On Gratitude

I remember, many years ago as a young man, stumbling upon an insight, while sitting in a high sierra meadow; that if I really wanted to take this moment of bliss away with me that I needed to express my heartfelt gratitude, to this place, for providing me this experience.

It was one of those beautiful warm perfect days, with no where to go, that seems even more precious to me now then it did then.

Expressing gratitude to ‘a place’ seemed like an unusual concept to me at the time, as though the place was alive and could somehow receive this sentiment, but it worked and even today I can easily resurrect the sounds, sights, smells and feeling of being there at that moment.  Since then I have often made a point of expressing my gratitude to ‘a place’ that offered me something that I wanted to take with me.

However the other day I found myself reflecting a bit more deeply on this experience, as I seem more generally inclined to do these days, and discovered something more nuanced just beneath the surface.

What it seems is really happening in me when I don’t express gratitude for the ‘gifts’ I receive is that they ‘stick’ with me … but not in a very rich way.  Its as though I still owe something and feel, I suppose, a bit like there’s some unfinished business there.

When I do express gratitude its really part of process of letting go of the experience.  Neither of ‘us’ owes anything to the other.   And paradoxically in this letting go the experience blossoms and lingers of its own.

I have found that there’s something magical in granting the world the capacity to receive gratitude … even though there’s no rational reason to attribute such a capability to the (inanimate) world around us.