The Winter Solstice; the Time for Thanking Truth

On this shortest day of the year, we celebrate the longest night.  We are symbolically offered a longer span of darkness to sit with our dreams for what we might be, could be, will be as we consciously commit to being more completely our Self!

Have a wondrous and inspired solstice!  Light a fire or candles to celebrate the gift of darkness, to remember of the gift of light that is eternally within your being, to offer gratitude for the balance of life-the gift of rhythms and cycles.

Self Reflection: I thank Truth for my light, which becomes visible to me in being with my own dark times.

Closing Moon for December: Using Our Senses to Make Sense of Our Vision

When we can  be present with all of our senses, we are present to our Self.  This helps us take full advantage of all the gifts that ultimately show us our vision.  We learn to be fully present to life in the moment and to become more fully aligned with Creator’s purpose for our individual life.  We learn to use our senses as tools for connecting to higher frequencies of awareness.  We are able to have our senses become more acute and sensitive so that we can respond more proactively, rather than from fear or anxiety.  We become more able to use our senses to wake up to the world around us and to our own unique path.  Wise use of senses help us let go of, or at least set down, what keeps our vision from being visible (mostly to us).

Highly developed senses, while they may require our attention and cannot be easily ignored, can bring a sense of ease to our lives once we come to trust them and to use them wisely.  The increased awareness with our senses also awakens our intuition, often called the sixth sense,  Our sixth sense points the way to becoming our vision.  We are at the eve of the New Moon for the 13th Moon Cycle of the year; the cycle of Be Truth. 

Self Reflection: I take time to sit in gratitude for the year that has been. I take time to sit in gratitude for the gifts I have received and for what they portend may already be coming my way. 

What it Means to Honor Truth

From Sara we  receive this words of wisdom: "Within us is already everything we need to know."  The difficulty comes in that there are many layers or levels of knowing with us.  We can be aware of many things that are 'true' about ourselves.
As we dig deeper into our consciousness, we find that what is true in one experience is not true in another experience.  We see that what is true in one relationship is not true in another.

We are called to have gratitude for whatever truth is revealed, regardless of how we experience that truth. To begin to discern the difference between what is 'true' and what is 'Truth',  take all that you have held as true and distill it, refine it, examine it.  Where you find a reaction and a rigid response there is likely to be something 'not true'.  

Self Reflection: With gratitude for the experience, thank it and let it go.  Where you have found ease, love, peacefulness and compassion, there is likely to be a Truth.  With gratitude, place these knowings in your heart, and carry-on.

Receiving Guidance: Gratitude as a Guiding Force

Carolyn writes:  I have a journal which I write in only when I am in deep awareness of connecting to Guidance-It is my G.O.D. journal' (G.O.D. is my acronym for Grace of Divine/Guidance on Demand/Good Orderly Direction).
Sometimes I write in it everyday for a week or so, then months can go by without an entry. I began this particular journal in 1994 and there are sill a few pages left to fill!  Here is the page that caught my attention as I sat to seeking and writing for guidance this morning.  What a page to show up, as perfect now as it was the year I wrote it. What is REALLY Truth is eternal.  

Self Reflection: What is my gratitude for Truth list for the year now ending?

Flipping the Coin of Forgiveness and Gratitude

In practicing gratitude for our experiences in life, we come upon times where we experience hurt, anger, frustration, dissolution, pain.  Can we even think about being grateful during these times?  The gift in this cycle is 'Thank Truth' .  We look for the Truth, open ourselves to what is Truth, (with an uppercase 'T') when we are confronted with the challenges of living life. 


Self Reflection: Forgiveness and gratitude are two sides of the same coin.
If this coin comes into my possession, I have received a gift more priceless than gold. It is a gift which brings me a freedom greater than I have ever known!

A Practice of Gratitude Changes Consciousness

As we move through these weeks of the waning moon our focus of gratitude turns outward as we explore our perception of others and the world around us. It is easy to express gratitude toward others when we are getting what we think we want, or when things are going our way.  This is only a tiny part of the gift of Thanking Truth.  We receive the gift of greater consciousness when we can be grateful for the whole of the Truth, which may be very different from our original perceptions and beliefs--as was noted in yesterday's post,

What DOES it mean to look for the Truth in every situation and experience, especially those that are challenging in some way? We can start with a question teacher and writer Byron Katie  asks, "Is it really true?"  Through deeper exploration we often find the Truth is different than our personal perception and experience.  We come to understand how important our life experiences have been/are for the growth and healing of our being.  This space of expanded understanding of what is reality is the place where we truly and deeply feel gratitude for the Truth.

Self Reflection: Check out Byron Katie's guided questions here in her process called: The Work. Choose one current belief which is challenging you and explore "Is it really true?"

To 'Thank' Requires Action

I can be grateful for what is true/truth in myself. But, what is truth of myself that I do 'thank'?

