Ask Parvati 32: Gratitude, the Action of Grace - Part 1: Giving Thanks For All We Have

GRATITUDE

Dear Parvati,

I have learned that approaching circumstances with gratitude is a great catalyst for opening, transformation and healing. But sometimes it's really hard. I especially struggle to find gratitude in situations in which I perceive injustice. I also am not really all that happy with my own life. How do we feel gratitude when faced with personal dissatisfaction and with so much unrighteousness all over the world?

Thank you for this question. This weekend is Thanksgiving weekend in Canada, so I presume that is partly what fuelled your question. Gratitude is a key that unlocks many riches and much joy. Let us explore the notion of gratitude this week. 

PART 1: GIVING THANKS FOR ALL WE HAVE

This is Canadian Thanksgiving weekend. Whether you celebrate with a turkey, contemplate grateful thoughts or prefer to skip it all together, this celebration is a true Canadian happening that can support your spiritual awakening if you so choose.

Like in the US, Canadian Thanksgiving blends the European and Native traditions to give thanks for the harvests. But in Canada, Thanksgiving also celebrates a homecoming. In 1578, the explorer Martin Frobisher held an official ceremony in Newfoundland to give thanks for his safe journey through the Arctic Ocean's Northwest Passage. A year ago, I echoed Frobisher's thanks during my Thanksgiving festivities around this time, feeling grateful for my safe return from the North Pole.  

Complaining is easy. Perhaps that is why so many do it. It has an entropic force that seems to pull us along. It can even be addictive, our ego getting high on our sorry stories, feeling we deserve more, leaving us endlessly wanting. 

Thanksgiving gives us a gentle reminder to practice gratitude. Yet, many can feel there is little to be grateful for. But when we look at the immensity of the world and all the people on it, we can quickly reconsider any feelings of being hard done by. 

If you live in Canada, North America, or Europe, you are blessed with a cornucopia of opportunities. We are not war-torn countries struggling with famine, drought, brutal dictatorships or tyrannical political regimes. We have free will. We have free mobility. We have freedom of speech. We have supportive health care. We have the means to make the life we choose to have. We are immensely blessed! So if you have a hard time finding gratitude in your life, then perhaps put yourself in someone else's shoes for a moment, such as someone living in Somalia, and consider what your life would be like. 

My year living in India taught me, in part, to see this way. I was brought up in a Christian home and taught to see the needs of others, collecting for Unicef and doing volunteer work at food banks as a child. These were important teachings that created a seedbed for my personality and spiritual being to blossom. But the reality of the blessings of my life did not hit home until I was living in the midst of tremendous poverty. 

When I was around people who had very little, I was shown the capacity to love. My inspiration to love did not spontaneously spring forth from my inner being, but grew in awe from experiencing the selflessness from others. I was living in a small village in Rajasthan, in the Northern part of India. It was amazing to see how people with so little would still have the sense to give. Whomever I was with, I was offered what food they had. If there was enough food in a meal for six hungry mouths, then they would divide what they had into seven to accommodate me. Even though people had so little, there was a feeling of internal space, and ultimately, wealth.

Watching the poor village women taught me about taking care of my body. We can take our physical selves for granted. We can bathe when we want to, buy whatever cleaning products we want, go to the beauty salon, buy new clothes, etc…Yet often fashion trends in wealthy countries can glamorize grunge styles, unwashed hair, unkempt clothes, tattered presence. Amazingly, in the tiny village in India, even the very poorest of women would wash their clothes and iron their saris. If they could not afford gold or silver jewelry, they would wear plastic bangles. If they could not afford fancy hair clips, they would keep clean, tidy hair and find a simple pin or flower to embellish their style. There was a sense of dignity and self-respect that I found mesmerizing and noble. Though a single life there was cheaply valued with mortality rates high, immense poverty, illness and tremendous political corruption, there was a sense of meeting the day with all they had to the best of their abilities. 

Of course, there is diversity everywhere. I mean not to make sweeping generalizations about cultures. I simply share what I witnessed, that perhaps having a lot is not a prerequisite to feelings of gratitude. 

It is possible that our wealth breeds complacency. Tempted by manufacturing abundance, we may want more and forget to feel contented with what we have. If we were not able to have more, due to our circumstance, would we still want? Or would we find a way to feel happy with what we have? Have we fallen prey to cultural greed?

