Tag: thanksgiving

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I Really, Really Love Autumn

Le Quattro Stagioni

I have always enjoyed the variety involved in the changing of the seasons. I am blessed to live in the state of New Jersey. Within my state, every year there is a clear-cut difference between each of the four seasons. The cold frostiness and quiet of winter. In spring, there is warming and renewal. Summer brings sunshine and swimming. Then topping things off is the cooling and pleasantness of autumn. Each definitely has its own unique personality.

The Four Seasons (Le Quattro Stagioni in Italian) is a famous group of four violin concertos by the Baroque composer Antonio Vivaldi. These concertos give musical expression to each of the four seasons. These concertos are probably the best known of all his works. They have been used as background music in countless movies, tv shows and even commercials.

Just as each of the concertos has its own “personality” so to speak, so do the actual four seasons that you experience – winter, spring, summer and autumn. Of course, where you live in the world has a lot to do with the personality of the seasons in your locale. A person living in Arizona or Florida obviously has a different experience than a person living in Maine or Minnesota.

That Special Moment

Every year, there always comes the arrival of that special moment that quickens the beat of my heart. It is that moment, during one of the days in September, that I perceive that my love, Autumn, has come back to me for three wonderful months.

It could be a little nip in the early morning air. Perhaps it is observing a flock of migrating birds. It may be the first sighting of pumpkins for sale at a local farmers market. The first viewing of a football game may do it. Or it could be something as banal as a sign advertising the opening of a Halloween superstore. Whatever the moment happens to be, I am thrilled that my love has now come back to me. For three glorious months, I get to luxuriate in the return of the crème de la crème of seasons, autumn.

My First Time

I think that I felt the first stirrings of my lifelong love affair with autumn when I was just a pipsqueak of five years old. We piled into the car and my Mom drove me and my brother out to a roadside farm stand that was connected to a large apple orchard. We bought a basketful of apples. In those days, they gave you the basket along with the apples. We also splurged and got a gallon of freshly-squeezed apple cider. Even though it emptied her purse, we also got a nice, big pumpkin.

After our purchase, Mom drove to a nearby peaceful, wooded park. We had ourselves a nice little picnic. The weather was pure autumn. The air was crisp and very comfortable. All the humidity of summer was gone. The day was gloriously bathed in sunshine. The leaves on the trees were showing off with their annual pageant of colors, seeming to shine in the golden October sunlight.

Those Winesap Apples

It was a day of apples as we sunk our teeth into those juicy, tart Winesap apples. Mom had brought some paper cups from home. We savored some of that apple cider. Mom shook some cinnamon from a little tin into her cider but I wanted mine plain. We ate our baloney and cheese sandwiches that Mom had packed.

Later, we watched a large gaggle of geese flying overhead in perfect “V” formation, honking as they flew to someplace else. In the distance, at the edge of a clearing where the tree line started, we spied a fox. After we were done eating, my brother told us a story about an old house in the area where we lived that was supposed to be haunted. That really got my five year old imagination going.

When my brother was done telling the story, he got the football out of the car. He and I tossed it around, practicing “going out for passes”. Being older, his passes were much better than mine. Afterward, I walked over to some trees and grabbed a bunch of different colored leaves off the ground for my “collection”.

Even though I had the pea brain of a five-year old, I distinctly remember everything about that beautiful day. As we got into the car to leave, I remember thinking to myself, “I really love autumn”.

Oh Those Marvelous Charms

Just as a finely cut diamond has many facets to it, so does autumn.

Perfect weather. Cooler but not cold temps. Humidity goes on extended vacation. The unique crispness of the air. Flannel shirts and sweaters. Blankets at night.

Nature performs its annual show. The trees do a strip tease. The leaves go out in a blaze of glory, changing over to colorful flowers before they drop. After they have dropped and dried, the leaves sound off one last time with that crunch as you walk on them. The rustling sound of dried leaves as they are caressed by the unique autumn wind. Watching a squirrel find and then meticulously bury an acorn. The famous “v” of migrating birds. Ripe apples right off the tree. Apple cider, both cold and hot. Pumpkins of all sizes and shapes..

