Now think of one thing you’re grateful for. It can be anything, big or small.”
My friend’s face fell. He literally could not think of a single thing. I asked him what he had for lunch, and asked him what he liked best about it. “There’s you first thing to be grateful for!” I smiled when he said that the bread was fresh.
Weeks went by before I heard from him again. Then one night he called to tell me that he’d been having a surprising stretch of nothing-going-wrong. He almost felt superstitious about telling me, he said, as if he might be tempting fate. “Maybe that gratitude thing works after all,” he said, chuckling kind of shyly.
I laughed and told him now he could be grateful for gratitude, and he laughed with me. I won’t say that things turned around for him overnight. But his conversations began to be sprinkled with little mentions of things he was noticing and enjoying that he would have discounted or overlooked a month or two ago.
The stories we tell ourselves about what’s going on in our lives—many of them “sticky stories” that we tell ourselves over and over—are energy patterns. Every time our attention gets hooked in them, we’re giving them our mental and emotional energy, and we tend to re-create the same kind of pattern over and over in our lives. What we focus on expands. That’s why it’s important to listen to your stories.
In your dominant stories, are you a victim or a victor? Do you always lose or do you always find a way to succeed? Are you irritated and angry with others, or do you strive to be patient and kind? See where you’re investing your energy, and notice the results. If you like them, keep on telling those kinds of stories. If not, well, here: take this smooth little pebble. (Better yet, go find a little pebble or safety pin or button of your own right now.) Feel it in your hand. Now think of something you’re grateful for and put it in your pocket. And put it in your pocket tomorrow, too, and the next day and the next. And every time your fingers touch it, think of something you’re grateful for. Even if it’s nothing more than not having lost your pebble yet.
You just might be surprised how powerful a little redirection of your energy can be. As Eker told folks, “results show.”
Wishing you a where gratitude rocks.
Warmly,
Susan
Every last particle—even those
of the tree bark, and those
of the stones and the soil
in the field, even those
so buoyant that they float
in the air forming clouds
and those that make up
the air itself—every one
of them feels the touch
of this autumn morning’s
light and resonates to
the song of its gold.
Once upon a magical time
in a season we called ‘autumn,’
we would wake to a world
suddenly bathed in dancing colors.
The ten thousand leaves on
the ten thousand trees, one by one
would trade their green for crimson,
or flaming orange, for lemon or lime
or gold. And day by day the colors
would grow more intense, until
the whole world seemed to be singing
with them. And these magical leaves
could fly, too. Down they would spiral
in a twirling, giddy ballet, sailing
through the air like birds suddenly
set free from their wooden cages,
their brilliant bodies piling, one
atop the other, in a quilt of color
on the grasses and rocks and shores.
And we would gasp at the beauty
of it all, and give thanks that we
had eyes to see.
It’s impossible to speak here
in this pine woods, standing
at the feet of giants.
What could you say anyway?
How could mere words have any value?
“Thank you,” maybe. But you sense
that they already know what’s in your heart.
The gifts are free for your taking,
inexhaustibly and everywhere.
Every single moment holds them,
especially the one we call Now.
It’s a willingness to see them
that makes them happen.
So wake in the morning with a vow
to receive the ones your soul most needs:
goodness, beauty, forgiveness, truth.
And let it be your soul that decides,
so that your heart may swell in humble joy
as you realize the very gifts which you
most truly desired are here before you,
always, and free for the taking.
The light dances down, falling in pools
on the water, smoothing itself
across the welcoming faces of leaves.
From the earth, the scent of autumn rises,
wafting across the mirrored surface of the creek,
melding with the season’s first ocher hues.
And we, standing ankle deep in wild asters,
breathe in the light and fragrance
and breathe out contentment and joy.
A velvet carpet, yellow-green,
lures me from the edge
of what , in summer, was a lake.
As I near it, the texture takes on
a lushness, an unexpected depth.
Its colors grow more radiant somehow.
I’m standing now at the doorway
of an undiscovered world, and
as I carefully step across its invisible
threshold, I see beneath my feet
a poem, alive and wild,
its meaning apparent and singing
to my soul.
Here in western Pennsylvania I watched as September came to an end, ushering in what promises to be a colorful autumn. The goldenrod is glowing in the fields, and already the leaves are beginning to fall. They crunch beneath your feet as you walk down a sidewalk or, if you’re lucky, down a woodland path.
The beauty was a comfort to me as I waited for word about how family and friends in the path of Hurricane Ian fared. The first news from the region after Ian made landfall wasn’t good.
Life holds frightening, disappointing and painful times for us all. And sometimes it hurts terribly.
And the only refuge I have ever found for pain is kindness. As I’ve mentioned before, I learned that from Tara Brach. “Say to yourself,” she advises, “’this is suffering. Everybody suffers. May I be kind.’”
Be kind to others. You never know what burden someone is carrying in silence. And above all, be kind to yourself. When you’re in pain, recognize that what you are experiencing is universal; everyone suffers.
Part of that self-compassion means you set aside, at least for the moment, your longing to have things be different than they are. Accept that reality is what it is. Accept that you are hurting. Accept that you are angry, or deeply disappointed, or in pain, or overwhelmed. Accept that those feelings are part of being human and that it’s okay to feel them right now. Hold yourself as tenderly as you would hold a crying child.
Know, too, that all suffering is temporary. It exhausts itself, all of its own accord. It may return; it may come in waves. But always, it exhausts itself and finally gives way to a new perspective, and you go on.
Life isn’t static. It carries us into new circumstances at every moment. And at every moment, it offers us comfort and peace. As soon as we are ready to receive them, life’s gifts are there, waiting for us. And they wait with patience and love until we can be ready.
Sometimes it’s as simple as letting go of the story you’re telling yourself about how awful things are, and of waking up to the broader reality. Sometimes it takes a good meal, or a good night’s sleep, or some time with an understanding friend. Sometimes it takes a new idea, a willingness to try something new.
And sometimes it just takes the passage of time.
But whenever you’re ready, the side of life that’s good, and beautiful, and true will be waiting. Keep your faith in life alive, and be kind.
And when the goodness returns, breathe it in right down to your toes and let every cell in your body feel it and give thanks.
Life can hurt, and life can be exquisitely beautiful. Go with the flow, and say, “What a ride! What a ride!”
Wishing you sunshine, my friends.
Warmly,
Susan