What does it mean to thank the truth of myself?  This moon cycle we are instructed to 'thank' truth;  not just being grateful, but actively 'thank'.  It’s easy to be grateful for what we deem to be ‘good’ about our self; more challenging to be grateful for what we deem as ‘bad’.  Being grateful is an internal process.  We just think, 'Oh, yes, I'm so grateful ...."  There is a lovely feeling that arises when we sit in gratitude. But, to thank 'Truth' requires active engagement with that we are thanking-whether it is something within our self or another person, place or thing.  The very act of consciously being thankful for what we accept as 'Truth' opens a space for conscious creation of something even more true. This action invites transformation.  This is what deep personal transformation work invites—getting us look at our current view of what is true about how we experience our life, and opening the door for a bigger and more active truth to be created.

Self Reflection: When I find a way to thank everything I think I know about myself, regardless of how I judge it to be good or bad, I will have freed myself of the binding that keeps me stuck in unpleasant pain, patterns, and distress.  Am I willing to thank ALL of what is Truth of the person I am? 

Keep Me in Truth

If I spoke only Truth
If I saw only what is Truth
How different would my life be?
Truth with the capital 'T' is so different from
          the little truths,
               half-truths,
                    non-truths,
                         wanna-be truths
I embrace as the 'real thing'.
These are 'mis-beliefs', not truths at all.
It takes time to come to know the difference between my mis-beliefs, which have come to feel so much like truth to me, and the kind of Truth which stands up to the scrutiny of time and life.

The cycle of Thank Truth gives me the practice of gratitude. Learning how to be grateful takes practice.  It is a challenge to see the Truth in my own being.  To be willing to see Truth in others is an even bigger challenge.  This waxing moon cycle invites me to take up the challenge.

Self-Reflection: What new Truth about myself has been revealed during the waxing moon phase?  Am I feeling gratitude for this discovery?  Am I full-in with Truth?

Gratitude Builds a Strong Temple

Gratitude builds a strong temple of faith and gives hope a place to live.
As we moved through the waxing phase of the December moon cycle 
our practice of gratitude for all aspects of our life may have had many effects.
Hopefully we have come to more gentleness with ourselves in our struggles and mis-takes.
Perhaps we are now able to pat ourselves on the back and appreciate effort and progress.
Sincere gratitude strengthens our resolve to carry-on.  It builds discipline in our character.
Sincere gratitude brings us faith that our efforts will carry us forward in our life, toward a future of hope.
Sincere gratitude hones our abilities and smooths away the rough places where we stumble.

These qualities are needed as we move into the waning phase of this moon cycle, where our expression of gratitude is outward, toward others.  
We become the strong temple in body mind and spirit.
We are a place where hope can live.

Self Reflection:  Am I ready to share gratitude?

Learning Gratitude For All Parts of Our Truth

This month is a gift of teaching us how to Thank Truth.  This gift informs us to look deeply within ourselves for all those parts of ourselves that are worthy of gratitude.  This includes thankfulness for both what we consider the ugly, the shame-filled, and what we label as mistake parts, as well as what we label as victories, beautiful and love-filled.  Both are necessary for full expression of our Self. Without thankfulness for each and every experience, our life will remain shallow and, without depth.  Author and Buddhist teacher Pema Chodron, teaches that our ability to experience joy is equal only to our willingness to embrace our pain. Truth sees all, receives all, knows all, accepts all.

Self Reflection: Am I willing to find a way to be grateful for ALL of my self?

Gratitude for Truth: The Crack Where the Light Comes In

Taking time to sink into thankfulness for the truth of what is opens the space for us to be the human we are born to be. This is, to paraphrase the late Leonard Cohen, 'the crack where the light comes in'.

Cracks occur in a number of ways:
A house settles and a crack appears in the ceiling.
The root of a tree grows pressing against the sidewalk.  The sidewalk cracks against the pressure of this tender, tenacious root.
Humpty Dumpty falls of the wall.  He cracks his shell.
The earth quakes, she cracks open.
We lose a Love. Our heart breaks. Our heart has a crack.

It may take some time to hold gratitude for that which cracks us open so the Light can enter into our hearts and our life.

Self Reflection:  Am I willing to allow time to see the truth in the cracks in my life?

Personal Work for the Waxing Moon Phase

During the waxing moon we have a chance to embrace those parts of our selves that we tend to hide from others, from the world, and from our own consciousness. 

Marianne Williamson wrote: It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.   

And yes, most of us are more likely to 'hide our light under  the bushel', then to put it out in the open for all to see. (Is the idea of being in the limelight a little scary?)  This tendency to stay small also prevents us from having gratitude for our gifts. In fact, many of us have shame and doubt about the most powerful and effective parts of our being.  

