Thanks Giving

 In the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address ~ the “words before all else” ~ greetings and gratitude are given to the natural world. Thanks and honor are offered to the earth mother, the waters and their fish, the food plants and medicinal herbs, to the animals, trees, birds and the four winds, to the sun, grandmother moon, the stars, and the creator.[i] This prayer of gratitude opens all gatherings and ceremonies; these words of thanks are indeed “the words before all else.” When we practice this thanks-giving daily, we learn that the one who gives thanks is blessed in a miraculous way. The transformative grace of gratitude permeates the mind and the heart, it heals the body and soul.  It fosters balanced communities and lays a foundation of peace.  Let us learn that Thanksgiving need not come once a year, but can be a way of life.

 

The following poem, from my book A Litany of Wild Graces,[ii] is a prayer of thanks-giving.

 

Autumn Light

 

Daylight’s eve,

autumn forest beeches

slowly give way to splendor

day by day surrender

            cinnamon

            copper

            beaten gold

drench down each leaf

stem to tip.

Chlorophyll’s emerald

summer display recedes,

beech roots sprawl

wide and shallow,

dense thickets of

root-sprouted seedlings

lean close, clinging.

Oak sapling’s outsized leaves

leap out red,

shouting…look…look…

 

Autumn evening light

~ radiant ~

pours honey thick

upon late fall begonias,

betrays their open green trust

as mercury drops

now one degree, now another.

Solomon’s seal

in balanced wisdom

has decreed

a trove of gold-leaf

carried on a clear white moon.

 

 

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[i] Click here to find a luminous rendering of this primary prayer of the Haudenosaunee people:  https://danceforallpeople.com/haudenosaunee-thanksgiving-address/

[ii] Order a copy here https://bookshop.org/p/books/a-litany-of-wild-graces-meditations-on-sacred-ecology-sharifa-oppenheimer/18375938?ean=9781954744622