From my experience, abundance comes from the feeling of enough, not from feeling not enough. If we want to feel fulfilled, we need to begin to practice gratitude for what we have. If we are going around saying, "I am not enough. I don't have enough. There is not enough…" consciously or unconsciously, we are in effect creating that reality, the reality of not enough. Is it any surprise then that we feel unfulfilled?

If we begin to meet this moment as it is, with all its colours, dark and light, we begin to see possibility in our lives. We let go of wanting things to be other than they are, and start to feel rooted, vital and expansive in this moment now. It is there that we find happiness. It is there we find abundance. It is there we find gratitude. When we feel grateful for what is, we begin to tap into a wealth of power and vitality that had been waiting all along. We were just too busy looking for fulfilment elsewhere. 

So this Thanksgiving weekend, do yourself and the world a favour. Write a list of all the things you feel grateful for, however small or large. It could be, "I like the colour of my eyes", or it could be, "I feel grateful that I paid off my credit card". Challenge yourself to go deeper than you usually would. Once you have your list, take a moment to breathe in the wealth of gratitude you already have. This is your life. Let it be one rooted in gratitude and grace. 

Throughout the week, I will be exploring in this blog the notion of gratitude in various aspect of our lives. May you feel grateful and abundant in all you do!

(Continued tomorrow with It Is All Grace)

North Pole Journey, Part 1: The Night Before We Leave

I have just returned from a trip to the North Pole to help raise awareness of the melting polar ice caps. The message with which I return was voiced unanimously by everyone I met: the ice is melting; there are fewer animals; the people are suffering; please tell the south to stop polluting.

It is timely to post my first blog about this trip on Thanksgiving weekend, as I feel thankful for so very much: I return safely; I feel supported; the journey was a success at so many levels. I am still inwardly processing the depth and breadth of the trip. Luckily, during the trip I took notes of my experiences. So over the next few weeks, I will be posting my journals and video blogs as a way to share the richness of the experiences I had.

When I left for the North Pole, though it was my body that was physically going, I felt that we were all somehow going together. I hope that through these journals you feel a closeness with me as the journey unfolds. The essential message I brought to the North, one that runs through all my creative work, is that we are not isolated islands but one family, all from the same mother, our Earth. Any decision I make affects myself, others and the planet. We are all connected.

May you feel that closeness and inner richness over this wonderful Thanksgiving weekend and always.

Jai Ma,
Parvati

A NORTH POLE JOURNEY TO HELP HEAL THE EARTH

THE NIGHT BEFORE WE LEAVE

DEEP WAVES OF EMOTION

How do you pack for a journey you have never taken, to a landscape that is dangerous, inhospitable and very, very cold? Thankfully, many people have come together to donate warm woolies, down sleeping bags, snowsuits and technical gear. Value Village had some used snowmobile boots that fit. Luckily we were able to get some expert advice from videographers who have shot in the kind of conditions we are expecting, anywhere between -15C to -25C. We need to be prepared for things like battery life depleting very quickly in the cold and gear freezing. Even our video camera needs a special Arctic snowsuit. We have had to come up with a new costume for Natamba (the character I play in my show Yoga In the Nightclub), one that will be good for -25C and also allow me to move freely. We met with Velcrow Ripper who is doing a new documentary called “Evolve Love: Love in a Time of Climate Crisis” for some shooting and interviewing tips and to connect about the synergies of our work. JVC Canada donated a flip camera, a boom box and lent us a professional video camera. Mountain Equipment Coop donated a tent. Emergen-C vitamin C drink gave us some vitamin packs. Various friends from all over generously pitched in all they could to make this trip financially possible. I feel very supported and blessed.

It seems we are almost packed. We are all moving to complete the task lists we each have so that we can get some sleep before our long day of travel tomorrow. As I complete the last few audio tweaks on the demo of my new song “Hear This Prayer”, my list is near complete. This feels good. Over the past three days, I have felt immersed in the arising of this new tune that would not let me rest until it was recorded in a format that I could bring with me. The song expresses some of what I have been feeling in the call to this journey. In it, I speak to our mother Earth then pray, asking for help to heal our planet. Now I have a backing track to perform this new song along the journey and at the North Pole. I feel very charged about this.

Two friends drop by for last minute support. I play the new song for them and they say: “This is so Natamba!” I feel a certain success already. I know I can do the rest of the production work to complete the song for release once I am back. It has been challenging to find the time to be with this new song creation amidst the need to tend to all the other practical details of getting ready for the trip. With Grace, this has come together smoothly.

