What I am most grateful for this Thanksgiving season is the dawning realization that the most long-lasting blessings, the brightest truths, and the sweetest-tasting peace resides in a very QUIET PLACE! Some of the quiet places bringing such blessings are the ones I least expected to find as being QUIET! For example, the utter quiet when you are lying downwind of the turkey flock in the woods, one-split second before you hear that first scratch in the acorns or that first gabble. Another example is the quiet between heartbeats when you are conciously slowing your own heart to calm a terrified, abandoned dog by the roadside. Another quiet place is found in your own throat just before you gulp in amazement at the Monarch butterfly lighting on the lip of your abandoned coffee cup. And has anyone given proper gratitude for that split-second of quiet at the bottom of a crescendo, either in a musical concert or in lovemaking?
I am so very grateful for these split-second hushes of awe simply because they are filled with awe. Being graced with the ability to stretch our souls wide into AWE is such a priceless blessing for which to be grateful. My sainted maternal grandfather used to tip-toe in to remind us grandchildren sleeping on pallets after Thanksgiving Day was over that “Now is the part of the day for which you REALLY ought to give thanks. This is the time for remembrance. This is the time for storing up your treasure where no one can break in and steal it. Now is the time for dreaming. Now is the time for thinking how much love waits for you here in the morning.” PawPaw, I know you are reading this as I write it, from your specially assigned light beam. I am so gratefully peaceful in these memories of you. I am so peacefully grateful that you were, and are, my dear PawPaw. You always amazed us how quietly you could tiptoe.
I am giving thanks for the quiet of my children’s breaths when preparing to greet me. I am filled with peace and gratefulness at the quiet in my soul when I view each new set of grandchildren’s photos posted on their parents’ websites. They are so quiet in their expectations just before their shouts of glee! Truly, it is the quietness in those brief moments of anticipation for which I give thanks. These brief moments ride on the faster-than-light particles from my heart to theirs. From them I have learned to hold my breath and just BE. The little ones in city, field, and forest know the secret of breath-held peace in preparation for whatever the day brings. The little ones know the necessity of the held breath. Without a held breath, a slowed heart, a focused mind, a directed soul, the long-awaited/soon-expected never quite happens fully.
My invitation to you all is to hold your breath, to watch, to focus just a split-second here and there through the happy bustle of this holiday. The micro-second of utter quiet within yourself will provide its very own “Horn of Plenty”, dear pilgrim.
granbee 
Nov 23, 2011 @ 10:10:31
Thank you.
Nov 24, 2011 @ 03:07:52
You are MOST welcome!
Nov 23, 2011 @ 12:54:05
Thank YOU for this beautiful post! I’m going to try printing it out, in order to read several times. (Can’t sit here long, this old back is hurting….)
Granbee, I’ve nominated you for the Leibster Award – as you are one of my favorite poetry bloggers here. See my latest post for more information.
Love and blessings to you!
Nov 24, 2011 @ 03:09:42
Most humble thanks for the nomination, Betty! But it means vastly more to me that you want to print out this post and read it more carefully!(Sorry your back hurts; mine wants to run away from me after 4-5 hours blogging and writing and posting without interruption!)
Nov 23, 2011 @ 13:46:02
My favorite sport is baseball, perhaps because the action is in the inaction. It’s truly the moment before the pitch is thrown that makes me hold my breath, not the delivery. I think you are on to something with this post.
Nov 24, 2011 @ 03:13:33
Yes, Peter, I know what you mean. My mother, who was SUCH a steel magnolia of a Southern lady, tried so hard to teach me to pitch softball as well as she did(she was dynamite in her stockings-with-perfectly-straight-seams-and-peep-toe-high-heels: no kidding!). Whenever I stopped just to be totally still and hold my breath before winding up a pitch, I actually got it across the plate! Thanks so much for reminding me of these great summer moments with my surprising mom! You seem to do that a lot; but then, I suspect that is what happens a lot of this writers community of ours!
Nov 23, 2011 @ 22:06:30
Beautiful write. Gratitude. 🙂
Nov 24, 2011 @ 03:14:35
Warrior Poet, what a priceless compliment coming from you! A real treasure for me to savor in MANY quiet moments of gratitude!
Nov 23, 2011 @ 23:37:09
What an absolutly wonderful post of gratitude.. As you know we do not celebrate Thanksgiving here in the UK.. but I think maybe we should all of us set aside a day to be in Gratitude..
When I go around the various places I serve doing my spiritual talks I always open with a prayer of thankfulness.. for we often forget to say thankyou.. for all the many Blessings we have bestowed upon us..
If I have one great thank you.. it is to Mother Earth… for all the wonderful blessings she give us which we take for granted each day.. The air we breathe.. I give thanks to all of her trees.. for the water we drink.. I give thanks to the sky the streams and waterways.. Oh there is so much Granbee to be grateful for.. sometimes Im overwhelmed by them…
Now I would so have loved that Butterfly to have dropped in on my Tea-Cup.. 🙂
Wishing you a Happy Thanksgiving granbee.. May we all of us continue to be grateful for the many blessings we take for granted..
Hugs to you my friend.. ~Dreamwalker~
Nov 24, 2011 @ 03:16:28
Sue, nothing pleases me more than to know I have been privileged to speak to the heart of such a great thinker/poet as yourself! May you be visited by many butterflies on many of your “rims”!
Nov 24, 2011 @ 03:25:25
Just for you Granbee with love~ Dreamwalker
Nov 24, 2011 @ 03:46:30
Sue, OH, WOW-WEEEEE! I had many, many moments of holding my breath in quiet gratitude over THIS gift of butterfly video! Your “flights of thought” are what mean even more to me!
Nov 24, 2011 @ 04:11:17
you have been selected for the Liebster Blog award
http://zendictive.wordpress.com/2011/11/23/the-liebster-blog-award/
Nov 24, 2011 @ 04:40:43
Gulp: Thanks, Art: but I STILL don’t know exactly how to respond, how to post this, etc. BUT—wait for it–I am not giving up trying to find out.
Nov 24, 2011 @ 05:49:24
” stretch our souls wide into AWE ”
Great post. We need to know the joys around us and can’t do this if we are moving too fast all the time. Really enjoyed your post of thanks! Directed her by zendictive and plan to follow — your writing is very strong!
Nov 24, 2011 @ 06:15:27
So pleased you found me via zendictive(could not be a better reference!) and that you absorbed the gist of what I was posting about here. Stay tuned for sections 2 and 3 of this essay! I am now joyfully you, as well. You will receive notice of my comment on your last post soonest, I hope.
Nov 27, 2011 @ 08:07:17
This one puts me in mind of a wonderful friend, actually two–who no longer live on the earth, but still reside in my heart.
Nov 29, 2011 @ 01:31:50
Yes, we have that in common–I feel my heart is growing larger and larger over the years, as more and more dear ones reside there! Thank you SO MUCH for sharing this today.