Celebrating!

There is always something to celebrate. Celebration is a form of gratitude; it's a way of acknowledging our unlimited ability to create and opening ourselves up to our best and highest expression. To me, celebrating is a form of prayer, a way of saying “Thank you, God” for the gifts we’ve been given. It’s a validation of the goodness and God-ness that makes up our human experience.

I’m a fan of the happy dance. When my mom recently got good news after having trouble getting her car smogged, I did the happy dance. When my husband got a bonus check yesterday that was unexpected, we did a big, loud high-five in celebration. In my family we often toast each other over dinner, with our glasses of water or whatever we are drinking, just to celebrate sitting there eating, and being together. “Tuesday” is a wonderful reason to celebrate. Random acts of gratitude can be large or small in expression, and they reconnect us with the truth of all that we can do, be and have.

Today is my birthday, and that is something to celebrate. I don’t think grown-ups have nearly enough permission to celebrate their own birthdays. This morning driving to work I danced to the radio, sitting there behind the wheel looking very foolish, I’m sure, to others driving by, happy in the awareness that I have experienced another year being me. Happy, too, knowing that today begins another year growing in my awareness of the perfect good from which this existence is created.

As my family sang happy birthday to me last weekend over the lighted candles on the birthday cake, I felt tremendous gratitude, for all of them, and for my precious life. The happy birthday song was a celebration of all of us, for being here now, filling the world with our own unique voices.

May you celebrate all of the large and small things in your life (especially your birthday!), and may this tool be a blessing. . .