Gratitude and the art of noticing

When I was a little girl my bedtime ritual was “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep”. Now, ‘before I lay me down to sleep’ I review my day with gratitude and give thanks. In these often troubled times it is easy to become disillusioned and to join in the ‘woe is me chorus’; to forget that in spite of the newspaper stories and TV sound bites that tell us otherwise, the good and the beautiful surround us as well, if we just take the time to notice.

Thomas Moore in his book Care of the Soul, writes that the soul craves beauty, and is nurtured by beauty. What food is to the body, arresting, complex, and pleasing images are to the soul. For the soul, it is important to be taken out of the rush of practical life (out of all the messiness, and busyness of our everyday lives) for the contemplation of the timeless and eternal realities. Beauty is a necessary part of ordinary life. Every day we will find moments when the soul glimpses an occasion for beauty, and not just in our surrounds but in the people we meet, those unexpected encounters that lighten and brighten our days.

Today, as I drove to meet a friend for morning tea, I took notice of the cloudless blue sky and the winter Cassia and Golden Rain trees bursting into bloom. I noticed a new store called The White Bungalow and promised myself a visit there, later.

And then I had one of those unexpected encounters. As my friend and I sat drinking our coffees at Primal Pantry, a delightful young man named Dimitri arrived with his eight week old puppy, Cleo. This much-loved little dog had quite a story to tell and provided a two-fold reason for gratitude: for Dimitri who had rescued her from an RSPCA Animal Care Centre and is, in his words “the best $50 I ever spent”; and for Cleo an opportunity for life in a loving home.

Now as I prepare to sleep I look back on this day with gratitude and give thanks for the loveliness of autumn, for the beauty of creation, and for friendship. The late John O’Donohue, Irish author, poet and philosopher, wrote that ‘To experience beauty is to have your life enlarged’ and at the end of this day, I feel that my life is indeed enlarged.