Cultivating a spirit of gratitude in our daily lives
Gratitude is Light — with these words, Masahisa Goi reminds us of the importance and value of expressing gratitude in our day-to-day life. The spirit of appreciation expressed in the words thank you sends out a harmonizing energy that affects not only the object of our gratitude, but ourselves as well.
There has perhaps never been a time when the spirit of gratitude needs to be cultivated more than it does today. In The Earth Healer’s Handbook, Masami Saionji writes:
If the earth is to come alive in the 21st century, humanity must undergo a great shift in consciousness. Each of us needs to become aware of the profound relationship that exists between our thoughts and the health and stability of the earth. To revive our ailing planet, each of us needs to infuse the earth with the healing energy of our deep gratitude for all the earth’s blessings.
Words of gratitude, thoughts of gratitude, actions of gratitude toward our beloved earth-as we rekindle this spirit of gratitude our way of life will naturally change and the earth will find the power to heal itself… As we deepen our sense of oneness with all life on earth, may we each come to know what it truly means to love, cherish, and make the most of our own lives as well.
How can we send love and gratitude to the earth and all life?
Like a garden, gratitude requires nurturing and cultivation. Masami Saionji tells us: We need to create new habits and new ways of thinking, until the resonance of love and gratitude comes streaming out from our whole being.
All of us have many, many things to be thankful for, beginning with the infinite gifts from nature — the sun that warms us, the food that the earth provides, the water we drink, and our own physical body. We can be grateful for the friends and family who share our joys and challenges, the myriad people who make up our society, and indeed, all living things and existences in the universe.
A simple way that all of us can help to heal and enliven the world of nature — and brighten our own lives — with love and gratitude is through words and expressions. For example, when walking on the earth, we can think or say things like, Thank you, dear earth! I am so grateful to you for supporting my footsteps! While drinking a glass of water, we can think or say, Dear water, how wonderful you are! How refreshed and radiant you make me feel!”
As we keep thinking and speaking in this way, harmonious energy will come to permeate our existence and spread to everything in our environment, reawakening nature’s power to heal itself. In living this way, step by step, we can change our behavior and return to oneness with everything in nature. Then, and only then, will the earth naturally revive.