Shutting down my computer for the last time before we go and with the chorus of “Hear This Prayer” going around in my head, I walk upstairs from my music studio to I see if I can help either my husband Rishi or my friend Sunanda with their work load. Our yoga-meditation room is covered in gear. With the winter tent, heavy sleeping bags, arctic clothes and boots, extra food provisions and all the video and audio equipment, there are lots of bags. Sunanda and Rishi are moving quickly. Sunanda has already done a stellar job at packing and Rishi at preparing the gear. I join in to help when suddenly I feel overwhelmed by deep, unpredictable and raw emotions in my heart and chest. These feelings have come over me in increasing waves over the last week. I spontaneously start to sob.

I have experienced unexpected emotions like these before, but only when I have been traveling through the countryside in different locations all over the world. For no apparent reason, I would start to cry; my breathing would quicken, like I was hyperventilating. Sometimes I would feel pain in my internal organs, like I was being squeezed on the inside from a heavy pressure force. In the midst of this, I would hear a voice within tell me that this was because I was passing through an area where Nature was in particular distress. Through the emotional waves, my intuitive connection to Nature was speaking loudly.

A bit like a canary in a coalmine, I have always had a keen sense of perception and intuition to things that others may not perceive. But the emotions I am experiencing through the trip preparations connected to Nature’s distress are happening for the first time while moving about my life in my own home. It is true that I have felt over the last few weeks a deeper connection to Nature than ever, like She is within me, not separate, guiding this journey. I feel I am being shown the depth of healing that needs to take place for our mother Earth. In this, I feel overwhelmed. She is feverish, burdened, overloaded. Faced with the immensity of that knowing, I feel a deep grieving beyond words. These emotions are an expression of the depth of this journey, an expression of the pain of the planet, the way our mother is suffering. I find a quiet place to be present with this passing through me, watching in stillness. Eventually, the emotional intensity passes, my breath returns to a relaxed rhythm. I return to the work at hand, preparing our luggage.

OUR SOIL-LESS GARDEN

As I pitch in to help pack the rest of our belongings, I reflect on the various preparations we have undertaken for the past three weeks. Yes, there has been the gathering of gear, finding sponsors, booking meetings, finding hotels and airline tickets and writing a song. We also have been preparing spiritually, at the level of the unseen.

A group of ten volunteers I call The Earth Team and myself have created a soilless garden in which we can actively co-create with Nature to set the stage to assist with the intended healing work at the North Pole. I have been working in co-creation with Nature for years. Inspired by the work done with Nature when I was in Northern Scotland at the Findhorn community, I came across an American woman Machaelle Small-Wright who works in co-creation with Nature. Her work called “MAP: Medical Assistance Program” changed my life. She also instructs how to work with soil-less gardens. Working consciously with Nature has amplified my creative connection within myself and to the world around me. The possibility of being able to plug into the vast source of life-energy is so very exhilarating and even necessary to build a healthy future for all.

Just like a garden in soil is a co-creative project with Nature, a soil-less garden is a co-creative project with Nature that is not limited to being planted in the ground. It could be composing a song, running a business or writing a grant. We are not isolated islands as our egos may wish us to believe. We are in constant co-creation with Nature and the Cosmic Intelligence, whether we are conscious of it or not.

Working with our soil-less garden, the Earth Team and myself have been preparing to support the healing work I am to facilitate there. This has asked each of us to go deeper into ourselves, lighten our load and release patterns that do not serve. Every day, we have been individually meeting the soil-less garden to do the necessary preparatory energy work. Even in the rush of this day before we head out in the early morning, Sunanda, Rishi and myself understand the power of the work in the unseen and make time to meet with our soil-less garden to set the stage for the work to come at the North Pole.

DEATH OF THE EGO: LETTING GO OF EMOTIONAL BAGGAGE

As I look around the room to continue packing, the amount of bags I see already feels heavy, and there is more gear yet to include. It is unlike me to travel this way. Usually I am a one-light-bag kind of traveler. But that has changed since touring my show with its technical requirements. Now a trip to the North Pole requires other specialty gear that takes up space. As I move quickly around the room to find places for the rest of the pieces, I contemplate baggage of all kinds. What am I bringing to the North Pole? Yes, these are physical bags, but what about emotional or energetic baggage?

I am experiencing this trip as a deep call to faith. It is clear that it is important to lighten any emotional baggage that could hinder or weigh down the success of this journey. I feel I am going deeper within than ever before to look at my fears, face small-mindedness or illusions of grandeur and release resistance of any kind to the goal of this journey: to selflessly serve the healing of our planet. This is not a trip but a calling. It is not a rational decision to do something strategically to amplify the ego. If anything, I feel it calls for the death of the ego. I am called to follow a voice in the dark that feels totally right. I feel it is the mother calling. So I go.

