the ears of my ears awake...

I'll admit it; I've been a tad crabby this pre-Thanksgiving season. Yeah it's hard to be away from family, yeah we'd probably rather be eating turkey than chicken, and for those of us from the north, something about 95 degree weather doesn't really put us in the mood. But it has been good for me to see the students be as excited as they are - apparently I need to be reminded that a whole holiday based on gratitude is a pretty incredible thing.

And thus, I begin with a vastly limited version of my list: I have a job I love with continual opportunities to meet and see and learn amazing things. I have a network of family and friends that support me and send me love everyday in all sorts of ways (email, facebook, snail mail, prayers, songs, the list goes on...) and give me a foundation and center in all of my ventures.

I'm also thankful this year to be in a place that reminds me how important it is to pay attention, to work actively to raise awareness and to consciously choose to be truly awake. Attentive to the realities of people in other places, aware of the part we play in it all, awake and celebratory in the beauty with which we are still showered regardless. Whenever I let myself really revel in gratitude for a time 'i thank you God' by e.e. cummings comes to mind. he expresses, in far more beauty than i could hope to, gratitude for and the joy in awakening. happy thanksgiving.

i thank you God

i thank you God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today;
and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings; and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any -- lifted from the no
of all nothing -- human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

-- e.e. cummings