Everyday of my life, from here forward I will wake with gratitude! I am alive! I a have a home! I have my health! I am beyond blessed! All of this I will remind myself daily, as long as I am here on this earth.
One day, even one week a year being a “time” to be thankful seems disrespectful, inconsiderate and in many ways sad. Needing an excuse to share with your family and friends and celebrate life also seems backwards. As a beautiful women from the Sioux Tribe said; “As indigenous people, we do not need a time to give thanks, as this is a part of our daily ceremony and way of living. We gather daily, to celebrate one another and give thanks for what we have. Thanksgiving for our people is NOT a celebration, rather a representation of colonization, when we began loosing our right to live as we are meant to.”
When I have brought this very thing up in the past, even last night, I am met with, Thanksgiving is a time to give thanks for what we have. SO, my questions still remains: Why do we do this 1 day out of 365 days a year? Why do we not honor our ancestors and our indigenous brothers and sisters by seeing the horrifying representation we participate in, simply because it is something we have done our entire lives?
In school we were taught this was when we, as Europeans, united with the Native Americans? This could not be further from the truth, yet even when the truth is spoken we still want to carry on with our yearly giving thanks day. I am not trying to dismantle this precious tradition, as I have many heart connections to this day as well, rather I am hoping to bring deeper truth and light to what we are doing.
We need to gather more, give thanks more and speak of the things we are grateful for daily, not yearly. Our hearts, when filled with gratitude expresses love and peace. Our hearts when filled with greed and excess become cluttered, disconnected and difficult to see other perspectives outside of our circle. Consider how you can shift this area of your life, even if slightly and have an intention to grow this space into daily gratitude practice.