Bone-chilling snow on a thousand peaks

Today's quote at Whiskey River. My thoughts exactly when I woke up this morning to record cold temps and high winds. Well, okay, not my thoughts exactly. My thoughts were more like, "I am not getting out of this bed. Must go back to that beach I was just on..."

"Bone-chilling snow on a thousand peaks

wild raging wind from ten thousand hollows

when I first awake deep beneath my blanket

I forget my body is in a silent void."

- Han Shan Te'-Ch'ing

4:27:55 PM      trackback [] 

Blog it forward

Somehow I’ve managed to have never come across the Blog it Forward concept in the four months or so that I’ve been blogging. (The idea is to pick someone on your blogroll and post what you like about them. Is there a particular day each month for this? Someone please enlighten me!) Earlier this week Twilight Café had a Blog it Forward post and then this morning I visited Antonio Savoradin's blog and found his version, 12 Blogs on a Desert Island.

I’ve visited Twilight Café nearly every day (at least once/day) almost since I began this blog. It is a veritable treasure house of dreams dreamt and thoughts thunk. I always think “What cool gem am I going to find today?” Savoradin is a more recent addition and I visit for his beautiful poetry and photographs and because he captures complexity in such an articulate and evocative way. However… today he gets dubious honors for having made me blow nearly my entire morning away clicking through his favorites – damn you, tonio!

1:39:02 PM      trackback [] 

Gratitude platitude

Commonbeauty has an interesting meditation against gratitude.

Is the lion on the Serengeti grateful? Is the antelope? Does the herd gather by the waterhole at evening and think thoughts of thanks to the Great Unseen. "Many are the antelopes, O Lord, that perished under lion claw this week. That I was not one of them was due only to your kindness. I thank you."

… I happened not to be in Basra this year, or in Kandahar the one before that, or in a certain building in Manhattan the year before that. God's grace? I should be grateful?

Does an “attitude of gratitude” say “Thank God I’m not living like that poor schmuck over there” and is it just the inverse of “Why, God, can’t I have what that lucky SOB has over there”? Comparing our lives to others’ can help us appreciate what we take for granted. Otherwise I can complain that “there’s nothing in the frig” when in fact I could feed an entire village on it, while somewhere people are starving. If I remember that I appreciate my great fortune and I quit my whining. That’s not the same as saying I’m grateful it’s them and not me.

Also, I don’t think gratitude necessarily requires comparison. Several commenters suggested that gratitude is about our ability to pay attention, to perceive, to be conscious and enjoy what we have.

But I like it when someone turns a platitude on its head.

1:00:18 PM      trackback []