The sports. As kids, we always followed the sports seasons, playing neighborhood pick-up games of each sport during its corresponding season. The World Series. The start of football season. Two-hand touch football pick-up games in the street. Basketball season also gets its start in autumn. Playing games on a dirt court with a backboard affixed to a tree.

A new school year. New teachers, new classes, new students, new experiences. College activities. Another step closer to the diploma.

Less annoyances. Those pesky houseflies, gnats and mosquitoes finally go away. Good riddance. No more roaring lawnmowers. You can turn off the noisy room air conditioners and put the fans away.

The holidays. Octoberfest and those tasty autumnal beers. Sweets, costume parties and jack-o-lanterns at Halloween. Thanksgiving. Turkey and gravy with stuffing and all the rest. Pumpkin pie with whipped cream for dessert. No gift-giving, just thanks-giving. Gratitude.

Autumn – Vibrant Yet Calming

Autumn is in my blood. I feel like it is a part of me. Autumn presents an energy-filled potent vibrancy. Yet, at the same time, it has a wonderful calming presence. Vibrant is defined as “pulsating with energy”. Calming is defined as “tranquil and quiet”. It would appear that they are contradictory in their respective natures. Nevertheless, they are both keenly felt when autumn makes its annual appearance. Perhaps it is a feeling that cannot be properly described using words. You have to feel it. And yes, it is a good feeling.

At a job that I worked at for twenty years, part of the day I sat at a desk near the facility water cooler. At the section of the building where I worked, I was the only one there. Thus, I was able to have the radio on without bothering anyone.

One morning, a man who worked at the other end of the building, walked over to the water cooler. He proceeded to fill up his mug with water. At the time that he was there, one of the Brandenburg concertos was playing on the radio. As he was filling up his mug, he said to me, “I guess that music is real relaxing for you.” I responded, “Oh yeah, but also invigorating at the same time.” He just smiled in response. The look on his face however spelled out “Well, it’s not my cup of tea, but I guess different strokes for different folks”. Autumn is in perfect attunement with my own inner wiring.

You Are As A Leaf

Recently, I was seated in my vehicle in a parking lot, taking a short break, as I enjoyed a hot cup of Wawa coffee. This lot abutted a small group of trees that were directly in front of my car. As I contently sipped my coffee, every so often a leaf would flutter to the ground, joining the others who had already left the tree. About a half-dozen or so landed on my windshield. It got me to musing about the similarities between those leaves and human beings.

In one sense, we humans mimic the cycle of life of a leaf. In spring, the various branches of the tree start budding with little sprouts. It takes them a while, but the sprouts eventually grow into to full fledged leaves. In summer, the leaves are in full growth. They fulfill their necessary functions of photosynthesis and transpiration. They provide shade and show off the grandeur of the tree. In the autumn, one by one, the leaves end their cycle of life, going out in a blaze of glory before dropping to the earth. Here they decompose until there is nothing left. In the spring, the cycle starts over again with new leaves.

Last year’s leaves are soon forgotten. The life of a human follows the general course of the leaf. You are born as an infant and ultimately grow into an adult. During the prime of your life, you engage in a number of necessary functions. At the end of your life, you are able to display the wisdom of your years of experience, and then you die, dropping off the tree of humanity. Your body ultimately decomposes and in one or two generations time, you are completely forgotten as if you never existed.

And Yet, You Are Not A Leaf

And yet, at the same time, you are not a leaf. You are a human being created in the image of the one true God, the one true power. You are in the very image of God because of your spiritual and intellectual nature. You possess a thinking mind. A thinking mind that is fully capable, through the infinite power of imaginative belief, of shaping the very reality around you. As you conceive an idea in your thinking mind, as you then truly believe your conception to be true, so then you truly receive. Your acceptance of doubt however always unfortunately cancels the deal.

If Autumn Was A Woman

Each season of le quattro stagioni brings its own unique vibe. Winter – huddle by the fireplace, reflect on things behind and things ahead. Spring – new beginnings, renewal, return of warmth. Summer – balmy days of blue skies and sunshine. Autumn – live fully now as all living things come to an end someday. The leaves drop from the tree one by one. The days slowly grow shorter and shorter. Autumn teaches you not to take any day of life for granted. Let not any day pass by without living in a manner that makes use of everything that is inside you, your real self. Drop the fear. Drop the doubt. Don’t be afraid. Let your true self, beloved by your Creator, come fully to the surface.

