The Rose Key of Gratitude: A Holy Return to Now

This morning, as I put pen to paper, music played softly in the background, coffee warmed my hands, and nature surrounded me. And oh the gratitude, it was immense. What a medicine gratitude and appreciation are. The antidote to a miserable life. Gratitude is the fullness that softens the ever-hungry mindset, the one always wanting more, never thinking it has enough as it is.

It is gentleness. It is presence. It is the holy moment of the now.

In my younger years, I lacked gratitude. My mind was filled with resentment, anger, and entitlement, and it robbed me of those movie-moments, the ones where you are nowhere else but here. Totally absorbed. Moved. Touched. Not wanting it to end.

That is what gratitude does.

It is medicine. Not always instant, like a supplement that takes time to build in the system. But with consistent consumption, the accumulation takes root, and more and more, you begin to notice those holy, fleeting moments you hope will never end. You begin to look all around you and see each breath, each play of light and shadow, as something to be grateful for.

Even, and especially, the challenging moments.

Because you begin to feel your time on earth is brief. And the moments you want to savor multiply. You stop chasing what you think will make you happy and instead become the happiness you were chasing. And it feels like breath. It feels like bliss. It feels like ecstasy.

So you begin chasing more of those moments, in the quiet, in the simple, in the mundane. The sound of a bird flutters your heart. The breeze on your skin feels glorious. The smell of a flower, divine. The taste of a peach, heavenly.

Suddenly, gratitude becomes easy. You don’t have to think about it . You just become it.

Gratitude moves you, chooses you. And your life shifts, not because the outside has changed, but because you have. Though with time, even the outside may begin to reflect this inner devotion. Relationships may soften. Opportunities may arrive that bring joy instead of exhaustion. Life may become kinder.

And even adversity? You welcome it now. You see it as an invitation to even greater bliss.

You stop denying life. You meet it, all of it, with an open heart. Gratitude, then, is what frees you from the prison of external emptiness. But it’s a muscle, and at first, like any muscle, it might ache. It may feel efforted. Some days you won’t want to do it. But if you stay with it, something begins to shift.

In time, gratitude becomes effortless. And eventually, it consumes you . You don’t even try. You just are. And then… the world becomes grateful for you.

It says: Thank you for loving me. Thank you for seeing me.Thank you for recognizing all that I give.

In this way, your life becomes sacred.

Your choices come into right relationship with the Earth, and all that she provides. And your only job becomes this: "How can I give back to her? How can I give back to others?"

And so I say:

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

With love,

Wakenda Rose