There is a world day for almost everything and Thanksgiving is one for gratitude. Even though it is not celebrated in the whole world, I think it should be! The air waves, bloggers, every business, family, community and person I know thinks about, speaks about and writes about gratitude. And how important is that! Gratitude opens the soul to insight, love and wisdom. Gratefulness has it’s own kind of warmth.
Over the years I have come to love Thanksgiving very much! It seems that at no other time in the year are there so many people volunteering, helping, collecting food and extending themselves to others in the community. I love the dinners where we go around the table telling each other what we are grateful for. I love the fact that just before Advent and Christmas (I am most familiar with the Christian festivals) we have this relaxing time, a kind of breather filled with warmth and coziness, leading up to the more contemplative mid winter celebrations.
Certainly, as it is with all “world” days, including Mother’s day, wouldn’t it be nice if we could maintain this way of being every day of the year?
A year can be experienced in many ways. I have always lived in four season climates and have celebrated and reflected upon the Christian festivals. The years can be experienced like a spiral, again and again coming back to, lets say, Christmas but a notch higher, as on the spiral. Every Christmas is similar yet different. It is also very informative to see the Festivals on a circle. Then the height of summer and the depth of winter are opposite each other and every week in between is opposite each other as well. I have always loved looking at the year in this way because it sheds a new light on each Christian Festival and even each week of the year.
With the Yin and Yang concept in mind, every Christmas has a bit of summer in it and every summer a drop of Christmas. Images come to mind of blossoms opening wide to the sun’s rays and warmth contrasted by closed, rounded seeds in the safety of the ground potentized by summer’s energy. Or when the fireflies light up the summer nights and illuminate the trees, are you not reminded of Christmas? And in as much as we lose ourselves to the warmth and exhalation of the summer months, in the winter this summer light has been internalized; this is often symbolized by the candles we light expressing the thoughts and feelings we may have in this more internal part of the year. Someone much wiser than me said, “that the bird songs that rise up in the summer come down in the winter as the Christmas songs!” A magnificent thought pointing to another circle, an entirely audible circle of energy rising and energy descending.
In the circle of the year, Thanksgiving has as it’s opposite, the celebration of Whitsun/Pentecost which is the archetypal community experience. The original Whitsun experience of the disciples was that they suddenly all understood each other because an individualized flame of the larger Spirit had descended upon each one of them, allowing them to communicate and recognize their shared humanity.
What a beautiful thought to build a bridge from deeply felt individualized gratitude for family, friends, the harvest and good things in life at Thanksgiving, to creating, living and experiencing community in late Spring, where the best in each of us is seen and respected, attempting to create peace and understanding among all people.
You surely know what makes a day holy for you in the way you celebrate holidays.
So much lies in the ever renewed connection we make to the holidays which, for me anyway, inspires my preparations. The festivals are doorways and opportunities to connect with the year and the forces of the universe in ever deeper ways. Addressing our spirit, soul and body in a more conscious way during holidays, including the well deserved rest, is so wholesome and good for our health and well being.
May your holidays be blessed!
~Claudia
