Rainclouds and Our Voice

For the first time in three years we are having rain in Southern California! The clouds, dark and ominous, hide within their bowels great amounts of precious water that once bulging to burst, drenches our parched earth and nourishes our hearts and souls. I am blessed (or some may think cursed) with finding analogy in all areas of my life and the clouds yesterday taught me such a beautiful lesson.

I have learned, through trial error and fire, to be a grateful. I always try to say thank you and to say grace before each meal. I say thank you when I receive a gift or if someone holds a door open for me. I try to be gracious in most situations because I have learned that gratitude is the most precious gift we can offer to anyone. But yesterday, what began first in my heart and quickly became a tidal wave within my whole body, was a sincere, profound, deeply moving gratitude for EVERYTHING in my life. The good, the bad, and the ugly. The gifts, the challenges, the ease the hardships. My personal cloud that had seemed so dark, that had been holding this deep feeling of gratitude for most of my life, burst open and drenched my heart and my soul.

I have been reading about gratitude for years. Of its critical importance to my life. I do not necessarily know how to translate what I now KNOW at a cellular level so people who read this can share my experience. I can only tell you that gratitude IS the bus, the car, the train, the plane, that takes us through each life experience and determines the outcome to almost everything in our life. It drives our attitude, our Voice, our decisions, our belief in more and acceptance of what is. It is as important as our heartbeat and as necessary as our breath. It cannot be confined, or limited, it must be unconditional. Within gratitude lay the seeds of change and transformation. It is the unseen beat of our life and our precious life depends upon it.