Acrostic: A Path To
Gratitude
Poetry as spiritual practice embodies gratitude and evokes
it. Living at the fast pace that most of us do, it’s easy to forget the people,
animals, places, occasions and things we’re grateful for. I sit down to recite
my poems and prayers and meditate, but my mind is agitated. I got up fifteen
minutes later than I usually do. My ten-year-old daughter woke up sluggish and
mopes through her getting-ready-for-school routine while my fifteen-year-old
son chomps at the bit to be going. At last I’m finished and we dash to the car.
If my son doesn’t get to his school in six minutes he won’t have a lunch today.
Without saying so, I already know that my daughter will be ten minutes late to
her school—again, which will irritate Doreen in the front office and her
teacher, Camille. Driving them to school takes me thirty minutes roundtrip.
Along the way I worry about the price of gas and my blood pressure. I feel
guilty that I may be letting my kids down.
Then, usually as I’m nearing my driveway, I catch myself.
What else, I ask, can I beat myself up about this morning?
If you’ve experienced episodes just like that, isn’t it
wonderful? Isn’t it just like waking up, really waking up? There’s the waking
up I do when I open my eyes (my outer eyes) and swing my legs out of bed and
stumble into the bathroom. And then there’s the inner eye-opening, waking up
that comes when I stop myself and say, “Wait a minute! I ‘m here, right here,
right now! What am I doing worrying and fretting and working myself into a
lather over schedules, my hair, the way my clothes look (or the way my kids’
clothes and hair look). Does my anxiety change anything? Who benefits from it?
Not I, certainly! Not my kids or friends or co-workers.
Everyone picks up on anxiety, on negative energy, and the self-preservation
mechanism causes emotional retreat. People do this to protect themselves, to
save themselves from being consumed by someone else’s bad experience. And
shouldn’t they? Of course they should! Are they betraying someone,
disrespecting relationships? Of course not! They’re doing what comes naturally,
reacting against the smell of fear.
In my spiritual core, I know that fear has one goal—to
retard my progress, even to destroy me. Through spiritual practice I’ve learned
to respect my fear, to befriend it and sometimes turn it into something
positive. When that happens I’m grateful. I’m thankful for the insight, for the
softening, for the opening up to the moment I’m living, which is after all the
only moment I can be sure of.
So, what is it that makes
you grateful? How do you honor gratitude in your spiritual practice?
Writing an acrostic poem can be one way you do it. How?
Think of the people you love, who love you. Pick one and write her name (or his
name) down the left side of your paper. Each letter of your loved one’s name
becomes the first letter of each line of your poem. Here, for example, is an acrostic poem that
I’ve just written:
Dawn is a pretty time to feel you near
After so many seductive phantoms
Nodded all night, saying come
Away
with us, for-
Get your
morning star and moon, your
Eden
with its green, calm core.
Rant
with us! Strap yourself to illusions! Be
Hysterical
and poisonous, like us! Then I see you
And just like that I stop,
Refocused in a clear place,
Delighting in your company.
That’s enough. It’s all I need or see.
First letters can inspire us. They can act like
cheerleaders, icebreakers, road signs. Like any poem, we can work on an
acrostic for a while, put it away, and come back to it when we feel like it.
Because poems are part of us, they are always there to greet us. All we have to
do is look.
Write acrostics whenever you feel like it, and sometimes
when you feel stunted or blocked or emotionally dry, force yourself to write one.
It’s a form of play, and it nourishes the soul. Include your favorite acrostic
poems in your daily practice and observe how they deepen your experience of
love and gratitude.
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