Thanksgiving Ambivalence
Sometimes I don’t know how I feel about Thanksgiving. I’ve been really focused on gratitude lately, and I think it’s so important that we take any opportunity or any excuse we can to focus on gratitude because it’s life changing. The science is clear and has proven the benefits over and over again.
At the same time, as a highly sensitive person, I can’t help but think deeply and feel deeply about the history around US Thanksgiving. I was sending some text GIFs to family and friends about Thanksgiving, and I was kind of disgusted by the options.
That got me thinking about my childhood and all the images and all the crafts and artwork that we did around Thanksgiving…. you know, in elementary school.
Do you remember tracing your hand and turning it into a turkey? and all the pilgrims made out of construction paper?
Trust me, I don’t want to think about all this stuff and have all these feelings that make me ambivalent about the holiday. It’s a challenge to have a reactive brain like this even though I am grateful for it!
I am going to go out on a limb here as a white US woman and make mistakes in this blog. If I offend you please forgive me and feel free to email or message me.
So here I find myself deeply processing those images and what they mean.
I grew up in Oklahoma which literally means “land of the red people”. Oklahoma was the destination of the Trail of Tears. I’m not an expert on Native American history, but I know that the Trail of Tears was a forced march of indigenous tribes from eastern parts of the United States. More than half of the people who travelled the Trail of Tears died. Those who survived were basically imprisoned in Oklahoma. They were promised that land would be theirs, and later, the government for people of European descent stole it back from them for the umpteenth time and let settlers take it over and farm it.
My own family benefited. They were German immigrants farming in Northwestern Oklahoma. And, I grew up romanticizing Native Americans. I wanted to be an Indian. To this day, I admire so many things about Native American culture and learning from indigenous cultures and stories.
I think it is in part a longing for a life lived closer to the Earth and in a community that honors a more grounded world experience, aligned with nature and all beings on the planet.
If Thanksgiving means anything to me beyond a more active gratitude practice, I think it is about self-reflection, amends, awareness, spirituality, community. Maybe, if we hold our true hearts open, it’s okay to be in a bit of gluttony on Thanksgiving. No judgment, this is just awareness, acceptance, and action in practice.
What about ACTION? Sometimes taking action can help with healing. If you find yourself sitting in awareness or acceptance, as I have been this week, you might be ready for some action. Start small and remember that small acts of generosity and goodwill heal the giver as well as the receiver. Sometimes even increasing awareness helps move us toward action so here are some resources for you.
You can start here with this nice newsletter from CIIS. I have taught workshops at CIIS a few times, and I know it is an institution committed to good action, so I like to share their work: Honoring the Land and Celebrating Indigenous Voices
To learn more about how to take action, please check out these great organizations:
California Indian Environmental Alliance
My heart is open and sending you love and healing. Thank you so much for joining me on this journey and sharing your own experience, strength, and hope in the world. Feel free to share my blogs or reach out with your ideas or questions. I love to hear from HSPs. xo, Alane
I’m with you in empathy for the Indigenous Peoples of North America. After living in Texas for 45 years, I have seen the injustice delivered upon the Native Americans as well as the Mexican people whose land stretched all the way North through Canada and West to the Pacific Ocean. Now living in the Northeast in what once was the Algonquin Nation, I see the injustice is not exclusive to the Southwest. The values of the “White Man” seems so counterintuitive to living in harmony in nature with Mother Nature.
Gratitude and Charity are two ways I have found to assuage my guilt for being born into the privilege of being white.
I grew up in California, near Monterey. We go back many generations here, so I feel very divorced from the history of the rest of the country. I grew up learning about Native Americans, the Spanish invasion, the Mexican attempted takeover and eventually when the whites came it was like ho hum. It is like history ended for me when the whites came and when we later became part of the United States. The cultures are so rich on the Monterey Peninsula that I felt like I lived in a bubble for most of my life.
Yes, I made the hand turkeys and the pilgrims. It was fascinating to me because it felt so foreign. It was like learning about another country. Hubby is from Kansas and sometimes in discussions we have a complete disconnect because his USA is so different from mine.
Thanksgiving to me is not at all about what happened in that foreign land back east. It is about tradition and family. My aunt and uncle had a turkey farm, so roasting a turkey was a big deal. They were always fresh and my aunt had certain dishes that became tradition and were only served at Thanksgiving and Christmas. My aunt is gone now, and I serve up some of those dishes to my family. The tradition of gathering and enjoying family (I am very lucky that we do enjoy getting together) carries on in my family.
So, to me, Thanksgiving is still about surviving immigration, as near and distant ancestors have done, but it is also about the survival of our family culture, our love of tradition and of each other.