[SustainableTompkins] Gratitude and Sustainability

[Elan Shapiro]

Hi ST list serve community
I received this message about "exploring gratitude" in our EcoVillage 
group email yesterday. It is part of a project on "Core Values and 
Sustainability" that my neighbor, friend, and 
permaculture/sustainability educator, Karryn Ramanujan, has 
initiated. I'm highlighting it because the underlying value shifts 
involved in sustainability are, to me, an essential yet 
insufficiently recognized and explored part of the work we are 
beginning to do together. This set of value shifts is more nuanced 
than just broadening our sphere of concern and compassion and then 
feeling pious about doing what's "right" for all species and for 
future generations (that didn't work so well for the environmental 
movement, sad to say).  Some of this work, as I see it, is about 
noticing the divisive cultural conditioning operating in our 
interactions and communications with the world and with each other, 
and consciously practicing new possibilities that can help build 
sustainable community in our lives. 
So here's her message.  Perhaps some of her suggestions can inspire 
some entries on this list in this month before Thanksgiving.

With thanks for the wisdom and support you all provide.
Elan

Dear Friends,

Folks who came to the "Core Values and Sustainability" Salon in 
August suggested that we next explore as individuals and as a 
community the virtue of Gratitude or Thankfulness. They also 
suggested having a "virtue of the month".
Since we're a month away from Thanksgiving, this is the perfect time 
for reflecting on what we are grateful for in our lives.

I invite you to join me in experimenting with incorporating gratitude 
more deeply and consciously into my life during the next 30 days.

Some possibilities for practice:
Start a "gratitude journal" to enter thoughts daily.
Create a work of art or a dance that illustrates the bounties we receive.
Meditation.
Start a list of all the things one is grateful for, and see how long it gets...
Verbalize our appreciation of the people we encounter each day.
Write/post/draw your thoughts on the Gratitude Display in the Frog 
Common House (between the piano and the couch).

I'm sure you have lots of other ideas, and if you'd like to share 
them, please email me and I'll compose a master list and send it out 
later in the week.

There will be an opportunity to celebrate the end of the month with a 
Gratitude Circle at 7:30pm on November 19th in the Frog Sitting Room. 
I hope that you and your families can come and share!

With gratitude for our community,
Karryn

(PS: There is a worldwide network, easily found through 
www.gratefulness.org, started by an amazing person living in our 
area, Brother David Steindl-Rast. A Network for Grateful Living 
(ANG*L) _is a non-profit organization "dedicated to gratefulness, _a 
universal principle that serves as the core inspiration _for personal 
healing, cross-cultural understanding, _interfaith dialogue, 
intergenerational respect, _and ecological sustainability". es)

-- 
Elan Shapiro
Sustainable Tompkins Program Co-Chair
Sustainable Living Associates, Principal
Frog's Way B&B
211 Rachel Carson Way
Ithaca, NY 14850
607-275-0249

"We must be the change we want to see in the world"
	          Mohandas Gandhi