For Thanks Giving: The Pilgrimage of the Starfish

a poem  I think of at Thanks Giving.  

  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.

 

For Thanksgiving Day

 

 "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

Remembering the importance I feel about  November 1st and Samhaim, the last Harvest Festival of old,  I  see that I've failed to remember that  November is also the month of Thanksgiving, at least, in the United States.  And our tragic national story of pilgrims being greeted by generous, but ultimately doomed,  Native Americans with corn and wild turkeys aside, and things like "black Friday" sales events  entirely perverting the point.........still,  there is a perfect cyclical and spiritual rightness to this ending of November being about thankfulness.  How can we talk about the closing of the year and the final harvest festivals, going "into the dark" as the Planet turns as well as honoring our ancestors  ~ 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

GRATITUDE by Mary Oliver

What did you notice?

The dew-snail;

the low-flying sparrow;

the bat, on the wind, in the dark;

big-chested geese, in the V of sleekest performance;

the soft toad, patient in the hot sand;

the sweet-hungry ants;

the uproar of mice in the empty house;

the tin music of the cricket’s body;

the blouse of the goldenrod.

What did you hear?

The thrush greeting the morning;

the little bluebirds in their hot box;

the salty talk of the wren,

then the deep cup of the hour of silence.

When did you admire?

The oaks, letting down their dark and hairy fruit;

the carrot, rising in its elongated waist;

the onion, sheet after sheet, curved inward to the pale green wand;

at the end of summer the brassy dust, the almost liquid beauty of the flowers;

then the ferns, scrawned black by the frost.

What astonished you?

The swallows

 making their dip and turn over the water.

What would you like to see again?

My dog: her energy and exuberance, her willingness,

her language beyond all nimbleness of tongue,

her recklessness, her loyalty, her sweetness,

her strong legs, her curled black lip, her snap.

What was most tender?

Queen Anne’s lace, with its parsnip root;

the everlasting in its bonnets of wool;

the kinks and turns of the tupelo’s body;

the tall, blank banks of sand;

the clam, clamped down.

What was most wonderful?

The sea, and its wide shoulders;

the sea and its triangles;

the sea lying back on its long athlete’s spine.

What did you think was happening?

The green beast of the hummingbird;

the eye of the pond;

the wet face of the lily;

the bright, puckered knee of the broken oak;

the red tulip of the fox’s mouth;

the up-swing, the down-pour, 

the frayed sleeve of the first snow—

so the gods shake us from our sleep.

Thanks Giving

Perhaps the World Ends Here

by Joy Harjo (with thanks to Trista of THE GIRL GOD)

The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live.

The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table.

So it has been since creation, and it will go on.

We chase chickens or dogs away from it.

Babies teethe at the corners. They scrape their knees under it.

It is here that children are given instructions

on what it means to be human. We make men at it, we make women.

At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers.

Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around our children.

They laugh with us at our poor falling-down selves

and as we put ourselves back together once again at the table.

This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun.

Wars have begun and ended at this table.

It is a place to hide in the shadow of terror.

A place to celebrate the terrible victory.

We have given birth on this table,

and have prepared our parents for burial here.

At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow.

We pray of suffering and remorse.

We give thanks.

Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table

while we are laughing and crying,

eating of the last sweet bite.

Thanks Giving

 "Our hands imbibe like roots, so I place them on what is beautiful in this world. And I fold them in prayer, and they draw from the heavens, light."

St. Francis of Assisi

"Look, I am living.  On what?  Neither childhood nor future grows any smaller.............Superabundant being wells up in my heart."

Rainier Maria Rilke

"How marvelous is that garden, where apples and pears
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

I reflect today on how amazing and abundant and privileged is my life.   I've never known hunger.  I can eat anything I want, whenever I want, including apples that come from New Zealand, mangoes from the Caribbean, and almonds from Morocco, should I chose.  If I'm cold, I can press a button and get warm, or I can turn a lever and immerse myself in hot water. 

At my fingertips is the greatest Library the world has ever known, and I can research any question (with some discernment) merely by typing in the question.  I can board a plane that goes faster than any bird, and surpasses even the farthest reaches of Leonarda Da Vinci's fruitful imagination.........and within a day or so, be in London, Sydney, or Borneo. 

I've lived with so much possibility, so much luxury.  Every time I walk into a Super Market, I have to reflect that what most people take for granted........is, and was, beyond the wildest dreams of virtually all human beings less than a hundred years ago.  No Pharoah ever had such comfort as I, and no Queen could travel like me, eat like me, even be as comfortable as me.  And tragically, my lifestyle is still beyond the means of most human beings living now, those who must live homeless  in the streets of Mumbai,  or war torn deserts in Somalia, or the slums of Brazil, or huddled  in sleeping bags in parks in downtown Tucson.  And the wealth I enjoy comes, as Kalil Gibran tells us, from the continual sacrifice of many other lives on this great Life that is our planet, our Gaia.  

I am among the wealthiest, most privileged generation that has ever lived  upon this beautiful, generous  Mother Earth. 

And I reflect that generations coming after me will not enjoy my freedom, prosperity, or possibility, because the time I live in has taken too much. Gratitude, Thanks Giving, is so much more than a holiday, a single "holy day".  Gratitude, it seems to me, is a way of life, a state of mind upon which to found a culture that might be sustainable.  I'm not the first person to say this - this wisdom is found in many, many places and times, among the Lakota giving thanks to the Buffalo, the Sami living with their reindeer, the Quakers sitting in silence in their Meeting Halls. This understanding of the importance of Gratitude, of Reciprocity, is what we must universally regain, in our bones, in our roots, in our empathy.  

Let it begin today, and all days, the profound re-birth of Thanks Giving.

Then an old man, a keeper of an inn, said:   "Speak to us of Eating and Drinking."

And the Prophet said:  "Would that you could live on the fragrance of the earth, and like an air plant be sustained by the light. But since you must kill to eat, and rob the newly born of its mother's milk to quench your thirst, let it then be an act of worship. And let your board stand an altar on which the pure and the innocent of forest and plain are sacrificed for that which is purer and still more innocent in man. When you kill a beast say to him in your heart:

"By the same power that slays you, I too am slain; and I too shall be consumed. For the law that delivered you into my hand shall deliver me into a mightier hand."  And when you crush an apple with your teeth, say to it in your heart, "Your seeds shall live in my body

And the buds of your tomorrow shall blossom in my heart.  And your fragrance shall be my breath.  And together we shall rejoice through all the seasons."

And in the autumn, when you gather the grapes of your vineyard, and fruit shall be gathered for the wine press, say:  "And like new wine I shall be kept in eternal vessels." And in winter, when you draw the wine, let there be in your heart a song for each cup;  let there be in the song a remembrance for the autumn days, and for the vineyard, and for the wine press."

Kalil Gibran

Thanks Giving

image by Joel Barker

As I contemplate the end of November, the immanent closing of the year ~ the only place to arrive at is  GRATITUDE. No matter how I complain, finally, Gratitude is the soil, the enzyme, the only appropriate medium to plant any seed in.  And the tide that takes us to sea as well......

  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.