This is not some generic autumn fluff piece. You are reading a true love letter. If autumn was a woman, and told me that she could only be with me three months a year, I would still marry her in a heartbeat. That precious three months would fill me with enough inner joy to easily last through the other nine months until her return.

I really, really love autumn.

Conceive. Believe. Receive.

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Gratitude: Magic Magnet For The Good Stuff

Today Is Thanksgiving Day 2021

Today is November 25…….Thanksgiving Day. The present form of this federal holiday of gratitude was enacted into law by Congress in 1885. It originally stemmed from a proclamation by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863 in the midst of the Civil War. The proclamation called for a national day of thanksgiving, to be celebrated on the final Thursday of November. This proclamation set the precedent for America’s Thanksgiving Day. The date for the holiday was fixed by federal law in 1941 as the fourth Thursday in November.

In the midst of the calamity of the Civil War, with the unrelenting violence, death and destruction threatening to rip apart the nation, Lincoln instinctively felt it was necessary for everyone to just take a day off from dwelling on the negative effects and events of the war and simply dwell on those gifts received that would generate true gratitude to the Almighty.

In the manner of synchronicities, Sarah Josepha Hale, a 74 year old magazine editor wrote a letter that Lincoln received on September 28, 1863 urging him to have a national day of thanksgiving to permanently become an American custom and institution. President Lincoln responded to Mrs. Hale’s letter immediately and issued the proclamation of a Day of Thanksgiving to be held on the last Thursday of November 1863.

Of course, over the years, the societal controllers and manipulators of consumption have made every attempt to contort this holiday into an ode to eating food and buying stuff (think Black Friday sales). As is always the case, they only succeed to the extent that you allow them to succeed. OK, you say, what is so bad about having a good dinner with family and then saving some money on the purchase of Christmans gifts? Nothing, absolutely nothing at all, they are good things unless they distract you away from deeply experiencing the eternal magic of gratitude.

Filler Up With High Octane

Gratitude is the fuel that powers the engine of the cosmic delivery truck that delivers “the good stuff” to you. Just as your car won’t go anywhere if it does not have any fuel, the universe patiently waits for your gratitude fillup before the delivery truck of goodies can start on its way to you.

It all filters down to your current (as in right now) awareness of being. If you are truly feeling gratitude for something, you are simultaneously transmitting neural electro-magnetic impulses to the universe. The neural impulses of gratitude are received by Universal Intelligence. In alignment with how the universe was created by God, your electrical signal of giving thanks sets off a chain reaction that in turn starts sending “good stuff” your way in order to match the “feeling wave length” that you are transmitting. This is equivalent to a television signal that is sent out from the broadcasting tower.

When you direct the tv remote to the designated channel that you want to watch, your receive the program that is on that channel. That channel represents a specific wave frequency. That is why it is of paramount importance to you to always be thankful. Otherwise you turn off the flow. I will repeat that — if you turn off the gratitude, you turn off the flow. The flow is not turned off by God, or your spouse or girlfriend or your boss or co-workers. Not even Joe the barber. You do it, as in y-o-u.

Yeah, It Really Is a 7/24 Thing

You do not have to be thankful all the time, only when you are actively breathing. In First Thessalonians 5:18 it states, “In everything give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you” (KJV). This verse is a toughie when something bad has happened in your life. How do you give thanks for a negative event and more importantly, why would you?

In the midst of some minor or major negative event, that is the time when it is all the more important to find a way to generate thanksgiving for something…..anything. The reason being is that it sets into immediate motion the ongoing electrical impulses that will subsequently return to you in the form of something good happening for you as long as you keep the electric current turned on. Very easy in good times. Very hard in bad times but you have to find a way to do it.

I understand, better than you may think, that you may have zero desire to be thankful when bad things happen. You have to will yourself into gratitude mode. It is your way out of trouble and hardship. Dwell in God. Don’t you see? Your awareness of being “down and out” only anchors that condition to you. Choose (and it is your free will choice) to ignore circumstances and relentlessly send out electrical impulses of thankfulness to Universal Intelligence — Original Source. By doing that, you, yes you, start the process of overcoming that trouble or hardship no matter what it is.

