Gratitude is a tool that keeps us in the present moment. As we count our blessings, we point our compass towards more joy in life.
Here is a contemplative exercise based on Celtic-tradition. As you stand in the center of your life, each of the cardinal directions brings a different blessing.
Contemplative Exercise
Take out your journal or discuss with a friend. Answer the question from each of the directions.
East is the place of prosperity and abundance.
For what are you grateful in your life?
South is the location of the Oran Mor, the great song, that reminds us to live in harmony with the inside and outside.
How do you bring harmony to your life?
West is the place of wisdom, knowledge, and inspiration.
What words of wisdom can you share? What inspires you?
North is the place of battle, and the place we seek strength for the challenges we face.
What challenges are you facing, and what gives you strength?
Center is the place of sovereignty and the values of generosity, truth, and beauty. It is the source of Dana, the life-giving energy that unites all beings of all species for all times.
How do you access the feeling of support and connection in your life?
For more on Celtic shamanism, visit Tom Cowan’s website: www.riverdrum.com.
Oran Mór – an excerpt:
To live sustainably, in the fullest sense of the word, we need to learn to live once
again within the One-World of Celtic Paradise. To live sustainably demands the full
participation of our senses. It is the Oran Mór, in Celtic myth, which gives vitality to
the senses. For the Celt, as it is for us all, there are five senses: sights, touch, sound,
taste and intuition. All are God-given, all are to be celebrated. It is, however,
intuition, or The Sight (as the Celts know it), that rises from the “deeper nature” of the
Oran Mór. For the Song has the uncanny ability to recognize herself as she is sung
throughout Creation. It is in the recognition of herself that she (Oran Mór) stirs up
within our being “The Sight.” In hearing the Song being sung beyond us, the Song within
wells up seeks herself. We might say that She seeks her original wholeness. And in the
seeking the Song within makes our head/heart to hear the other, and in so doing, gives
us “The Sight”, or understanding, of that which is to come, that which has been, and
that which is.