Happy Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving to me represents the beginning of the holiday season. A time to be grateful, times spent with family and friends, and, from my Italian heritage, time for lots of good food. Our family always gathers together on Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving is a wonderful day to take out your journal and spend some reflecting on what you are grateful for today. Think back over the past year and write down some obvious things to be grateful for, then dig deeper to discover what may not be as apparent.
One of our traditions is reading the prayer below. It was written by Chief Yellow Lark. He was a nineteenth-century medicine man of the Lakota Sioux.
Let Me Walk in Beauty
O Great Spirit,
whose voice I hear in the winds
and whose breath gives life to all the world,
hear me.
I am small and weak.
I need your strength and wisdom.
Let me walk in beauty
and let my eyes ever behold the red and purple sunset.
Make my hands respect the things you have made
and my ears grow sharp to hear you voice.
Make me wise so that I may understand the things
you have taught my people.
Let me learn the lessons you have hidden
in every leaf and rock.
I seek strength not to be greater than my brother or sister
but to fight my greatest enemy, myself.
Make me always ready
to come to you with clean hands and straight eyes
So when life fades as the fading sunset
my spirit may come to you without shame.
I wish you a very Happy Thanksgiving that is filled with love and gratitude.