The Circle of Elders on this overcast wintry day
To be alive in this beautiful, self-organizing universe – to participate in the dance of life with senses to perceive it, lungs that can breathe it, organs that draw nourishment from it – is a wonder beyond words. Joanna Macy
Beyond words indeed! I’m experiencing the absence of adequate words as I continue to explore the new depths of feeling that I shared last week (here if you missed it). With the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday on the horizon and reading Macy’s World as Lover, World as Self, I’m asking a different question around gratitude. ‘How deep is my gratitude?’ I wonder.
I discovered this to be a very different question than ‘what am I grateful for?’. Yet in the long list of what I’m grateful for are clues to gratitude’s depth. I’m aware of how important gratitude has been and is in my life and of the countless challenges that gratitude has seen me through. Not always pretty, but always getting me through to the other side. Right where I need to be.
In this time of potent possibility and even promise is my gratitude of sufficient depth to withstand whatever challenges lie ahead? How might I deepen it? How might I use this Thanksgiving Day to bring myself to a new depth of gratitude?
Macy’s chapter Grounding in Gratitude in part evoked my questions. The Mohawk Thanksgiving Address that she shares began to frame answers that will evolve over time as I hold the questions with intention.
The ‘Address’ begins …
The People
Today we have gathered and we see that the cycles of life continue. We have been given the duty to live in balance and harmony with each other and all living things. So now, we bring our minds together as one as we give greetings and thanks to each other as people.
Now our minds are one.
The Earth Mother
We are all thankful to our Mother, the Earth, for she gives us all that we need for life. She supports our feet as we walk about upon her. It gives us joy that she continues to care for us as she has from the beginning of time. To our mother, we send greetings and thanks.
Now our minds are one.
It continues addressing the Waters, the Fish, the Plants, the Four Winds, the Animals, the Trees, the Sun, Grandmother Moon, and more, much more of that which sustains our lives and livelihoods on this blue dot that we inhabit. I encourage you to read it, let it wash over and go deep in your bones (click here)
This morning after walking the labyrinth in the woods out back I took this holy prayer of gratitude into the nearby Circle of Elders. I read it aloud standing in the Circle. Tears welled up as I was reminded again that I live on lands from which human beings indigenous to the area were forcibly removed. That is a part of my history. Our history for those here in the United States.
As I made my way back inside to the warmth of the hearth, I knew that this Thanksgiving would be a quiet day of gratitude, reflection, and beginning to read the book atop my winter reading stack: An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States. I know too that this prayer, grounded in wisdom and understanding that seems lost to our current culture, will be with me for many days to come.
I may read it in its entirety or simply choose one point of focus, but it is now a part of my daily practice, imagining living fully into any one of the elements addressed.
Feel for a moment (or linger longer!) how our world will be when we take on our duty to live in balance and harmony with each other and all living things. Is my gratitude deep enough universally, truly and authentically with NO exclusions give greetings and thanks to each other as people? Can I truly include EVERYone? Imagine THAT world!
Although a touch disappointed that my local ‘family of friends’ will not to gather this Thanksgiving, I feel deep gratitude and potency for the day ahead: a day to simply be with myself, my thoughts, the ever-present Muse, and (of course) my sweet canine, Zadie Byrd. As it always does, the flow of life takes me right where I need to be. A deep bow of gratitude to Life.
From the Winter Reading Stack …