Earth Day 2015: Temple Of Gratitude

My first real encounter with Earth Day celebrations was the year after our arrival in Canada.

Growing up as I did on the beautiful, luscious and green island of Jamaica, environmental protection was not an issue front and centre of my thoughts. It still is not. Not really.

Maybe that is not a "politically correct" thing for me to admit but I am nothing if not honest. My house has one waste disposal container and everything goes in it. Shame on me! Well, I do not drink pop, consume very little alcoholic beverages and as a rat packer, paper documents are hardly ever disposed. So in my mind, there is very little waste for a recycle container.

Edmonton is not one of the cities in Alberta where recycling is compulsory. Sherwood Park, Saint Albert and Leduc, neigbouring communities to Edmonton, have mandatory programmes and citizens are provided colour coded bins to separate waste. This was the case as well in Toronto and Vaughan in Ontario where I lived for almost two years. In these latter cities, my environmental protective self was turned up. I diligently separated my waste and disposed of them into the "garbage" and "compost" bins. The blue bags (recycle) did not have much of a place even then.

Source: pinterest.com

Compliance is certainly greater when the local authorities fine households for not correctly disposing their waste.  It might be the next move for Edmonton as the city seeks to increase its revenues.

Back in Jamaica, recycling is not the norm granted during my five month and then three week stay recently, I did notice my hostesses separating plastics from regular waste. As an avid gardener, one of my hostesses also separated food waste for use in the family's vegetable plots.

We took the health of our surroundings for granted in Jamaica. Little thought was given to the impact of our daily activities on the environment. This has changed over the years, slowly but changing. Recent news reports about the burning Riverton City dump highlighted how long overdue this change in attitude is and at the highest level of the country.

Change, however, starts internally and individually. My hand is the first to be raised in response to the question, "Who could be more aware and therefore more proactive regarding environmental health issues?"

Every year that we observe Earth Day, I commit myself to at least one further effort towards enhancing my awareness. Last year, my effort was to use only what I knew for sure I could completely consume. This resulted in my learning to cook for one thereby throwing out less food. I also bought only enough clothes that it was humanly possible to wear in each season. Added to that, some of these purchases were from consignment type stores.

Until Edmonton institutes a compulsory recycle programme, I will commit myself to  collecting my kitchen waste in compostable bags. As well, one of my spring/summer projects around my place this year is to "green" my surroundings. I have been doing a fair bit of research on plants that will not only beautify my home but de-pollute it. This article on such plants proved very helpful and only two days ago I potted my first spider plant.

Love really is my religion and it struck me this morning that Earth, as my current home, must be the temple of my gratitude. How we maintain and care for our place of living is testament to our measure of love and our "worship" of all that is divine.

No, environmentalist I may never be but lover I am.

How will you bring to the Temple to show your gratitude moving forward? 

Difference Between Gratitude And Thankfulness

Clara Brown

"Gratitude brings light into our hearts spread warmth throughout our bodies and radiate positive energy into the world. The more we consciously and consistently grow in our practice of gratitude, the more benefits we will experience." Michele  Wahlder

"Practice makes perfect." How often have we heard this saying?  I say it very often to my son and every time that I do he asks me what does it mean.

We would not go far if we did not practice whatever tasks we had to accomplish.  Be it playing the piano, scrambling eggs or applying make-up (for those of us who powder our noses) and many other skills.  This saying is also true of gratefulness. 

"Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you and to give thanks continuously.  And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude." Ralph W. Emerson

Looking back on my formative years, I was taught by grandparents and parents to be grateful. Simply put - GIVE THANKS.  We were instructed to practice gratefulness.  Over time and through repetition, I learnt how to practice gratefulness even when things did not turn out quite the way I anticipated. I was taught to thank God for small mercies.

My experience is that, unlike other lessons, practicing gratefulness brings instant gratification.  Every other practice that I have done might take some time to bear fruit. Not gratefulness.

The practice of gratefulness brings immediate joy.

Being grateful is more than being thankful.  It is an inside gesture and an attitude from which a meaningful thankfulness will emanate. Often, there are things or circumstances that get in the way of practicing and assuming this attitude of gratefulness. It could be bad news about your neighbour, a waft of pain in your chest or an unexpectedly high utility bill. Just about anything. Someone else's ungratefulness could annoy you and block or hinder your assuming your own attitude of gratitude.

My gratefulness opens me to the flow of abundance, fill me with joy and connects me with the Source of my flow or my joy.  I will not pretend that there are no obstacles to my gratefulness. None of us are infallible. I get overwhelmed, I worry, I become anxious about getting things done, I become distracted and feel weighed down with responsibilities - all of which are obstacles to my expectancy of "all things working together for good." However, when I recognize the blockades to my gratefulness, I replace them with the 'bright-side perspective'.  As I embrace the 'bright-side' of whatever the seeming obstacle is, my joyful, grateful flow returns.

