Cross-Training Body Mind Emotions Spirit | Rachael R. Resch

Thanksgiving 2010

Today I am grateful for my body and for life.  Thank you, body.  Thank you, life.

Thank you, body, for your innate wisdom, your brilliant body know-how, your splendid, spirally, multi-tasking intelligences, that always know where and  when and how to go, in the best, in the most difficult and in regular, everyday circumstances.  Thank you, body.

Thank you, bones, my flexible foundation, crystalline fluid matrix, uniquely dedicated to supporting me as I walk through life.  Thank you, joints, whose tiny spirals in the spaces between the bones move me.  Thank you muscles, the yin and yang of the body, in love with contracting and in love with lengthening.

Thank you, four-roomed house of my heart — room for love, room for grief, room for joy, room for fear, room for peace — right inside my chest.  Thank you, heart, for being devoted to beating all day, every day, never forgetting, and for being dedicatedly uniquely to me, to my body, to my life, to my purpose, to my loves and my griefs.

Thank you, lungs, for your dedication to breathing in and breathing out long spirally whisps of air, air from trees, air from plankton, each breath so intimate with the vast world.

Thank you, endocrine system, biological genius air traffic controllers, dedicated uniquely to coordinating the life of my physiology: “Incoming from thyroid to protein synthesis at 10 o-clock.”  “Roger.”  “Outgoing HPA runway from hypothalamus en route to adrenals.”  “Roger.”

Thank you, nervous system — central, peripheral, sympathetic and parasympathetic — for your never-ending little lightning storms dedicated uniquely to the purpose of thinking, tasting, smelling, hearing, wiggling, laughing, peeing, blinking, hurrying, sleeping, pondering, beholding.

Thank you, warm coat of my skin, largest organ of the body, dedicated to holding me in your arms, so that I’m not just a pile of shmutz on the floor.  Thank you reproductive system, thank you, creativity, dedicated uniquely to creating something for a time beyond our own.

Special thank yous to the diligent digestive system on this holiday of Thanksgiving and season of feasting, dedicated uniquely to the purpose of transubstantiation, chomping up other blessed lives so that the turkey or the tofurky or whatever you’re eating becomes . . . you!  We don’t generally think about it; but we do it every day.

And thank you, excretory system, for being dedicated to releasing from my body all that’s no longer needed following all my fantstic feasting.

Somehow, made of heaven and made of Earth is this third thing, the miracle we call the human body.  75 trillion cells dedicated uniquely to me.  75 trillion cells dedicated uniquely to you.  Thank you, body.

What are you grateful for?  Chocolate?  Peace?  Friends?  Immerse in it.  Bathe in gratitude.  Feel the waves of gratitude in your body.  Feel the ocean of gratitude, the interstitial fluid of the body, that bathes every cell.

Gratitude has a sensation.   Notice the sensation of gratitude itself, apart from whatever it is you’re grateful for.

Gratitude itself has a heart, a mind, a spirit and a body.  Let it in.  Gratitude is soft and big, but in its softness, it’s very strong.  Let it in.  Let it out.

Breathe in gratitude to each of your 75 trillion cells.  Breathe out gratitude from each of your 75 trillion cells.

The mitochondria in your cells are the generators and the regenerators of gratitude, dedicated every single day to making the energy of gratitude available for your whole body, and for your whole life.

Thank you, body.  Thank you, Earth.  Thank you, sun.  Thank you, moon.  Thank you, ancestors.  Thank you, rain.  Thank you, snow.  Thank you, air.  Thank you, night.  Thank you, day.  Thank you, now.

Thank you to every whirling subatomic particle in my body for being so dedicated as to make it all the way from the Big Bang to now, this very moment, right here in my body, the echo of creation creating itself again and again.

Say to yourself out loud, “Thank you.”  It’s good to say it out loud, so they can hear you.  It’s good to think it, too.  But when you say it out loud, you embody it, and thus your message travels farther — and deeper.  The body can hear you, people  can hear you, the Earth can hear you, Life can hear you — saying, “Thank you.”

I am grateful for:  The ones I love, Nia, food, rest, joy, love, dance, existence, peace, nature, the trees and the lichens on the trees, delight, radiance, blue sky, this morning, healing, the god in all of us, friendship, possibility, wonder, Life.

I’m grateful for the ability to say, “No,” and I’m grateful for the ability to say, “Yes.”

I am grateful for the body and the body’s way.

See the path before you, the path that is uniquely yours to dance through life on, and take a moment to bow in gratitude to that path, whether you know what it is or not, and to the mystery of your path unfolding step by step, dedicated uniquely to you.  May you be nourished, healthy and happy.