Welcome here!
Last newsletter we gave the invitation to make space for the obstacle, fear, or pain that may be pressing upon you, in An Obstacle by any Name - Re-writing the Message of our Pain.
Check it out here if you missed it.
Before we go any further, I´d like to acknowledge my silence.
I like to post weekly and that hasn´t been the case most recently. I value your time, and I value your invitation into your inbox. My apologies for not following through on my weekly promise of sharing brief moments of connection and calm with anyone looking for a sanctuary and more meaning in their days.
We often share what we want more of in this world of ours, and this is certainly the case with my purpose for Driftwood and Grace.
It can be very easy to be pulled in different directions, or for pain or Churchhill´s ¨Black Dog¨ to snarl and threaten.
These are the days we need connection, gratitude, and hope more than any other days. For it is in that connection, the fellow-feeling, the leaning into gratitude, and like Sarah of old who ¨against hope, believed in hope¨ that we discover more deeply the joy of simply being who and what we are created to be.
Loving beings.
And now to today… Gratitude
An Invitation
My invitation to you, is to let go even just for a moment, the need for anything more than now. To realise, we already have exactly what we need right now.
Let go, even just for this moment, the need for anything other than the air you already hold inside of you.
Feel it there. Notice that you didn´t need to beg or borrow the breath inside of you. It was given, just as the one that preceded it, without you even asking or perhaps even being conscious that you needed it.
Feel that breath where ever it feels most natural, inside of you. It´s doing what it is designed to do.
Your breath doesn´t rob another of their breath.
Your breath doesn´t compete with anyone else´s breath.
Your breath is your individual gift. It´s part of the treasure trove of blessings that is yours as you live here on earth.
Breath.
Clear, fresh, new breath. Every moment.
If we breathe on average, 20,000 breaths per year, I have been blessed already with almost 980,000 breaths.
What a gift!
Perhaps you have had more or less breaths than I. We each have our own individual course in life.
How many of those breaths have we consciously given thanks for?
How many of those breaths have been the kind of ¨breathless moments¨ where awe and beauty and love, have literally ¨taken my breath away¨?
Let´s take a moment to cultivate thankfulness for all that we have been blessed with, that we haven´t yet noticed.
Think of our senses.
The ability (if it ours) to see. To see colour. To see a sunrise. To see our loved ones´ faces. To see the play of light on natural grasses or making diamonds on the sea.
Sight.
To see and to find delight and beauty in what we see.
What a blessing!
I invite you to feel into the blessing of sight. If you are vision impaired I encourage you to feel into the blessing of the helps you use to navigate life without sight. Feel into the blessings that are ours.
Give thanks. Cultivate gratitude.
Hearing.
The ability to hear (if it is ours). To hear a baby laugh and know there is no more innocent or joyous sound. To hear your loved ones´ voice as they speak your name or share a moment of connection. To hear news that warms you, or breaks your heart and helps you mourn. To hear music or a sermon or the fall of rain and be moved to your core.
Hearing. To hear and be connected to the source of what we hear.
What a gift!
I encourage you to feel into the blessing of sound. If you are Deaf, I encourage you to honour your language and culture around that, to feel into the blessing of all that you are.
Give thanks. Cultivate gratitude.
Smell.
The ability to smell (if it is ours). To smell a rose, or even a box of parsnips and be transported back to your mother´s baked dinners with ¨white carrots¨ as a child. To smell coffee or a freshly opened box of tea as you prepare a ritual of calm. To smell the hint of aftershave or special scent that still lingers on the neck of the one you love at the close of day. To smell biscuits baking or the fecund earthiness of soil after rain.
Smelling. To smell and savour the richness of our world.
What a blessing!
I encourage you to feel into the blessing of smell. If you are unable to smell, I encourage you to feel into the other ways you savour life.
Give thanks. Cultivate gratitude.
Taste.
The ability to savour through the lips and tongue and mouth and pallete all of the range of tastes in food and drinks and even sea salted air. To taste the unique scent and savour of someone you love as your lips lean in to their skin or hair or lips. Sweet, salty, bitter, ripe, fruity, seasoned. To experience the fullness of taste.
Tasting. To taste life in all its diversity.
What a gift!
I encourage you to feel into the blessing of taste. If you are unable to taste, I encourage you to feel into all of the other ways you savour life.
Give thanks. Cultivate gratitude.
Touch.
The ability to feel the physicality of ourselves and all that lives and breathes and pulses around us. The softness of a baby´s skin, the scratchiness of our husband or father´s (or even son´s) stubble, the warmth of the winter sunshine, the smoothness of silk, the grain in timber, the callouses of well worked hands, and the cool loving of a dog´s nose as they show their dedication and adoration of the one who cares.
Touching. To embrace life and love and this incredible natural world and interconnectedess with others.
What a blessing!
I encourage you to feel into the blessing of touch. If injury or illness has diminished the scope of your touch or your ability to experience touch as a pleasurable reality, I encourage you to honour your journey and your resilience, and your sheer courage and guts to keep on feeling. Feel into that which is beautiful.
Give thanks. Cultivate gratitude.
As we consciously cultivate gratitude for even the smallest of blessings, we discover that no blessing is small. No gift, unimportant. No opportunity to connect lovingly too distant.
Gratitude is a gift that we give ourselves when we acknowledge what we have already been given.
“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.” Melody Beattie
Thank you for you. Thank you for sharing time. Thank you for your grateful heart.
Welcome here.
Welcome to living your life.
Consciously.
Lovingly.
Gently.
Be kind to you.
Be kind.
Have a wonderful day.
Lovingly,
Melanie Williams de Amaya
Driftwood and Grace
Driftwood and Grace is my way of sharing brief moments of connection and calm with anyone looking for a sanctuary and more meaning in their days. If that’s you consider becoming a free or paid subscriber or sharing with someone who may enjoy!