I've been crying with gratitude for two days straight. Well, not the whole time – I also went shopping, watched TV with my family, did some office work, didn't make it to the archives, and realized with horror that there's a holiday this week when everything is closed, of course. Just a normal life. I also did some shamanic work. This deeply moving feeling of gratitude was always there in the background. I don't even know exactly what I'm grateful for. It's a very basic gratitude. Today in the newspaper I found the sentence: “I thank life.” Yes, exactly. Joy and gratitude for the incredible gift of being allowed to live, all of us, every single one of us.

It is now the time around Mabon, the middle of the three harvest festivals. And so it becomes clear to me what Thanksgiving is really about, giving thanks for the harvest.

Last winter, there was a time that was very dark for me, dominated by the need to make a clear decision using all my strength, and at the same time the inability to do so, the feeling of inadequacy, of not being good enough. At the winter solstice celebration, someone in the large group spoke about gratitude, about how you can't achieve anything with “I want, I need” – because that implies a lack – but rather with gratitude for what you have and are. Someone else told the story of Swabedoo, that story in which the inhabitants of a village constantly give each other little pieces of fur and are happy with themselves and the world until a goblin convinces them that the little pieces of fur will surely run out soon – and shortly afterwards, life in the village is dominated by fear, envy, and unhappiness. The problems only begin when you perceive something as a shortcoming and act out of that shortcoming, rather than out of abundance. In retrospect, these insights were the first key for me to find my way out of the darkness.

One of my otherworldly teachers recently reprimanded me (actually, she literally slapped me): I should only give thanks when it is truly appropriate; and there is still too much intellect and ego in my gratitude. She is right: if we do not give our words content and depth, they remain empty; “I thank you” is more like "I thank you".

Gratitude from the bottom of our hearts, with every fiber of our being, for what we have been given: for life, for abundance. For the opportunity to walk our path, for every single step along the way, even for every single detour and diversion, every trial. Because every single step is only conceivable as a consequence and continuation of the ones taken before, which have led us there. Gratitude for the things that are allowed to happen – because we allow them to happen, in all humility and devotion.

That's what it's all about.

Still overflowing with all this gratitude, I draw a card from the Wild Wood Tarot – and get the swan. In this deck, it is associated with suffering, lack, and scarcity. What a hint! In abundance, never forget the other side. Every quality always contains the core of its opposite, because if we don't see its opposite, we don't see it either. It is the equinox, the balance between light and dark. That, too, is Mabon. And I am grateful for that as well.

Pilamayaye!

(Fall 2013)