GRATITUDE for my eyes

painting by Ky Anderson


One of the most common suggestions for connecting to our inner being is to develop a practice of gratitude. When we stop the daily routine for a moment and appreciate "what is," we bring our awareness into the present. Gratitude is quick but potent, and a much easier to develop than the other most commonly suggested practice of meditation (more on that later.)

I always start and end my days with appreciation for the basics such as the opportunity to live another day, my good health, my children and family, friends, and my home. I am often appreciative of the natural beauty that surrounds me and am pretty good at noticing and saying a quick thank you for some of the magical details of life such as the sound of birds outside the windows and avocados.

In recent weeks I decided to up the game a bit and, in addition to the basics, focus my appreciation on a part of my life that I take for granted. I'm currently on a roll with general physiology. One day I chose to appreciate my skin and another day I focused on my bones. Now I'm working through my organs. I'm really having fun with this. Once I took the time to be deeply grateful for my liver, the purpose it serves and its ability to function perfectly without any help from me, I was hooked. It feels like eating a serving of dark, leafy greens - it feels nourishing and just plain good for me.

Today I'm grateful for my eyes.
For those of you, like me, who didn't pay attention in whatever class that was in school where they taught us about how the eye functions, here's the very brief refresher that I gave myself: light enters our eyes through the pupil and travels to the cornea which focuses the light upon the lens. The lens further focuses the light on the retina. The image is flipped over and spread across the back of the retina which carries the signals to the brain via the optic nerve. The retina contains rods and cones and on and on with very complex and phenomenal goings on at each moment that we are perceiving the world around us through our eyes. This stuff is just business as usual for all the eye doctors out there, but how could I have ever taken these for granted?! My morning has already been filled with a whole new level of gratitude. Tomorrow it's my ears' turn.