saying thank you

somewhere between the rush and the pause, it occured to me that a big THANK-YOU is called for.

so today, when i stop at the store for groceries for katie and brad and baby jake, i will buy a few extra - apples, honey, corn, beer and cream. this evening, when i make the pork roast, i will reserve a small piece or two. and tonight, as the crescent moon rises and the twilight thickens, i will place offering plates on my rock outside, on the bridge over the stream, at the crossroads, and offer a dish of cream to the fairies. i will offer sacred fire to bride and pele, water to hecate, and incense to kali-ma.

i will also write thank you notes to katie's midwife, and to the staff of the maternity unit, and one to katie and brad, for including me in that moment when my grandson slithered, hairy, blue and covered in birthslime, into the world.

because if there's one thing my life has taught me...it's ALWAYS SAY THANK YOU.

always. there is a richness in the art of saying thank you that is in danger of being lost today as we rush from place to place, from obligation to obligation. we have equated thanks with giving, and so thanking becomes just another chore, just another thing we have to do, another draw of energy we have to feed our endless fount of competing demands. but saying thank you isn't about giving. saying thank you is the outward sign of acknowledgement that you have noticed the other person's expenditure of energy on your behalf and validated the effort. it is a simple gesture of connection and of grace.

a few months ago, i was given a powerful lesson in the value of saying thank you. an aspiring writer in search of an agent emailed me out of the blue. he wanted an introduction to my agent and he contacted me because i was a - in connecticut, like he was, and b - wanted my agent. we exchanged a couple emails, but when i wrote back explaining why i thought he didn't need an agent in the first place because he wrote YA (Young Adult for those uninitiated into the Arcane World of Publishing) and suggesting a few other things he might try instead, i never heard back from him - not so much as a single sentence.

it was one of those lessons kali-ma dishes out... sharp, stinging, but quick if you're paying attention and "get it."

and so today, i pause and say... thank You.