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A couple years ago, out of a deep need to consciously acknowledge and actively foster the sources of gratitude in my life, I founded a new habit. The three years previous, had been a systematic barrage of some of the harshest, most heart-straining, painful and sad experiences of my life and I was floundering much of the time. I needed a way to foster the inertia of gratitude in the flow and not as some intellectual, ephemeral idea, but as a practical, tangible energetic connection... one beyond my practices of qi gong and stillness, that I could access easily and use anytime. It took root when I saw someone do something beautiful, just like any other day, but instead of simply smiling and moving on... I reached out to them and acknowledged how much it meant to me, to witness this act of love. I wanted them to know how much this simple example of wisdom had impacted another who was suffering and to know they were appreciated for it. There is an energetic loop in this acknowledgement that has become a self sustaining process far more potent than I imagined when I started. The jar is the home version of this... and I love it because we can go back and reread these old moments, it's especially helpful when the shit hits the fan. It's incredibly potent. Any longer, it's not just people, I'm talking to everything from shrubbery, trees and breezes, to trashcans and garbage trucks these days. It's everywhere and this simple process of spending just a bit of my energy to acknowledge it, is fostering an inertia that I did not expect. Obviously the gratitude jar is an old idea, but in my home it is a physical manifestation of this amazing experience for me. Our gratitude jar is a big mason bugger that sits on our kitchen bar, with a stack of paper and a pen next to it. We walk past it all day long and see it constantly. Whenever we are struck by love, appreciation, or gratitude, we jot it down and drop it in... Once in a while, we will reach in and pull a couple out, or dump them out and read them. When the jar is full, the bits go into a box that I'll be saving and passing down to my son when I'm gone. This jar has become an energetic garden in our home, a vibrant manifestation of gratitude. Just the sight of it peripherally can bring sympathetic vibration and a shift in awareness, so I figured I'd start a digital one here.