Subject: Friend, Happy (US) Thanksgiving! 🍂🍁✨👊

Dear Friend,

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday, gratitude is always worth celebrating!
But. The more I sit with the actual history behind the day and step back and consider the traditions I grew up with, the more I feel I also need to acknowledge a few things. For me, Covid has been a major reboot. I'm questioning more, and these days I'd rather accept uncomfortable truths rather than fool myself with comfortable fictions. My ostrich days are over.

So now I'm seeing Thanksgiving from two sides. One side is happy memories, laughter, and fun, making my mom's Louisiana cornbread stuffing and pan gravy, baking my famous chocolate pecan pie.

The other side is looking at these less happy truths: Native American people saved starving European immigrants, and so began the genocide of 50 million Native American and First Nation peoples. And now each year, we "celebrate" by slaughtering 50 million intelligent and loving beings, a.k.a. turkeys. To me, now, this sticks out as some bizarre kind of tragic symmetry. Even just last year, I still saw Thanksgiving through my old lens. We gain new awareness. We change. We grow.

I'm still planning to celebrate all the gratitude I feel this Thanksgiving. I am ETERNALLY grateful. I'll be celebrating as a vegan, as I have for 5 years. And I'll be celebrating with an acceptance of difficult truths. And doing so with more public support and acknowledgement for both animals and Indigenous peoples.

This year I'm a Turkey Guardian here: https://www.gentlebarn.org/turkey-guardian/ Turkeys are sweethearts! Love them, don't eat them.

And, this year I'm donating to the Adopt-a-Native-Elder program. They provide winter firewood, food, medical supplies/equipment, and weaving yarn to Navajo (Diné) elders in need. If you feel similarly inclined, they are an all-volunteer program rated 4 stars by Charity Navigator: https://anelder.org/

We have a lot to do to heal ourselves and our Mother Earth, and we'll never make it happen without facing what's real. Indigenous peoples, having always lived in oneness with the land, have known for tens of thousands of years what we need to learn now - how to live in harmony with our Earth and ALL her children.

Facing reality is often less fun than the happy things we would rather see. But I personally feel better, calmer, and more empowered choosing to face up to truths that were nagging at me for so long. We have complex issues to unwind, but to me, facing them squarely feels like I've grown up on some level. Simple pleasures of yesteryear may have a nostalgic allure, but the now moment is the only place of power for any of us, and for all of us.

I'm actually incredibly hopeful, we can be every bit as noble a species as we can be terrible. Working together, we can create a sustainable and inclusive world. We can love each other, feel gratitude, reach out and support others, and do this not just in spite of reality, but because of it.

Of all the blessings in my life, YOU are the dearest one of all. Sometimes I just sit and marvel at the wondrous light you shine. Sometimes I cry happy tears of gratitude. You make my journey possible, but far beyond that, you make it SO JOYOUS. Thank you. Thank you.

Wishing you a wonderful holiday season and new year. May you, your beloved ones, and all, be blessed, now and forever. May all have peace and abundance.

Love,
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