Cultivating Gratitude

As Thanksgiving approaches and families plan gatherings I’m contemplating

as winter weather arrives and the landscape becomes more and more monochromatic.This time of year, my least favorite time of year, I often struggle to feel grateful. Though my life is filled with blessings it is all too easy to focus on what’s wrong rather than what’s right. So I work on cultivating gratitude, noticing what makes me feel wonder, joy, peace, love, and other positive feelings.

The root of joy is gratefulness…It is not joy that makes us grateful; it is gratitude that makes us joyful.

David Steindl-Rast

Today I am grateful to be working on my photo/essay project and to have other photography ideas to fill the coming winter months. And I’m also grateful for the exercise classes I’ve been doing twice a week and plan to continue to do so long I’m able. As challenging and painful as they first were, I am getting stronger and more fit ever so slowly.

As I sit here writing I’m also occasionally looking out my window at the bird feeders. Right now at least a dozen and a half gold finches are darting between the little tree beside the feeders and the feeders, jostling one another to get food. I’m grateful for the birds and the joy they bring me.

Bird Count Gratitude

Over the weekend I did my first 2-day bird count for Cornell University’s Project Feeder Watch. I spent about 3 hours Saturday and Sunday in my office watching the birds come and go at the feeders. It was a surprisingly joyful task for me. The idea is to record the maximum number of birds of each species that I see at the feeders at one time. With the constant jostling and to and fro’s of the goldfinches it was very difficult to count how many of them there were at one time.

Simply watching them flit, flutter, fly, and eat made me smile. They are such miraculous creatures. I didn’t know when I signed up to do the bird count that it would bring me joy. I simply followed a little mental nudge that this would be a good thing to do to help the birds.

Learning New Things

Sitting and watching the birds for a period of time I noticed things about their behavior that I hadn’t paid a lot of attention to before. It seemed that the gold finches arrived in waves. The feeders would be completely empty for a time. Then a handful of goldfinches would arrive, then more and more until finally there were so many and so much contention it was difficult to count all of them.

Then suddenly they would all leave. The waves ebbed and flowed all morning while I watched. Then I noticed a lone goldfinch that arrived between the big waves of all the birds. It sat perched on the feeder leisurely eating with no contention for the food. It made me wonder if this was a very intelligent goldfinch that had figured out that if it came to feed between the waves of birds it had no competition for the food. Who knows!

We seldom notice how each day is a holy place Where the eucharist of the ordinary happens, Transforming our broken fragments Into an eternal continuity that keeps us.
― John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

So here is my bird count from the weekend (the maximum number of each species seen at one time) for anyone who is curious: 18 goldfinches, 1 red bellied woodpecker, 5 house finches, 2 cardinals, 1 white breasted nuthatch, 2 black capped chickadees, 1 hairy woodpecker, also, 3 squirrels on the ground under the feeders.

Lean into the Things That Bring You Joy

In challenging times like the ones we are living in I think it’s more important than ever to choose joy and to choose gratitude. I have learned that when I choose joy, even something so simple as counting birds at my feeders, that gratitude, wonder, and a sense of purpose follow.

Sometimes in the midst of illness and loss it’s easy to lose sight of all that is good. May you find a reason to laugh today. And may you find love and beauty in the midst of sorrow.

This is the time to be slow,
Lie low to the wall
Until the bitter weather passes.

Try, as best you can, not to let
The wire brush of doubt
Scrape from your heart
All sense of yourself
And your hesitant light.

If you remain generous,
Time will come good;
And you will find your feet
Again on fresh pastures of promise,
Where the air will be kind
And blushed with beginning.
― John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings