Thanks giving Satsang

Dear blog,

The house is quiet, and peaceful. I am basking in it, hoping its goodness stays with me into the coming weeks. Tomorrow, and the following days family will come, and there will be so many asking for something. Needing something.

Next week and into the next will be filled with so many music sharing events, I will have to direct my energy to many people, and share in many outward ways.

But right now, here, with you, I wanted to pause, and reflect, and write a few words.

So today, I turn inward, to my garden of words, and in this space plant a few seeds of gratitude---for gifts seen, and gifts unseen, for God manifesting in my life, in the spaces, and in the quiet places, and in my soul, and heart, and in the physical world, for clues, and for synchronicities, and for direction, and protection, and truth, and light, and love, and all those things which are most precious.

These are the gems I gather into myself. And send out my own song of praise to the divine force of life, working in every breath of every moment, and my gratitude to know if its undying existence.

My bird, Hato, or Jeromey, is sitting on my lamp, foofing up his feathers, and cleaning each one under the warm glow.

Sophy is somewhere in the house, She’s quite cheeky, and knows how to communicate well. Her eyes are so fun to watch, especially when you talk or sing to her. She will randomly fly into rooms, and listen to music, and ask for a bath when I’m at the sink, and is very much a queen in her own domain.  She’ll find a sunny room, and then plop down on the carpet, and spread her feathers out, and sun herself. Sometimes when my sister and I are doing chiropractor work on each others backs, Sophy will come right up to me on the floor, and play with my hands.

On, Sunday, when I had another terrible headache, I was pacing the house, because I was nauseated, and she followed me from room to room. I felt some comfort, that she knew I was in distress. She followed me into the kitchen, then down the hall, then into my room, and did this a couple times.

Hato my new bird, came to my house a couple months ago, a little while after the my sister’s play. The director who cares for the those who will soon be leaving this world, helped find a home for a dove that the owner needed to rehome.

The bird fell out of tree, in a storm, and broke his foot in several places, and the owner rehabilitated him as best as they knew how.  His foot is still a bit crumpled. They called him Jeromey in French, which means dove. I don't think I'm spelling it right. Hence the new name.

I have a hard time pronouncing his name right, so I call him Japanese Hato, for dove, or pigeon. So he’s French, and Japanese.

He loves listening to koto and any music in general. He’ll sit on my lamp, though he and Sophy are rude to each other, and try to knock each other off the lamp, instead of sharing it.

I’m not too sure how to give them both equal lamp time, and also be a good poop cleaner, because they’ll poop on the lamp, and it will roll down, bloop, right onto the floor, like some weird poo ramp. It’s funny because they watch as it rolls down, and wonder what it was that fell from them.

I tried getting bird diapers, but Sophy hates them so much, it’s more trouble than it’s worth.

So, in my long-winded way, I’m guys I’m saying I’m very happy to be sitting here, like my dove. Foofing up my feathers. Happy, and deliciously grateful for my own space, to spread out, and feel myself.

Glad for my own company.

And so I give thanks for this space. And for the wisdom to stay in my own peace. There are many things I have gathered over the years, and many of them need to be ungathered.

And me, just gathering up my own self.

Here, tonight. I keep what is mine. And feel the restoration of my own self.

And gather, only the truest forms of who I am.

I bless the space, and the feeling of Spirit here.

I give thanks for all my teachers. Small and great.

Thank you.

I thought today, if I was going to re-write thanks giving. And traditions. If I had a group of people I wanted to gather.

I would change a few things. I would gather soul family around.

And have a soul feast.

I would ask everyone who came, to come, after fasting from things that cluttered their soul, and body.

 The holidays should be restored to their original state.

 Holy days.

Days where the veil is thinner. And God is felt easier.

I would call this feast A Thanks-giving Satsang. Where real things were brought to share.

Wisdom that one had learned, words that were beautiful.

And if food was to be cooked, I would ask that people would bring some new recipe they had learned over the year, and liked, and thought was worth sharing.

Things that were real, that God brought into their life, that was worth magnifying with others. It would be a time of sharing those moments of God’s provision.

Times we felt like Pilgrams, and found our own Plymouth rock.

A sharing of heart. Of soul. And if there was food, it would be something good they discovered they liked, a soul food.

We would share our scone recipe, and the flatbreads we’ve been using instead of bread, this year.

We would share our homemade Kombucha tea.

We would probably being an enema bucket, too. And share our wisdom with that.

We would share our harvest of apples, and apricots, and plums, and all the produce that we were given, or harvested some way.

We would share our music, whatever that was, something we had learned.

Things we thought were valuable, and could help the collective.

So that in the coming cold months, this gathering of good things, and wisdom would keep us warm until spring.

It would be a moment in time, to really say, Thank you.

And so, as I come here, and have my own Satsang, here, you, me, my dove, the music, my lamps glowing, my heart warm.

I pause, and bring to the table from fruit my soul garden.

At this table I raise my hands, and say, from my soul to yours, that I am full of gratitude for the feast of love God has spread out before me, like I have never felt before. That God has provided a meal for me, these past few years, one that has taken away the hunger I didn’t know I had.

And filled it with his spirit.

To be thus fed, is priceless. What feast could compare to that?

What gathering would be worth having? If one is full, then I suppose the roll of cook is yours now. And any feast or gathering, is not for you, but for others.

You are just now the table on which you serve the bread God has given you, in whatever form it manifests in.

And so, I bring to the table, my gratitude for God’s love, and goodness, and spread these words out for you to eat.

There are many famished souls, looking for some word to bring them back to their homeland. To the hearth of their own love. Souls looking for that savory soul manna, that can only be gathered and eaten in the now moments.

Shared, in the now moments.

Here, in the cold winter months, trembling hands look for a place to warm their souls.

An ember of heart, to rekindle their flickering light.

A feast, I would bring to my table. To those starved for their own soul’s music. To feed those who haven’t eaten a crust of love in lifetimes. I would bring them the bread of their own light. A mirror for them to look into, and see their souls.

And finally feel satisfied.

A mirror that once you looked into, you never needed any other mirror.

It would be such a feast, we’d all leave, so full, that the harvest of this space would spill over into the next year, and the next.