And then stay thankful. Stay thankful, not to be some mindless moron who merely accepts bad stuff and then says, “Thank you sir may I have another” like the fraternity pledge in the movie Animal House. Stay thankful in order to use your God-given power to create your life circumstances and fashion a reality that you truly desire.

Feeling + Action = Power

When you combine your feeling of gratitude with some type of action that reflects your gratitude, that is what is termed a synergism. It is you “upping your game”. A thanksgiving action does not have to be something that is expensive or time consuming or showy.

Just what is a thanksgiving action you say? It is something that says “I am receiving…I have received…I will receive…good stuff and I want to demonstrate my appreciation. It can be something as so simple as a smile and a kind word to someone. Perhaps it is a silent prayer for someone who you think could use a prayer (God, I claim a rich blessing for this person today. Thank you. Amen.).

It could be tolerance and patience (when you don’t want to be tolerant or patient) when somebody makes a mistake. Maybe it is just stopping for a few moments and listening to someone who wishes to say something. It could be be doing something helpful for someone without the slightest expectation that they will ever even know about what you did for them. It could be a thousand and one simple little things that you could come up with that send a signal of gratitude to Universal Source.

You can try to ignore it. You can try to deny it. That doesn’t change anything – gratitude is absolutely vital to your personal well being. The thirteenth century theologian and mystic, Meister Eckhart, stated: “If the only prayer that you ever said during your entire life was ‘Thank You’, it would be enough.”

The Boil Down

When a chef “boils down” a sauce, stew, pudding or other dish, he decreases the water or other liquid in it — it evaporates in the steam rising from the pan. Cooks do this to make something thicker and more flavorful. Carrying over this phrase to outside of the cooking realm, when you boil down something, it means that you get down to its essence. When I read something, a book, an article, an essay, etc., in my mind I always try to do a “boil down” so that I will remember the essence of the book, article or essay.

I hope that you enjoyed reading this blog post. However, I hope that you do more than just read it. My hope even more is that you actively use it to make your life better. There is something inside me that desires, in these final years of my life, to spread the word about universal truths that I have learned about during my stay in this dimension. If you remember nothing else of this post, I will give you a “boil down” of just five easy words to remember — Be Thankful……..Get Good Stuff.

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Message To Autumn – I Love You

My Lifelong Love Affair

I think I felt the first stirrings of my lifelong love affair with autumn when I was just five years old, some sixty-three years ago. My mother, my brother and I went apple picking at a pick-your-own apple orchard in the area. Afterwards we went to a peaceful, heavily wooded park nearby and had ourselves a little picnic. The air was crisp yet comfortable. The day was sunny but neither hot nor humid. The leaves that were still in the trees were showing off with their annual color display, shining in the golden October sunlight. It was a day of apples as we sunk our teeth into those crunchy, tart Winesap apples. We savored some of the fresh-pressed apple cider that we had just bought. We ate our baloney sandwiches that we had packed. Later, we watched the geese in formation overhead, honking as they flew to somewhere else. My brother told us a story he had heard about an old house that was supposed to be haunted that was in the area that we lived. Mom got the football out of the trunk and my brother and I practiced “going out for passes.” Even though I had the pea brain of a five-year old, I very distinctly remember the first stirrings of love within me for the season known as autumn.

The Four Seasons

Summer has its definite moments…….swimming, vacation from school, amusement parks, baseball, hiking, barbeques, bicycling, a cold beer under a shady tree. Spring has its unique “the cold and snow are finally over and the daffodils and tulips are doing their thing” vibe. Winter has Christmas, New Years Day, snowballs, snowmen, hot chocolate, a steaming bowl of chili, freedom from bugs and flies, egg nog. There is that something about autumn however, that has always captured my heart.

Humans have a tendency to get tired of the same old thing after awhile (types of food, jobs, relationships, etc.). I never remember a time however when my heart did not jump a little when “autumn entered the room” so to speak.