A daily practice of gratitude toward ourselfwill, over time, turn the bushel covering our light, transparent. This covering will gradually disappear, and we WILL be able to share who we are in the world! With a commitment to find and express gratitude in our life on a daily basis, our understanding of life will expand. Our awareness of options and choices also increases, as does wisdom, and also our ability to discern what is truth from what is false.

Self Reflection:  Am I ready for my life to expand? Am I truthfully aware of my options and choices? Am I willing to discern what is truth from what is false?

Thanking Ourselves Deeply

A kind, loving, and steadfast friend knows about gratitude.
They will stay by our side and know we will stand by theirs, regardless.
Yet, there is no taking for granted, no need to know the outcome.
These are relationships of deep gratitude.

We learn to be steadfast friend to our soul
            by holding our self in both compassion and accountability.
By expressing gratitude for our life experiences,
            we remember that our life is a journey of practice and progress.
For us; for others.


Self Reflection:  How will I express deeper gratitude to me?

Thankful for Honsety

In all of our relationships we ask:
Am I in truth?
Or am I in non-truth, falsehood, wishful thinking, manipulation, delusion, addiction?
To walk a path of gratitude for truth
is to walk a path of committing to honesty.

Self reflection: Am I committed to honesty in my thoughts, words and deeds?
Where might I struggle most in using this gift in my life?

The Foundation for Living in Gratitude

These are the foundations that are the basis for living in gratitude:

What Is:  there is so much goodness available.  In fact, the darker the space, the more place there is for good.

What Has Been: We will not regret the past nor try to shut the door on it.

My Gifts: we are the treasurer of our life.  What does that mean? Being able to work the edges and the core of our being at the same time.

My Trials:  It's so easy this time of year to run around like like a lunatic, to lose connection with what grounds me. When I let my environment direct my actions, I can not hear Higher Guidance.

Self Reflection:  I have the ability to listen for gratitude, to discern gratitude in all situations.  The only question is am I willing to live in gratitude rather than ego?

The One Reason We Thank Truth

To say Thank You and really mean it requires we fully accept what is offered.  Otherwise, our thanking is shallow.
To express gratitude while not truthfully receiving what is given, denies a gift we may need for our well being.
It may be that we are given the gift of gratitude for the primary purpose of practicing gratitude so we may eventually learn to thank and have gratitude toward ourselves.
We must experience gratitude toward Self in order to truthfully express gratitude toward others.
To thank the truth within our Self, in our gifts, imperfections, and miss-takes opens us to the gift of being human.
It is a gift to be human...a rare gift.
When we live this gift in the practice of being human, we are Truth,
we know the meaning of Thank Truth.

Self Reflection: Am I willing to express only authentic gratitude?

How Do I Thank Truth?

How to Thank Truth.

What does it mean to Thank Truth?  

Live in gratitude

Gratitude for my path

Just as it is unfolding.  

Cut myself some slack

Pat myself on the back

Lighten up

Maybe even embrace a little humor, even if it is dark humor

Don't take myself too serious

Self Reflections: Creator, Spirit of All That Is, help me remember that the path of my life takes me toward truth.  No matter how crooked my path, no matter if I stray far off the path laid out for me, eventually I WILL embrace my Truth.  And I will thank her for my journey.

New Moon, December: Darkness Becomes Apparent When Exposed to Light

Darkness becomes apparent when exposed to light.
On this new moon, darkness is apparent, because, for the moment, the light reflecting from the moon is not visible to us. And in December, the darkness seems even darker as the night continues to lengthen.

This is the month to Thank Truth.  There may be things, rules,experiences, persons and institutions we struggle with, maybe even feel hatred toward, that we we not only don't want to hold in any form of gratitude.  These same 'things' we also repel from even considering that what have is true about them is not true at all, let alone ask with sincere intention to know and be grateful for the truth of these life experiences.

Gratitude is the light that will end the darkness of any situation.
We begin to bring in light by acknowledging there may be a truth in (the situation we are thinking of) that we do not yet understand and are not yet able to accept.  This can take effort and time.

Self Reflection: Am I willing to commit to continue looking for a tiny place for thankfulness, no matter how difficult or horrible the experience?  If not yet, what would I need (within myself) to look?

Noticing Choice

It is important to acknowledge both the light and the shadow in how we live our daily lives.  Our truth is played out in the 10,000 choices we make each day.  When we notice and give ourselves credit for the times we choose alignment with our higher self, we have less need to hide from the shadow self.

Sara's personal share: While I easily acknowledge my gifts and abilities, I find they are often a source of shame:  I feel shame for not living up to my potential, not being as "good" as I "should" be, given how I have been blessed.  My "review/release" circle is filled with choices I made that "could have" been more in alignment with my Truth.  Today, I am reminded that I also need to balance my review with acknowledging the choices I make every day that ARE in alignment.

Self Reflection: Do I carry shame about my gifts, abilities, accomplishments?  If so, how has this affected my ability to align myself in truth? to Share my Truth?