Gratitude, The Daily Aries Ponder (53)

This post began as an effort to write a Morning Trip about Grace. The search reminded me why I haven’t made one before. I began to get a little frustrated. First I thought my frustration was because I could not locate a relative video. (laughing at this now) Then, as I was muttering to myself, I clarified the search. I shifted to gratitude. Gratitude, not as the buzzword, not as a rote thing to do or to say because someone told me it would get me somewhere, but Gratitude as Grace. For me the awe that comes, the energy that moves along with an awe inspiring moment, the thing that encourages me to utter a spontaneous outpouring of gratitude IS grace. Gratitude is the words I might try to put with the feelings.

I viewed this TED Talks presentation some time ago, and while in the moment, it was amazing. It did not fit in with the thoughts, the energy, and the concept that I wished to project. Today, it feels perfect. I am glad for the grace of the video to remind me that for a great many times, when I think that I feel frustration, it is not the thing. It is, rather, a sense of inability to express what is inside of me, thus, I attempt to paint all of these inexpressible or trapped things with sound and images and words that paint feeling or emotion that approximates or recreates it. I appreciate those people who walk alongside of me while I figure it out.

Morning Trip (96)–Incandescent

in·can·des·cent
/ˌinkənˈdesənt/
Adjective

Emitting light as a result of being heated.
(of an electric light) Containing a filament that glows white-hot when heated by a current passed through it.

Synonyms
glowing – white-hot – red-hot – flaming

IV

The dove descending breaks the air
With flame of incandescent terror
Of which the tongues declare
The one discharge from sin and error.
The only hope, or else despair
Lies in the choice of pyre of pyre—
To be redeemed from fire by fire.

Who then devised the torment? Love.
Love is the unfamiliar Name
Behind the hands that wove
The intolerable shirt of flame
Which human power cannot remove.
We only live, only suspire
Consumed by either fire or fire.

–Little Gidding T S Eliot from Four Quartets

Morning Trip (95)

“We gaze with perplexity at the highest part of the spiral of force that governs the Universe. And we call it God. We could give it any other name: Abyss, Mystery, Absolute Darkness, Total Light, Matter, Spirit, Supreme Hope, Supreme Despair, Silence. But we call it God, because only this name – for some mysterious reason – is capable of making our heart tremble with vigor. And let there be no doubt that this trembling is absolutely indispensable for us to be in contact with the basic emotions of the human being, emotions that are always beyond any explanation or logic.”
–the Greek author Nikos Kazantzakis

Winter Things

Morning Trip (94)

“…I lounge on the grass, that’s all. So
simple. Then I lie back until I am
inside the cloud that is just above me
but very high, and shaped like a fish.
Or, perhaps not. Then I enter the place
of not-thinking, not-remembering, not-
wanting. When the blue jay cries out his
riddle, in his carping voice, I return.
But I go back, the threshold is always
near. Over and back, over and back. Then
I rise. Maybe I rub my face as though I
have been asleep. But I have not been
asleep. I have been, as I say, inside
the cloud, or, perhaps, the lily floating
on the water. Then I go back to town,
to my own house, my own life, which has
now become brighter and simpler, some-
where I have never been before….”
– Mary Oliver
Six Recognitions of the Lord
Thirst: Poems