Autumn – Vibrant Yet Calming

Autumn feels to me like….well, like “me”. It has the ability to enter into me and seep down into every crack and crevice of my being. It has a truly potent vibrancy yet at the same time, a wonderful calming presence. Autumn feels like “coming home”. It is a feeling that is much more understandable if you feel it rather than attempt to describe it.

At a job that I worked at for twenty years, I worked at a desk near the water cooler. In that area that I worked, I was the only one there so I was able to have my radio on without bothering anyone else. A man who worked on the other side of the building came over to the water cooler one day to fill up his mug with water. At that time, a piece by Bach was playing on my radio. As he filled up his mug, he said to me, “I guess that is real relaxing music for you.” I responded, “Oh yeah, but at the same time, totally invigorating.” He just smiled in response but the look on his face spelled out “Well it’s sure not my cup of tea but I guess different strokes for different folks.” I do believe that is what it comes down to and for me, autumn is in perfect attunement with my inner wiring.

The Sweet Spot

Perhaps the specialness of autumn has something to do with the getting away from the frenetic comings and goings of summertime, the constant mowing of lawns, the planning and attending of different events and the overall “sweatiness of summer”. It is that sweet spot when the hot and sticky days of summer are over and the muddy, rainy months of spring are still far off. It could be any combination of things including, what to me is the grandaddy of all annual holidays…….Thanksgiving. I really do try my best to practice thanksgiving on a daily basis (not always succeeding). I do “get it” that gratitude is beneficial to my personal well-being. Autumn has the honor of hosting that one holiday where all are invited to vary from their normal routine and simply feel gratitude.

Stanley Got It Right

Published in the 1983 issue of Readers Digest magazine was that eighteen word poem written by Stanley Horowitz that has a good chance of being found wherever the joys of autumn are mentioned on the internet. It goes as follows: “Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting and autumn a mosaic of them all” That sure sums it up better than anything that I could think up. Autumn could be appropriately called, “The Total Package”. I was born in the autumn and I hope when it is my time to die that it will likewise be in autumn. I am of the same mind as the great nineteenth century English author, George Eliot, who wrote, “Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the Earth seeking the successive autumns.”

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A Never Ending State of “Thank You”

The Concept of Gratitude

If you enter the word “gratitude” into the search box on a google search, you will receive over two hundred million search results. Obviously then, the concept of gratitude has evoked a huge ocean of human thought and opinion over the ages. If you go to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, under the word “gratitude” you find the definition “the state of being grateful”. Not very helpful. Continuing on and going to the word “grateful” you find the definition of “appreciative of benefits received”. Ok then, a generic definition could be described as a feeling – a human feeling of being appreciative of benefits received. So here is where we run into trouble with the concept of gratitude.

That Troubling Bible Verse

In my Sunday school class when I was a child, we were studying in the Book of First Thessalonians one Sunday. when the teacher got to chapter 5, verse 18. This verse states “In everything give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. An alarm went off in my head regarding this verse. My mind went to all the people in this world who are suffering in one way or another. I hate suffering. I mean I really hate it. I have never seen anything noble about it. The very thought of suffering, whether it is my own suffering, or a loved one’s suffering, or the suffering of a total stranger, actually makes me sick to the stomach. I asked the teacher “how could you be thankful for suffering”? The general response that I remember was that (a) man’s sin was the cause of all suffering, (b) we do not have the divine perspective of God, and (c) suffering deepens one’s faith. I was about to respond with a “Yeah, ok, but…” however the last time I did that with regard to another verse, the group started giving me dirty looks. Thus, I just nodded my head, said “Ok” and kept my mouth shut. Inside however, I was definitely not satisfied with the answer.

Science Weighs In On Gratitude

In 2015, there was a scientific study of the brain neural impulses done at the University of Southern California, Department of Psychology, with regard to the human feeling of gratitude. Participants in the study underwent magnetic resonance imaging of their brains while external stimuli were used to induce the feeling of gratitude. The results revealed that the ratings of gratitude on the part of the study participants correlated with well-defined neural brain impulses observed in the anterior cingulate cortex and medial prefrontal cortex of the brain. This study in affective neuroscience pinpointed the brain circuitry that accompanies the feeling of gratitude.

