November Leaves - #thanksq01

“Fallen leaves lying on the grass in the November sun bring more happiness than the daffodils”

Blue skies and autumn leaves - #thanksq01

Welcome to November!  A month to be thankful for all that we have.  We should take this month to practice loving-kindness exercises that cultivate habits of compassion for ourselves and others.  By staying with our feelings in an alert and non-judgmental way, we begin to gain the courage to attend to our own tender heart by accepting who we are, warts and all.  As this friendship with ourselves begins to blossom so will our friendship with others.  We will begin to recognize other peoples' hearts and feel inspired to be kind to them as well.  We all have the ingredients of non-grasping wakefulness, compassion, benevolent energy, and disciplined power that make up the recipe for interacting intelligently, soulfully and spontaneously with ourselves, each other, our family, and the world.   

With that said, I am participating in the thanksq.  I heard about it from Cassie over at Bake Your Day.  Beth from Hope Lives put all of this together for us and I'm excited to participate.  I hope that you do too!

Guidelines for Thanks² (from the thanks² Facebook page)

1. Take a picture on your phone with Instagram (iphone) or Retrocamera (android, etc).  Both are free apps, so as long as you have a smart phone – you’re good to go!   The point is, that both of these take square pictures – thus, thanks², aka thanks squared.  But even if you don’t have a smart phone, if your phone can take photos – use that.  No need for anything fancy.  It’s all about the simplicity.

2. Write one line (poetry, prose) that pairs with your image as a caption.

3. When you post your image, please tag @thanks² (if you can–you may not be able to from your phone) and tag it with “thanksq” + the 2-digit day of the month – e.g. #thanksq01

*Note: If you can do it every day – great; if you can’t – no worries. 

*Follow along on Facebook on the thanks² page.