I was two weeks away from touring my show Yoga In the Nightclub when the voice within became unavoidably clear that I needed to go to the North Pole to sing, do healing work and help bring awareness to the urgent consequences of the melting polar ice caps. This summer, during a few very hot days, something about the heat was unnatural. High temperatures do not bother me but this heat was different. There was a feeling in the air that signaled distress. The winds did not feel right. The sky looked agitated. Nature was very restless. In response to this, this voice within arose. Now I find myself the night before we depart on a journey that feels much bigger than me. In some ways, things are quickly coming together, and yet I can feel that much, at some level, is yet to be dissolved. I sense that I will soon speak of my life in reference to “before” and “after” the North Pole journey.

FACING DEATH

The thought of emotional baggage brings to mind the discussions Sunanda, Rishi and I have had about physical death. I am very blessed to be making this journey with sincere spiritual seekers who understand the breadth and sincerity of the call.

I remember that during my daily meditation practice, I had a vision a week ago of the real danger of this journey, specifically that our plane could crash. At that time, I paused to consider what I saw. Was I dreaming, imagining or was this real insight? I knew in my gut it was correct. I looked at the image of my guru Amma in front of me and went deeper inside. This was a real possibility and yet I need to go. I sat with this for a couple days, making peace with the possibility of death on this journey. I know that there are energies that do not want this trip to succeed, trickiness attached to the ailing planet and the short term economic profiteering gained from the melting polar caps.

When I saw the vision, I did not want to upset Sunanda and Rishi, so I shared its essential message by starting a dialogue about the dangers of this trip and candidly speaking about the possibility of death. What followed was an open and healthy sharing between the three of us about how we feel about the possibility of dying through this journey. In order to go, we each must be at peace with death. The possibility of physical death is ultimately imminent and can happen at any time. Of this, we have no control. But being receptive to the death of the ego is a choice, a direction one must invoke and welcome as a spiritual seeker. We spoke openly about that kind of death as well. As we now pack, the speed of our bodies in action reflects a certain release to the ego’s identity that “I” am the one doing. Amidst the sea of bags and seeming chaos, there is a deeper feeling of order, one of surrender and service to a greater good. There is a feeling of flow in the room.

TO LOVE AND SERVE

As the last pieces of our luggage seem to be coming together, I look up at the image of my guru on the meditation room wall. I see Her smiling and I feel that smile in my heart. I think to myself, “What is this life, if it is not to serve? What am I serving? Is it not a wonderfully expansive, rooting, vital, life-affirming, enriching feeling to feel connected to the very source of life, to allow it to flow through, unencumbered? What is this 'I' that keeps me feeling separate? Listening to that for guidance just brings 'me' suffering, more division and separation.” I feel a rich connection to this voice that calls us on this journey. It unites. It creates. It draws us all closer to each other, to what is essential, to love, to serve. This journey feels so much bigger than me, than Sunanda, than Rishi, than the Earth Team. It gives voice to something to which I feel I am in service, to which I have dedicated my life. I feel the voice of Nature, of the mother calling.



Despite waves of emotions and the vision of a plane crash, I have been feeling inspired, integrated and aligned going on this journey. Even when we contacted the government and were told that this was an unsafe time to go to the North Pole, I did not feel concerned. I know we are protected. We must stay true in our hearts. We are dedicated to this vision. We must pray. We are guided. I trust this unfolding totally. I feel that my body is the very stuff of which the planet is made. Literally I am her daughter, as we are all her children. In that connection, there is fierce direction and profound love. This will guide this pending journey.

We zip up the last suitcase and stack the bags, ready to grab, at the front door. It seems we can now rest for a few hours of sleep. We look at each other and are clearly exhausted by the preparations and also adrenaline-charged about what lies ahead. How we will sleep with this excitement and anticipation is yet to be seen, but we need every bit of rest for the days ahead. Each day leading up to this journey has been action packed and full of surprises and so are the days coming. It is already 1:30am and we wake up at 4am to get ourselves out the door to the plane. As I lay myself down on my soft, comfortable bed, I visualize that I am completely supported by love and grace, so that with the few hours of sleep I now have I can rejuvenate as much as possible. Tomorrow morning before dawn, the North Pole journey begins.