Hi Friend,
For the past ten years, I have been creating some kind of public offering during the Thanksgiving season, exploring the complexity of this holiday, especially around decolonizing, storytellin,g and relating with land, family, nationhood, and history in different ways. Much of this has been done in partnership with Indigenous colleagues: talks and ceremonies and lots of articles and dialogues, and panel discussions. It has been an immensely rewarding experience. I dare say I've learned a few things.
This year, I offered a webinar on 'Thanksgiving as Origin Story', which included some of 'how Thanksgiving fits into the wider cosmo-vision expressed by the calendar of federally recognized holidays', for which I used a circular calendar (in part because that makes it much, much easier to understand than a 'normal' linear/square-based calendar!)
I had a lot of fun! If you are at all interested in Thanksgiving, or in Origin stories, or in circular time, then you can go ahead and get the free recording of that conversation here.
And I re-vamped our Resource Document on Thanksgiving.
Quite substantially.
It's now just over 50 pages! In some ways it is a collection of different ways of approaching and thinking about this holiday.
Anything more than 30 pages probably counts more as a 'booklet' than a 'document’!
And 50 pages, even pretty pages, with cool pictures and visual graphics, is a substantial document. (Yes, of course, putting this together took Michael - who does so much of our graphic design - and I a lot of time.)
It might very well be that it would benefit from being split into chunks. For some folks, that might be an easier format to engage with. Especially the week before Thanksgiving.
After some discussion about this with Krissy, we came up with the idea that I would send it out as a document that is in good shape... and not entirely finished. Don't get me wrong - it looks pretty good and reads pretty well and I think it has a lot of really interesting ideas, insights, frameworks, and supportive suggestions. I think many of you will really get a lot from at least a part of it, just as it is.
And, if you are so inclined, I would be delighted to hear what elements are most helpful for you. That will help me design something for next year. It would be great to know what elements are really helpful for you? What would you like more of or less of in the future? Would a series of smaller pieces be easier to engage with? Would a mixture of audio and written be helpful?
This year's version includes:
Some suggestions for 'doing things differently' (I lead with that)
Some history
Some (images of) original documents
A Note on using the Thanksgiving Address
Indigenous-led initiatives to which you can donate funds and/or lend various forms of support and resources
A substantial timeline
Resources - articles, books, movies, podcasts, etc. from many other sources. Including resources for children.
Here's the 2025 (free!) edition!
I do look forward to hearing how this works for you.
I am also encouraging folks to find ways to donate (finances, time, energy, etc.) to an Indigenous-led initiative this season. There are some specific suggestions in the booklet. I myself am gifting resources to Krissy's new organization, Strawberry Wisdom (first draft of website almost but not yet done), and to the Mohican Homelands organization, which is working on deepening relationality between the Mohican Peoples and their homelands in the Hudson Valley/Berkshires - ie, the region where I live. (After their Pow Wow in October there are some really cool things happening with them right now, mostly behind the scenes).
I hope this is a beautiful week for you, wherever it may take you!!!
Sara Jolena
P.S.- I so enjoyed creating the ‘Thanksgiving as Origin Story’ webinar using the circular calendar theme that I am going to do something similar for Christmas and New Years! Stay tuned!
Here's the 2025 (free!) edition!