So There It Is – It Is All For You After All

You live in an outer shell that we call the human body. Within this shell resides your spirit. At some point after our birth, you ultimately shed this outer shell when it stops working. We call this event “death”. Your spirit, which is pure energy, proceeds onward. I cannot tell you exactly where or how your spirit will proceed after death because this is not learned until after death. While on this earth however, your energy, your spirit, resides within your body. It is the true you, and, being pure energy, it can project outward. You may have experienced something of this when for no rational reason whatsoever, you felt “good vibes” or “bad vibes” from another person.

Electricity is a form of energy. Neural impulses within the brain are electrical. When we activate those neural transmitters in our brain that science has identified as dealing with gratitude, these electrical impulses are picked up on by Universal Intelligence – All That Is. The universe has consciousness. As the early twentieth century author Wallace Wattles put it, ” There is a thinking stuff from which all things are made, and which, in its original state, permeates, penetrates and fills the interspaces of the universe. A thought in this substance, produces the thing that is imaged by that thought.”. Matching, or like impulses are then attracted to you by your transmission of gratitude neural impulses. In other words, if you truly feel gratitude, the universe has been created in such a manner that you will then be given something (“good stuff” I call it) that matches up with the level of your gratitude. Thus, the reason we are told by Scripture to “be thankful in everything” is for your own benefit or for the benefit of the one for which you wish to favorably intercede. If you are in trouble, it is a way out. Loving Omniscience did not create human beings so that there would be an endless supply of fawning sycophants. Loving Omnipotence has graced you with a never ending way of receiving good stuff in your life and thus displaying the glory of the I Am through your never ending state of gratitude. So there it is – gratitude is all for you after all.

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In Love With Autumn

I am one of those people that like the change of seasons. Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter all have their own unique charms and idiosynchrocies. As one season takes a break for nine months, the next season slides in to do its thing for the next three months. Of the four of these lifelong friends however, I confess that I have always been in love with Autumn.

The Cooler Temps. The sunshine and warmth of Summer are nice but for the most part I just barely tolerate it when the heat gets humid and sticky. Ninety degree weather is perfect for some but for me it gets old after a while. When that first snap of cooler Autumn weather arrives, it always quickens the beat of my heart. The brisk air of Autumn fits me like a glove. There is no need to break out the sweaters and coats. I just continue with my short sleeve shirts but now without getting all sweaty. The hot, sticky, humid days have gone. The cold, biting days of winter have not yet arrived. It is the time of the year to enjoy the brisk, Autumn air that makes the leaves dance.

The Leaves. To see all of those universally green leaves change to a rainbow of colors before my eyes never fails to delight me. I love evergreens but the show that the deciduous trees put on every year in Autumn is always worth the price of admission. The explosion of color before dying and dropping to the ground is sort of how I want it to go for me when my time comes — a kind of “last blast” of achievement before my body goes in the ground. Another thing I like about the leaves when they do fall to the ground is that crunchy sound that they make when you walk on them.

Autumn Holidays. Two Autumn holidays within the season that I have always enjoyed are Halloween and Thanksgiving. As a kid, Halloween was great. It was the only way to ever get such a large haul of candy. And back then, there were no snack size candy bars. We got full sizers as well as home made candy and caramel apples. Yum. Thanksgiving to me is the best holiday of the year, hands down. No gift giving…..just thanks giving. Turkey…stuffing…gravy…family…football…pumpkin pie. When we went to my maternal grandparent’s house, there was kielbasi, pierogies, golabki, ham, kapusta, barley and babka. Everybody was in a good mood. A heartfelt Thanksgiving prayer. Taking a walk or throwing around the football after dinner. The greatest holiday ever.

Pumpkins and Apple Cider. Making Jack-O-Lanterns from pumpkins right from the pumpkin patch and of course eating pumpkin pie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Fresh pressed mugs of apple cider, both hot and cold, with or without spices. Usually got the cider at a roadside stand near an orchard, where we also got a basket of crunchy winesap apples.

