It was a lovely morning, the day before Thanksgiving, 2013. I had prepared a large container of soaked timothy hay( greens) along with a large amount of grains for Harmony, my 14 year old thoroughbred mare. Though the temperature was just in the mid 30s, it did not feel cold at all because of the sun. The horses were pretty far out into their pasture( at least a 1/2 mile) and so my 2 Golden retrievers and I were enjoying our romp through the pasture to retrieve Harmony. The walk was heavenly. I had started a gratitude practice early that morning and it was certainly not hard to feel deep gratitude for everything in my midst: the lovely pasture that my wonderful mare gets to live in, our two amazing, darling and well behaved dogs, the perfect behavior of my dogs because of my son’s training, my ability to walk through the pasture quickly and without any hindrances and so much more. Everything came together in such a way that I felt like I was in a live 3 D post card.
When Harmony saw me, she looked up and started walking toward me. I was delighted.
However, her best friend, a 30 year old thoroughbred mare started following Harmony and this sight started to de-rail my mood of deep gratitude. Harmony and Dodie are truly the best of friends and so of course, Dodie would come along. I have always been extra loving to Dodie too because she is such a majestic mare who actually used to race.
But I noticed that I began having “worried thoughts”: Thoughts like, “well, I hope Dodie does not come all the way, I don’t want to have to push her away, I don’t know if Dodie should eat what Harmony is eating, I don’t know if there is enough………….”.
These thoughts persisted all the way back to my car where the food was. So, I was caught in a dilemma. At first, I did not know what to do. I wondered if I should walk both mares into the corral and then take Harmony’s food to her there. That would be a huge hassle.
While I was in my “worried thinking”, I looked at Jessie, one of my guldens. He had a look on his face of pure love. Suddenly, I remembered my mood of gratitude.
From this place of gratitude, I noticed in my car that I had a 2nd bowl. I took the 2nd bowl, and scooped some of Harmony’s food into the bowl and set it down in front of Dodie. The two mares were standing beside each other and were eating their food, licking their bowls and looking beautiful. The scene was so inspiring that I had tears of JOY streaming down my face. I was taken back to gratitude and in this awareness, I thought of the parable of the loaves and fishes. The parable in which Jesus blessed the small amount of food he had and was able to feed far more people than the disciples thought he had enough for. That is, when I got out of my worried thinking and back to gratitude, I knew what to do.
This scene also reminded me of Thanksgiving and the true meaning of the 4th Thursday of every November. It seems that most people talk about the meal as if that is the purpose of the day. When people think of Thanksgiving, I hear them talking about how much they will eat. Rarely, do I hear people talking about why we have this day. I know that everyone knows the meaning but it seems that it is not expressed.
For this Thanksgiving, I invite us all to do a gratitude exercise with everyone who gathers. A simple exercise is to have everyone write down 3 things ( or 100 things) that they are grateful for and express these to one another before the big feast. Or, an even more intimate one, is to have each person write down one thing they are most grateful for about each person gathering.
No matter what form the expression of gratitude takes, I imagine if we take a moment and bring gratitude to the forefront, the entire day will turn out differently.
Gratitude is a shape shifter. It has the ability to transform any challenging situation into one in which we can see the blessing. It never fails.