November and Thanks Giving

I have failed, in the course of pursuing my threads and poetics about November, to add that November is also the month of Thanksgiving. And that makes sense to me ~ how can we talk about the closing of the year, going "into the dark", and honoring ancestral strands ~ without, finally, arriving at GRATITUDE? Gratitude is the soil, the enzyme, the only appropriate medium to plant any seed in.

  Starfish
    
by Eleanor Lerman

This is what life does. It lets you walk up to
the store to buy breakfast and the paper, on a
stiff knee. It lets you choose the way you have
your eggs, your coffee. Then it sits a fisherman
down beside you at the counter who says, "Last night,
the channel was full of starfish."  And you wonder,
is this a message, finally, or just another day?

Life lets you take the dog for a walk down to the
pond, where whole generations of biological
processes are boiling beneath the mud. Reeds
speak to you of the natural world: they whisper,
they sing. And herons pass by. Are you old
enough to appreciate the moment? Too old?
There is movement beneath the water, but it
may be nothing. There may be nothing going on.

And then life suggests that you remember the
years you ran around, the years you developed
a shocking lifestyle, advocated careless abandon,
owned a chilly heart. Upon reflection, you are
genuinely surprised to find how quiet you have
become. And then life lets you go home to think
about all this. Which you do, for quite a long time.

Later, you wake up beside your old love, the one
who never had any conditions, the one who waited
you out. This is life’s way of letting you know that
you are lucky. (It won’t give you smart or brave,
so you’ll have to settle for lucky.) Because you
were born at a good time. Because you were able
to listen when people spoke to you. Because you
stopped when you should have and started again.

So life lets you have a sandwich, and pie for your
late night dessert. (Pie for the dog, as well.) And
then life sends you back to bed, to dreamland,
while outside, the starfish drift through the channel,
with smiles on their starry faces as they head
out to deep water, to the far and boundless sea.

Gratitude and Thanks Giving

 "You think this is just another day in your life, but its not just another day.  It's the one day in your life that is given to you.  Its given to you, it's a gift,  the only gift that you have right now, and the only appropriate response is gratefulness.......

Look at the faces of the people you meet.  Each face has a unique story, a story that you could never fully fathom.  And not only their own story, but the story of their ancestors is there.  And in this present moment, in this day, all the people you meet, all that life from generations and from so many places all over the world flows together and meets you here......"

Benedictine monk Brother David Steindl-Rast

Reviewing  my  threads and remembrances about November and the Day of the Dead, I see that I've failed to note that  November is also the month of Thanksgiving, at least, in the United States.  And pilgrims being greeted by generous, if doomed,  Native Americans with corn and turkeys aside, and things like "black Friday" entirely perverting the point,  there is a perfect cyclical and spiritual rightness to that.  How can we talk about the closing of the year, the final harvest festivals, going "into the dark", as well as honoring our ancestors and beloved dead  ~ without, finally, arriving at GRATITUDE?  In fact, now that I think about it, how can one really look at the experience of being alive without finally arriving at Gratitude?

I was looking for the perfect "Thanksgiving Day" card, and found this perfect video, a brief TED talk by Louie Schwartzberg  followed by the artist's video about Gratitude, which includes his stunning time-lapse photography, accompanied by powerful words from Benedictine monk Brother David Steindl-Rast.  I wanted to share this as my offering for Thanksgiving day.

Learn more about Louie Schwartzberg  and Moving Art at www.movingart.com.

http://youtu.be/gXDMoiEkyuQ

Thanks Giving

 How marvelous is that garden, where apples and pears, both for
the sake of the two Marys,
are arriving even in winter.

Those apples grow from the Gift, and sink back into the Gift.
It must be that they are coming from the garden to the garden.

.....Rumi

Beautiful little video with quotes about Gratitude from Shakti Gawain, Osho, Rumi, many others.

Thanks Giving

BRIDGIT

"God's abstention is only from human dialects;
the holy voice utters its woe and glory
in myriad musics, in signs and portents.
Our own words are for us to speak,
a way to ask and to answer."

Denise Levertov


There are some gifts that come to us
just once or twice in a lifetime
gifts that cannot be named
beyond the simple act of gratitude.

We are given a vision so bountiful
we can only gaze with eyes wide,
like a child
in summer's first garden.

We reach our clumsy hands
toward that communion
that single perfection
and walk away speechless, blessed.

And breathe,
in years to come, breathe,

breathe our hearts open
aching to tell it well:

to sing it into every other heart
to dance it down, into the hungry soil
to hold it before us

that light,
that grace given
voiceless light

(1999)