Thanks

I can't really say that I celebrate Thanksgiving anymore. It's hard for me to reconcile the holiday that most Americans celebrate with the National Day of Mourning held in Plymouth or the other events nationwide like it. Today is always a poignant reminder for me that most Americans are willfully ignorant of the history of our country and/or of the current conditions surrounding the surviving Native tribes that were here before European settlement. Today is a reminder of that history and of those conditions.

There are other issues for me as well. I can't really appreciate the comical farce of a President "pardoning" a random turkey (and what crime is being pardoned, exactly?) to the amused naivety of the rest of the populace while hundreds of millions of other turkeys are slaughtered. Ignoring any animal rights or sustainability protests I might have, this is just a part of the American habit of ignoring the dirtier aspects of our communal actions. I can't take part in that, and remembering the history and continued problems surround Thanksgiving doesn't put me in much of a celebratory mood.

I do think that there's a genuinely good spirit in the hearts of people when they sit down for Thanksgiving dinner with their family. I don't protest that, or wish for it to come to an end. I don't even truly want to see an end to Thanksgiving. I only wish that more people would bring acknowledgement and respect for history with them to the table, and maybe an honest desire to see a better America. Instead so many people - certainly not all, but probably most - bring nothing more than empty stomachs and empty minds.

So I don't celebrate. But I do give thanks.

To the land on which I stand, from which I receive sustenance, I give thanks.

To those spirits in this place that help to guide and teach me, I give thanks.

To my friends and teachers who help to support me through change, I give thanks.

And to the Ancestors of this land, to the foundation and Greater Spirit that gives life to this place, I give honor.