Most years around this time, I do a post about Thanksgiving, but never exactly by that title. So this year, as it is getting harder to find unique post titles that I haven't previously used (!), I am going for the obvious.
I can think of a number of aspects of my life which challenge a full, open-hearted expression of thanks, including the fact that my readership has dropped (since my pandemic silence) to just a handful of you. I know that I could work on advertising (something that I seem to be constitutionally unable to do) or writing less challenging material or opening up to comments or debate. But my path is my path, and regular readers are literally my companions through the dark forest. I am so glad you are there. I literally and quite heartily give thanks for you!
Thanks giving, too, for a roof over my head, regular meals, friends to connect with even mostly by phone or text these days, this computer, a few basic items of clothing and footwear. Then there is: the ability to breathe, the ability to walk, the ability to digest my food, the ability to reach, to read and write and hear and sing, to get on tiptoe, to smile, to comb my ever-longer hair, to shovel at least small amounts of snow, to walk uphill to the city bus. To watch birds eating the last of the fall berries, and see a dramatic sunrise over the greatest lake in the world, to enjoy blue skies, to have the freedom to eat no breakfast, to eat lunch before noon and supper by about 5. For these and other basic daily pleasures, choices, and necessities, I am so thankful.
Lastly, to keep this short-ish. I am thankful for a remarkable, unexpected, unlikely lifetime. I am thankful for the courage to be different, for the beauty of English church music. I am thankful for persistence in discovering my alignment with the divine feminine, and the wisdom to stop questioning where that takes me. I am thankful to the other people out there, scouting out improved and more loving ways of being human on this beautiful earth, wherever their journeys have taken them. I may end up being alone on Thanksgiving Day itself, but in the bigger picture, I know I am part of a glowing/growing network of openhearted humans, and that the aloneness is just an illusion. Whether you eat turkey or turkey burgers or boxed macaroni and cheese or ramen noodles on Thursday, and whether you are alone or at a big table of loved ones, may it be a day of many blessings.
