Native American Thanksgiving Prayer

Great and Eternal Mystery of Life, 

Creator of All Things, 

I give thanks for the beauty You put in every single one of Your creations.

I am grateful that every stone, plant, creature, and human being is a perfect and whole part of the Sacred Hoop.

I am grateful for the strength and beauty of All My Relations.
My humble request is that all of the Children of Earth will learn to see the same perfection in themselves.
May none of Your human children doubt or question Your wisdom, grace, and sense of wholeness in giving all of Creation a right to be living extensions of Your perfect love.

~~~

Photo Credit: © PiLens – yay images

This is a Prayer and Gratitude Month post.

 

Buddhist Blessing

May I feel safe.
May I feel happy.
May I feel strong.
May I live with ease.

 ~~~

Photo Credit: Abstract Buddha Face Background © leshabu - Fotolia

This is a Prayer and Gratitude Month post.

Resources for Growing Gratitude

How to Make Every Day of the Year Thanksgiving

Gratitude both reflects and creates happiness. It’s in our best interests to celebrate Thanksgiving every day of the year. To mix my holiday metaphors a bit, my heroine Auntie Mame sings in the musical version of her story, “We need a little Christmas, right this very minute!” We need a lot of Thanksgiving, too.

We think of gratitude as something we have—or don’t. Actually, gratitude is a form of spiritual aerobics, more of an expansion of our heart muscle we gain by exercise. Expressing thanks is not just for the purpose of creating and maintaining abundance, but an appreciation workout that helps us to see the cornucopia we live in constantly without let-up. Thanks-giving is not so much about finding things to be grateful for. It’s about noticing and appreciating the lavish opportunities life offers continuously, from the tiniest gifts to the most grandiose blessings. Living from gratitude heightens the senses and makes life itself more alive and vital. What’s not to love?

From an astrological perspective, American Thanksgiving takes place in the month of November when the Sun is in Sagittarius. Ruled by Jupiter, this Jovian holiday is the epitome of overdo.

Let’s take home from our abundant Thanksgiving tables this wonderful leftover. Extend your appetite for feasts to a gluttony for gratitude.

If you don’t already keep a gratitude journal, writing things you’re grateful for at the end of every day, I suggest the easiest version of of that practice is to make that daily review your falling-asleep prayer. The practice is so in keeping with my favorite gratitude quote:

If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.  ~ Meister Eckhart

To keep your enthusiasm for gratitude running high all year, I’m also including some websites for you to explore:

Gratefulness.org

A Network for Grateful Living (ANG*L) provides education and support for the practice of grateful living as a global ethic, inspired by the teachings of Br. David Steindl-Rast and colleagues.  Gratefulness – the full response to a given moment and all it contains – is a universal practice that fosters personal transformation, cross-cultural understanding, interfaith dialogue, intergenerational respect, nonviolent conflict resolution, and ecological sustainability.

A Practical Guide to Gratitude

This gem web page is a small but mighty time-release capsule of gratitude. It contains, among other things, 9 Ways to Cultivate Gratitude, The Power of Paying a Compliment, and Gratitude Gismos.

365 Grateful – Stories about the extraordinary power of gratitude. There are videos and information about the original 365 Grateful Project.

These three sites are just an appetizer. To feast on more gratitude offerings online, I suggest using the search string gratitude websites. You’ll be amazed at how much support exists out there to enhance your practice of “awe-aerobics.” That’s what Trudy the Bag Lady, a character played by Lily Tomlin in her one-woman show on Broadway practiced. Check out the title of this amazing stage play by Jane Wagner in this book version, Lily Tomlin: The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe. Gratitude is intelligent life!

A Blessed Thanksgiving 24/7, 365 …


~~~

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This is a Prayer and Gratitude Month post.

A Blessing Based on Gandhi's Principles

Oh God, bless this food 

we are about to receive. 

Give bread to those who hunger; 

and hunger for justice to us who have bread.

~~~

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This is a Prayer and Gratitude Month post.

A Prayer for Human Beings (Not Human Doings)

Just to be is a blessing.

Just to live is holy.

~Abraham Heschel

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This is a Prayer and Gratitude Month post.

Interfaith Prayer-Poem of Thanksgiving

For each new morning with its light

For rest and the shelter of the night

For health, for food, for love 
and for friends,

For everything Thy goodness sends…

We are grateful! AMEN

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

~~~

Discovered on Interfaith Services of the Low Country

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This is a Prayer and Gratitude Month post.

10 Great Quotes on Gratitude

1 Saying thank you is more than good manners. It is good spirituality. ~Alfred Painter

2 When we were children we were grateful to those who filled our stockings at Christmas time. Why are we not grateful to God for filling our stockings with legs? ~G.K. Chesterton


3 He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has. ~Epictetus

4 You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance. ~Khalil Gibran

5 I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder. ~ G.K. Chesterton

6 "Enough” is a feast. ~ Buddhist proverb

7 Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance. ~ Eckhart Tolle 

8 It is impossible to feel grateful and depressed in the same moment." ~ Naomi Williams 

9 You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen in the ink. ~G.K. Chesterton

10 This a wonderful day. I've never seen this one before. ~ Maya Angelou

~~~

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This is a Prayer and Gratitude Month post.