This year, we're having 4 seasonal themes to create courageous conversations in our Hive community and beyond. This autumn, we’re leaning into the practice of gratitude.
In the context of mindfulness, gratitude is often talked about as a kind of “muscle” to exercise. Beyond just an emotion, gratitude is a practice of bravely receiving life as a gift, and even responding with a gift of our own. Our summer theme was abundance, and it could be said that gratitude is a way of allowing the realities of abundance to truly come ashore in our lives.
This might look like bravely naming the gift someone has been to you, or taking time to “celebrate the quiet miracles that seek no attention,” as the late Celtic poet John O’Donohue puts it.
However, gratitude goes hand-in-hand with grief.
If gratitude is honoring the presence of life, grief is honoring the absence of it. Perhaps grief and gratitude depend on one another more than we’ve realized. We can even sense the issues that arise when holidays of “gratitude” are used as a way to bypass historic oppression and the work of justice still ahead of us, particularly for the liberation of indigenous communities.
If either gratitude or grief neglects the other, it is false. The muscle of “honoring life” requires both sides of this proverbial coin.
So, what are you grateful for this season? What’s the conversation like between what you grieve and what you’re thankful for? Might a habit of gratitude form our hearts to receive and give more than was previously possible?
You’re encouraged to bring these questions (and more that arise) to your mindfulness practices, circles of gathering, and encounters with friends, family, and strangers this autumn season.
We’ll also be turning to a number of voices around the Hive community through blog posts and interviews. And to cap it all off, Hive Members can save the date for our December 10th Community Dinner.
Be sure to follow us on Instagram and Facebook to stay in touch, and subscribe to our newsletter to stay up to date with how you can be a part of our conversations on gratitude.