Written and Channeled By Jan Finley
The concept of Thanksgiving has become somewhat fraught in recent years, due to its association with Puritan hubris and white colonization practices, and I can’t help but agree that its tarnished reputation need to be cleaned up and revitalized.
Even so, it one of my favorite holidays. The kids come home, relatives and friends visit, and I am awash in personal thanksgiving. Even when I am crabby, which occasionally happens.
It is a wonderful opportunity to acknowledge and appreciate our many blessings, from the humble to the enormous.
This year, Thanksgiving arrived at a tumultuous time. I am not sure it was any more tumultuous than the last many years, but it felt that way to me somehow. Each day we keep moving forward in our usual way, but little in the way of heart expanded growth seems to happen. People seem more rude than usual and our rights seem to be disappearing bit by bit.
Thanksgiving was a perfect moment to stop and remember who we are and how we are connected to so many others. Being surrounded by people I love dearly was an opportunity to take a reset, to wallow in the love of others for us and to pour out our own love for them. When we allow love free reign in our heart, it thrives, and that love, touching the love of others, sets off a powerhouse of glorious light and possibility.
This is how we heal. This is how we change the world.
And so I am told:
True gratitude arises from the depth of the heart and becomes nearly inseparable from love. Indeed, they are fundamentally the same. While many are thankful for the new piece of jewelry or technology, the new toy or article of clothing, it is the grateful love for others that dissolves boundaries and barriers. It is the acknowledgment of oneness and remembrance of the eternal connection between souls.
Spend time regularly in gratitude, opening your heart to connection and the return to oneness that binds all together.
Breathe it all in, love it all out.
Mary Oliver