There are various methods we can use to practice and pursue a grateful attitude. The chosen method(s) for each of us will depend on the individual personality, goal or needs.  I have a few suggestions on practicing gratitude.

1. Count your blessings often. Even the every day ones. The so-called small ones. Do so every single day.  However, to avoid your blessing counting practice losing its meaning, vary your methods.
2. Express your gratitude directly. It may be to someone who has helped you, mentored you, perhaps an old teacher, a coach or a supervisor. 
3. Write what you are grateful for. Sit down with pen and paper or at your computer and start, “I am grateful for … .” Maybe you will have to stop there for a minute and wait because you just cannot think of anything. Just wait. Something inside you will shift. The words will come.

This Gratefulness Force that you are tapping into is bigger than you and it is bigger than your problems, no matter how big that is. That tide of fear that is overwhelming you is not all there is. There is so much more to you than that.

Your gratitude practice is your ride across those troubled waters so put your oars into the water.

Remember, we are always here to support you, so leave a comment here or on our Facebook page and we will be more than happy to chat with you!

Blessings: Press Down, Shaken Together & Running Over

Religion or religiosity, actually, neither being spiritual is required for one to assume the much proclaimed "attitude of gratitude." 

Attending Church was a weekly practice for me growing up. My mother insisted that I should join the neighborhood children and go to Church. Ironically, while packing me off, the only time she herself attended the "House of the Lord,"was either for a funeral or wedding. That struck me as highly contradictory. Even worse, by the time I got home after hours of watching the machinations of the adults, my mother was busy enumerating her burdens.

Gratitude and the intentional practice of counting one's blessings were "attitudes" that I developed much later in life. For too long, I tried my mother's ways of telling my troubles to anyone who would listen, worry about problems - real and imagined and giving away my mind, piece by piece, to anything and anyone that disturbed me. None of these strategies worked - neither consistently nor produced the results I desired.

See, my desires were and remain no different from anyone else'.

As you, I desire to live a healthy, joy-filled, abundant and prosperous life. The challenge was the parameters kept changing. Abundance and prosperity were measured against the size of my bank account, whether I owned or rented a house, my job title and salary and where and how often we vacationed. Joy was dependent on fulfilling those requirements. My health deteriorated as I did not.

This state of affairs continued well into my 30's. It mattered not that my income was well above average, the fact that by then I had owned two houses, the latest model truck and car were parked in my garage, my credit was excellent (if not the size of my bank account) and that I had traveled a fair bit of the world. Certainly, I had heard that gratitude was the best attitude; I even had several gratitude journals, books, tapes and attended countless seminars by then.

Something, however, was still off. 

One day my eyes just opened and my hearing unblocked as I sat talking with an inmate. This was not my first conversation with an incarcerated person nor with this individual. I was working in a correctional facility going on four years at the time of my "holy encounter" with this person.

The basic story was the same as any I had heard before from inmates and even my own. Growing up with a single parent struggling to make ends meet, feelings of abandonment by the other parent, childhood sexual abuse, physical and verbal abuse by parent, raised in an environment of poverty-consciousness, etc. All this eventually translated into a misguided pursuit of belonging, happiness, success, wealth and wholeness.

The turning point conversation for me was when the individual said to me, "You know that you are a prisoner just like me, right?" My initial reaction was to rule him out of order, to tell him in no uncertain terms that he had passed his place. Instead, I looked at him in wide-eyed silence and allowed his observation to sink in.

From that day, I took a full inventory of my life. I checked the number of bars on my cell and the strength of each. Then I prayed for Wisdom to lead me out. What happened in the next few years not only released me from my prison but changed my course. I stopped measuring, calculating and complaining. 

My title now is "Primary Counter of Blessings."

Each morning as I open my eyes, my first thought is "Thank you, Spirit and may I in this day be a blessing in my world. May your Grace continue to flow to me, pressed down, shaken together and overflowing. And, may you guide me as to how to share your blessings to me with whomever comes into my presence or consciousness." 

The houses, the cars and the bling do not matter to me now. Whether there is a lover in my life does not make me any more happy or sad. There is a sense of well being about me now and it purifies with each passing day and/or challenge. My friends say that I am glowing. I am way more discerning about what and who I allow in my consciousness and entertain in my physical space and for how long.

Those are some of the blessings being intentionally grateful has brought to me. Finally, I am free! 

It would be my privilege and honour to discuss or hear about your journey in gratitude. Feel free to email me, leave a comment here or on our Facebook page. You may also follow us on Twitter.

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday! Namaste

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