Have you claimed your gifts today?

“We rush through our days in such stress and intensity, as if we were here to stay and the serious project of the world depended on us. We worry and grow anxious; we magnify trivia until they become important enough to control our lives. Yet all the time we have forgotten that we are but temporary sojourners on the surface of a strange planet spinning slowly in the infinite night of the cosmos.” —John O’Donohue

I know. I probably sound like an ad for a bank. Come in, open a new checking account and claim your free ice chest. fall colors

But that’s not the kind of gifts I’m referring to. I’m talking about the continuous stream of gifts bestowed by the natural world. As I was driving home from pickleball this morning, I noticed a brilliant scarlet branch on a maple tree just blocks from my home. It literally made me gasp.

Every day, nature presents us with unbelievably beautiful gifts: stars that are billions of years old, fuzzy caterpillars crawling across our paths, hydrangeas, yellow butterflies. The gifts seem to be endless once you take time to look.

Even those who live in inner cities receive the gift each morning of the breaking dawn, signaling the possibility of a new day. As my new favorite poet, John O’Donohue says, “You never know what will land on the shoreline of tomorrow.”

So sure, material gifts like ice chests and toasters and, for that matter, new Michael Kors purses are okay. But the gifts I prefer remind me that I live in a galaxy that is one of a gazillion galaxies that has hundreds of billions of stars and enough gas and dust to make hundreds of billions more.

And because of my inseverable connection to this expanding, cosmic mystery, I have the responsibility to also create new things.

I believe that’s why all of us are here. To behold our wonderous gifts and to keep the creation going.

Pam Grout is the author of 19 books including E-Squared: 9 Do-it-Yourself Energy Experiments that Prove Your Thoughts Create Your Reality and the just-released, Art & Soul,Reloaded: A Year-Long Apprenticeship to Summon the Muses and Ignite Your Daring, Audacious, Creative Side.

What marvelous thing might I create today?

“What is the most important thing we can think about in this most extraordinary moment?”–Buckminster Fuller

I’ve said it before and I’m sure I’ll say it again. The quality of your life is in direct proportion to the questions you ask. The universe will always match you question for question.

Sadly, most of the questions we ask are repeats of the questions we asked yesterday. We keep wondering the “same ole, same ole” that forever locks us into a tiny box of perception that greatly limits our reality. We place amazingly low expectations on what might be possible.

Every time you ponder the question “How do I get rid of this?” or “How can I overcome that?” you add energy to sustaining the unwanted state. As you devote more and more attention to its existence, you further validate its reality. You continue to view the state you’re attempting to overcome as a linear, predictable “problem.”

Not a lot of options in that teensy box.

Here’s what I’ve learned from quantum physics. Despite how it looks, we humans and everything else we lay gaze upon are, at our core, nothing but patterns of light and energy. We are entangled with all other beings on the planet, forever linked with the indivisible “Field of Potentiality” or to use Luke Skywalker’s vernacular, “The Force.”

By continuing to ask the same boring questions and residing in the same uncomfortable little shoebox, we block the flow and full expression of the F.P’s power.

The force, to borrow from Luke one more time, “can’t be with us.”

So my intention is to ask bigger questions, to think bigger thoughts?

“What if?” is always a good start.

What if our politicians could see eye-to-eye, to join forces for true and lasting change?”

“What if every child on the planet had a hot meal before they went to bed tonight?”

“What if every family had a roof over their head?”

“What can I do today that makes me dance with joy?

“How can I grow into the loving, wise, inspiring person I am meant to be?”

“What marvelous thing might I create today?”

Anything is possible, but we have to imagine it first. The more big questions we ask, the more we dare to say, “What would it look like if….?,” the bigger our lives will become. Putting your attention on something calls it into existence. We can literally reshape and redesign our lives by asking bigger questions.

Pam Grout is the author of 18 books including E-Squared: 9 Do-it-Yourself Energy Experiments that Prove Your Thoughts Create Your Reality and the recently released, Thank and Grow Rich: a 30-day Experiment in Shameless Gratitude and Unabashed Joy.