This Sunday, many Americans are already on the road (or in the air), traveling with a shared destination--not a shared place, but an event, Thanksgiving Day with a social time of feasting. As family and friends share the holiday meal, Thanksgiving brings an echo of ancient harvest festivals that have taken place around the world for centuries. The theme of Harvest also resonates with our dependency on Nature; food--the fuel for our bodies--arises from Nature. We have learned to gather, plant and cultivate, combine and cook, and even genetically engineer food, yet we remain dependent on the natural world, as a part of the natural world.
Thanksgiving reminds us that we are an evolving species. As much as some people long to stay rooted in the traditional Thanksgiving story of American history to highlight the peaceful sharing of food at the harvest feast, that story too has evolved. We now have counter holidays in remembrance of the wars that raged as settlers arrived to occupy land that had been the home and sustenance of native Americans, bringing devastating consequences and suffering. On the West Coast, Unthanksgiving Day takes place on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay (since 1975) and on the East Coast, in New England, the holiday-as-protest is named "A National Day of Mourning" (since 1970). Both serve to honor the lives and traditions of Indigenous Americans, and educate non-natives on both the history and current struggles of Native Americans.
The Wonder of American Thanksgiving is that these events will all be taking place on Thursday, not as spurious eruptions, or calculated political disruptions (there is over 50 years of tradition in the Thanksgiving counter-movement). All these events together are a sprouting and growth of our need to acknowledge the Harvest and collectively digest the Truth. Across the globe, people still war over land. Yet, war is destructive not just to human lives and cultures, but to Nature. We depend on Nature and Nature's phenomenal diversity; we depend on our neighbors; we depend on one another; we depend on differences, movement and counter movement, and we depend on Truth.
Gratitude is the heart's awareness of Good. It is not about the intellect. We don't have to fabricate gratitude, or justify gratitude--we let it rise in us, naturally. If you find yourself grumbling this week, let it be. You are not going to be grateful all the time. We struggle with life's twists and turns; we struggle with the curve balls and the counter movement. But when we do take the time to settle and let ourselves stop, turn inward, and remember that we live, move, and have our being in a vast, vast Field of Being, beyond the measures of our social order, we find Peace again, and we are thankful. Enjoy the Fall Harvest, wherever it leads you. (Susan Nettleton)
for poetry: https://allpoetry.com/Gratitude-To-The-Unknown-Instructors https://readalittlepoetry.com/.../at-least-by-raymond.../ https://gladdestthing.com/poems/poem-without-a-categoy