In America the fourth Thursday of November is celebrated as a national holiday known as Thanksgiving. It is the only holiday completely unique to this country and is rooted in our earliest history when European settlers, who had landed on our shores in 1620, gathered to give thanks for and feast on the fruits of their first year’s harvest. The ritual has lasted for almost 400 years, though since then we seem to have lost track as to what we are giving thanks for and whom we are thanking.
The first Thanksgiving was marked by a true sense of community. According to tradition, the entire village gathered around long wooden tables and in all accounts of the day were joined by the Native Americans whom they met when they arrived. Indeed there appeared to be a general understanding that despite their industriousness and willingness to put up with hardship, the immigrants might not have made it through that initial year had the “Indians” not showed them the proper crops and planting techniques necessary to survive in that inhospitable climate. We need not dwell on what our government has done over the years to the first Thanksgiving’s invited guests as America expanded its borders farther and farther west.
That first celebration was also a true giving of thanks by a religious people who recognized that whatever they had was only made possible by the hand of the Divine. And while enlightened, spiritual people raised in an era of scientific teachings may no longer look upon an external God with long flowing robes and a white beard as the source of their bounty, it is fair to say that the percentage of families gathered around the festive table who stop to recognize any connection to a larger, external consciousness is very small indeed.
Most pernicious of all are the inroads made on Thanksgiving by those merchants, retailers, and commercial interests who clearly realize that despite its family orientation and warm, fuzzy feeling, Thanksgiving can’t hold a holiday candle to Christmas when it comes to making those cash registers sing and raking in the profits. Waiting for Thanksgiving to be over before putting up Christmas decorations and advertising those Xmas specials is now a thing of the past. Santa Claus (don’t even think about the original Christmas celebrant) now sleighs into town in late October with the Friday after Thanksgiving receiving more press as the biggest shopping day of the entire year than the holiday the day before does.
Be that all as it may, we can buck the trend. We can join hands symbolically with our friends throughout cyberspace and wish you all a happy and joyful Thanksgiving. May you share in the abundance that Mother Earth offers and may you offer your hopes, prayers, wishes, and bounty to others less fortunate than you. May we use the day to recognize that we are all One, that separation and division are all part of the cosmic game, and that peace and love beat out war and hatred any day… but especially on Thanksgiving.
peace……………………ag
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