Giving Thanks and Pumpkin Ale

Hello dear friends!

It is Thanksgiving weekend here in Canada, and I was thinking this morning about what a lovely name for a holiday Thanksgiving is. A day of thanks-giving, giving thanks.

And indeed, thanks is one of the most wonderful things you can give! It is one of those gifts that keeps on giving, and the more you give, the more you have to be thankful for!

Thanks is a gift for everyone, everything, everywhere, and everywhen, making all involved feel one of the most beautiful emotions of all: GRATITUDE!

When our lives are filled with gratitude, we are sure to experience a deep joy, for when we celebrate with thanks the things and people we are graced with, we are open to the magic of life, and to receiving much more of that for which we are grateful.

And it is so simple to give thanks! It only takes a moment of mindfulness, a pause in your day, to really appreciate those things around you that bring beauty to your life. When you do this, a very peaceful feeling comes over you, as you realize just how abundant the world is.

I see that is it going to become even more important to be mindfully engaged in gratitude in the coming months, with the recent economic crash in the US and subsequently the world, with things seeming to fall apart left right and center. The more we can pause and be with purpose FULL OF GRATITUDE for our lives, the less the roller coaster of politics, economics, environment, weather, traffic, disaster, and loss will throw off our belief in the inherent beauty of life. We can find gratitude in every moment we look for it, every moment we choose to draw it out.

So lets do this together, to make a point of engaging in conscious gratitude, pause for a minute right now, and as often as you remember, to give thanks.

What are you grateful for in this moment?

Is it the computer you are reading this on?

Is it the warm house you are sitting in?

Is it the shirt on your back, the socks on your feet, the juice in your hand, the dandelion greens in your yard?

Your family?

Your friends?

Your breath, eyesight, liver, bowel, spleen, hair, heart, or thyroid?

Is it the illness that lead you to finding Juice Feasting and the bright and shining path to health that you are now on?

Is it your screaming children teaching you patience, your dying loved one teaching you compassion, or your lack of adequate finances showing you the joys of frugality (BTW, the more you practice gratitude, the easier and more joyful frugality becomes as a feeling of satisfaction through gratitude replaces feelings of want and desire.)

The toilet paper in your bathroom?

Get silly! Give thanks for the tiniest, seemingly simple of things, for it is all miraculous, it is all worthy, and it is all a gift! I have found that more I give thanks for the simple, most often taken for grated things, the more likely I am to filled with a sense of grace, peace, and deep happiness to be alive!

With gratitude and love,

Katrina

PS. I think my sister Heather's chalkboard sums it up perfectly:

PPS. Everyone knows you should have SOMETHING with pumpkin at this time of year, so here is a little good pumpkin recipe for you to try, created by Tyler.

Pumpkin Ale:

1/2 med. sized organic pumpkin, de-seeded and cut in to chunks(leave skin on)
2-3 apples
4-5 carrots
big thumb sized piece of ginger

Juice all ingredients and add a dash of cinnamon and nutmeg, yum yum!!
Enjoy!