Shivers of gratitude
- Carsten Sprotte
- 4 days ago
- 5 min read
Updated: 3 days ago
Post-Thanksgiving, cold-turkey contemplations
One morning at dawn, on a nameless beach, sixty-four people find themselves together, witnessing the most inspiring spectacle of their lives. Everyone knows one another, yet no one knows how they arrived there.
Could it all be just a dream?
I am one of the sixty-four. I don’t know whether I’m dreaming or not. All I know is that tears are welling up, moved as I am by the unexpected presence of these people I know—every one of them—gathered together in a shared state of wonder. Some of them I had so longed to see again, but thought I never would. Here they are, right beside me, in the blessed light of the rising sun. Spontaneously, we form a chain with hands held and wind around and around, so that each has a brief moment to meet the eyes of the other.
And we silently exclaim: “We are all alive! We are Life!”
Thanksgiving happens...
when our sense of presence meets all the other presences.
In that same instant, I become aware that my next breath depends entirely on an incalculable number of things joining together in concert within the great symphony of the living. The birds singing, the moss growing, the leaves falling—all must be there. The damp smell of mushrooms blends with the exquisite fragrance of lilies—your unique scent, somewhere in between.
The moment I truly realize this miraculous interdependence and bring my full attention to it, I enter a state of gratitude. It is not some notion I formulate to convince myself. No—it is simply attention, presence. No belief is required to reach it, no name of God. Thus, every human being is equal before this possibility.
And yet I had thought, like a Christmas child, that I needed to give thanks after having received gifts. Waiting for them to arrive, my gratitude could only be lukewarm.
To remain grateful, some suggest making a list of one’s blessings to review each day.
That can only do good, but it is less evident when life seems to bury those blessings beneath a thick, dark layer of sorrows.
Gratitude is not necessarily something one expresses afterward; it is an a priori state, attuned to the generous nature of life. The “gifts” are there all the time, and we tread upon them with hardly any notice. All those things we always knew were good for us are freely available: fresh air, a swim in the ocean, a walk in the forest, a connection with animals and with each other. Paradoxically, these are the very things that our civilisation tends to destroy. That destruction perfectly denotes a total lack of gratitude. Collectively, we have behaved like insatiable predators, constantly seeking and devouring things outside of ourselves, convinced we need something else, something more, to feel satiated.
The fundamental gift of life and of incarnation as a human being is the privilege of being miraculously part of something rather than nothing. Even if that something is, for a time, pain or despair, we inhabit a living world—with real faces, real voices, laughter, music, music, music, the color purple, verdant forests, the fierce yet comforting cold of the sea, and tender embraces.
L'amour à l'aube
One morning at dawn, on the banks of the Seine beneath a willow that weeps with joy, a man and a woman join in a long-awaited, ardent kiss. Their breaths mingle, their hearts merge. They are entirely present, one to another, beneath the thick yellowing veil of the willow.
They say: “Behold, the dawn of our love!”
The resolutely gray sky suddenly breaks into rose hues. The orchestra plays Ravel's Le lever du jour, from Daphnis and Chloé.
In every beginning dwells a magic force: the seed of gratitude that blooms into new possibilities.
Love, too, fosters gratitude. Who can be in love without feeling gratitude? But is it not rather gratitude that spreads love beyond the lovers’ closed embrace? The state of being in love is not constant, whereas the gratitude born of presence offers something more permanent.
Tender turkey
One evening around a table, eight friends gather in a Paris apartment for a “Thanksgiving” meal. There is turkey and other delights in abundance. There is music, too.
It has always been the tradition to celebrate this abundance as a blessing upon America. But here, the table is international. I have my place as an American who has progressively become French, in love and in gratitude.
After it was oven-roasted, the free-range turkey rested in its juices for three hours, making it exceptionally tender and juicy. It is traditional to give thanks to God, but here we mostly thanked the chef. When a chef takes such time for tenderness, I’m reminded of Babette. The movie Babette’s Feast captures better than my own words what I so wish to express.
It is tradition to thank the traditional God, but no one really wanted to impose their idea of God. Nobody presumed that their idea represented the truth, yet everyone naturally felt, with gratitude, the presence of others. Each in the silence of their own heart.
A corgi dog named Winston was also with us, and in his eyes was a magnetic sense of gentleness and wisdom. Each gave thanks to the divine in the face of a canine.
What remained once the plates were emptied? The communion of conscious beings aware of being together through a miracle within the miracle. From this, gratitude may arise—on this particular day as on every day.
Thanksgiving happens when our sense of presence is shared.
Cold-turkey
On the morning after, as on any morning deemed ordinary, I took my cold shower and sat on the wet tile floor, naked with legs folded, to experience my heat within. I watched and felt my breath and my body dance together in the quasi-silence of the mind. Soon, the drops that remained on my skin had vanished while a new sensation arose, electrical, emanating from the middle of my spine. Not wanting to name the sensation, I felt its irregular tingling, sometimes spreading in a split-second across the surface of my back to my arms and neck. For lack of a name, I could only think that it felt strange, but very alive. Had it arisen during some sweet embrace, no doubt I would have thought it to be a supreme delight.
The sensation has a name: neither pleasure or pain. Involuntary, spontaneous, ephemeral…we call it a shiver. When we shiver, we are surely alive and aware of being alive.
Gratitude arises from this awareness of being alive as part of a miraculous web of the living.
To experience gratitude in an enduring state would be the holy grail, but on any ordinary day we can experience it, deep in our flesh, as a shiver of sorts...the shiver of gratitude.
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