The Houseflies and Mosquitoes Hit The Road. The universally annoying house guest and the vampire of the insect world both go bye-bye in Autumn. Halleluah! I am sure most of you have had the experience hilariously parodied on the tv show Family Guy where you have the window open for the fly to go out and he proceeds to fly everywhere around the window but out, even with you shouting “You SOB, the damn window is open right in front of you. Get out!” Likewise, getting situated in a lawn chair in the back yard in the pre-dusk evening with a cold mug of beer when the mosquito world Count Dracula and his minions decide that all parts of my body is one big juice bar. Autumn means that these irritating critters go elsewhere. Good riddance.

The Lawn Goes Into Hibernation. I actually find that I enjoy mowing the lawn during Spring and Summer. It is good exercise for my arthritic knees. I love my Ego (electric) lawn mower (highly recommended by the way). I recite enjoyable affirmations in my head while I am mowing. With all that said however, it is nice to have a break from mowing the lawn until the Spring.

The Room A/C’s Get Turned Off. I am truly grateful for the coolness that the room A/C’s bring during the Summer but the rooms sure do get nice and quiet when they go off in Autumn. Also, the electric bill goes down as well and the moderate temps mean the heating bills stay low also.

College. To be blunt, high school, for me at least, totally sucked. College however was a completely different matter. I loved my four years in college and of course, Autumn meant a new school year in September. New professors. New courses. New experiences. Another step closer to the diploma. Being on campus in the Autumn was always a great experience.

I have always been in love with Autumn. I will continue to savor however many of them I get to enjoy before my number is called.

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Want Something?……….Go Take A Bath

Photo for Go Take a Bath post on the Manifest Cookbook website

You want to improve your reality. I want to improve my reality. All God’s children want to improve their reality. One course of action on your part that can add power to any manifesting technique or techniques is for you to take a daily bath…..a gratitude bath that is. Start with your body, gratitude for everything that is working right with it. Then move to everything else, anything else, your shelter, means of transportation, food, water, electric power, your toothbrush, whatever. Spend a good ten minutes a day bathing yourself in gratitude. It raises your energy vibration which in turn raises your personal power to manifest. Plus, it feels good.

You may say “yeah, yeah, yeah, I’ve heard that bs before. Count your blessings and all that crap.” Well, if you work past an initial negative response on your part, you will discover, to your delight, that an earnest feeling of thankfulness for whatever it is that you do have, will yield you concrete benefit, sometimes sooner, sometimes later. Gratitude will, in turn, attract something else for you to be grateful for and so on. Think of it as a sort of nuclear chain reaction.

You may ask about those that are suffering, in pain, infirm, homeless, grieving, etc. How can you be thankful when bad things happen? That is a very valid point. You would have to have a divine perspective to know precise reasons why the world has so much negative stuff going on and why the innocent suffer. I hate suffering anywhere. Nevertheless, the power of gratitude is a universal law. It is immutable and eternal whether we subscibe to it or not.

Regarding gratitude from those that have suffered misfortune, two things come to mind…..Helen Keller and Sachsenhausen. Helen Keller, one of the most amazing human beings of the twentieth century, at the age of nineteen months became blind, deaf and without the ability to speak as a result of illness. Can’t see…Can’t hear…Can’t talk. You are only a kid. Not a good combination. Without going into the full life story of Helen Keller, she became known worldwide as an author, lecturer (yes, she taught herself to speak) and advocate for the blind and downtrodden. Helen Keller herself once gave the following statement, ” I thank God for my handicaps, for through them I found my true self, my life’s work and my God”.

The second thing that comes to mind is an anecdote related by a Holocaust survivor of the dreaded Sachsenhausen nazi concentration camp. An inmate was observed praying. Another inmate asked him afterward as to what he was praying about. The first inmate said he was giving thanks to God. Dumbfounded, the second inmate exclaimed what the hell could he possibly be thanking God for in this “God-forsaken hellhole.” The first inmate calmly explained that he was thanking God that he did not become like his tormentors.

What did he mean? Even though Jews were being starved, brutalized and murdered at the hands of the Germans, the nazi thugs had not taken away his inner self. He found thankfulness in knowing that he still retained his humanity inside and was in fact, the one who was truly free while his deparaved captors were the ones actually enslaved in darkness. Even in such horrific circumstances, he found gratitude that the brutal surroundings did not succeed in taking away who he was inside as a human being.

Go take a bath.