Thursday, November 26, 2015

Thanksgiving




I continue to look on Thanksgiving as a simple harvest festival, rather than pretending to celebrate something connected with a group of people whose attitudes I consider odious. I'll feel thankful for all that Mother Nature offers us, every day, in spite of our careless mistreatment of her.

The Puritans who travelled, under great difficulty, to these shores from my own old homeland, England, were not a set of people I'd feel comfortable with. I pity the Native tribes who first encountered them. The English Puritans were religious fundamentalists of the worst sort. They disagreed with the rituals of the Church of England , and were victims of bigotry themselves, in their own homeland. But as abuse begets abuse, so bigotry begets bigotry, and they became, if possible even worse bigots than their abusers.


14 comments:

Vanilla Rose said...

Yes, I feel so ambiguous about wishing people a Happy Thanksgiving.

mike said...

Well-put, Twilight! Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, and Columbus Day go hand-in-hand...a celebration of the human dark-side...the dirty X-gene. Better to glorify our American history than to acknowledge the murder of indigenous tribes and the kidnapping-enslavement-relocation of global citizens for the good of a few "new world" founders. However, Europe and the globe have encountered the new order time and again over eons, so reaching the shores of America was a continuation of a long-held tradition, but with expanded boundaries.

The pillaging of people has always been accompanied by the rape of resources. We are in an oblique era currently. The magnitude is so great that the ouroboros of our ways provides rapid feed-back of our destructive expansion. We are bring-down the whole house now.

A Happy Thanksgiving to one and all...

Twilight said...

Vanilla Rose ~ Hi there! Yes, it's tricky! :-/

Twilight said...

mike ~ A quick scoot around news websites was depressing - lots of Trump (I wish they'd give it a break!) Nothing at all very uplifting.

If we erase the history from Thanksgiving there's still lots to be thankful for right now - right now before things get worse! I keep thinking of an old hymn we used to sing in school around this time of year (or a bit earlier in England). Just lines from the verses, without the religion bits, offer reason to be thankful:
For the beauty of the earth, For the beauty of the skies, For the love which from our birth over and around us lies......For the beauty of each hour of the day and of the night, Hill and vale and tree and flower, Sun and moon and stars of light......For the joy of human love, Brother, sister, parent, child, friends of earth, and friends above, For all gentle thoughts and mild....

Sonny G said...

I am Thankful for Ya'll... You add Joy to my day and knowledge to my mind, a laugh and a sometimes a tear.

so I'll say " Happy Thankful Day "

Sonny

mike (again) said...

Twilight, I'll see your poem and raise you by one Burroughs:

https://youtu.be/sLSveRGmpIE

Twilight said...

Sonny ~ I'm thankful for y'all also. :-)

Twilight said...

Mike (again) ~ Dang! Shall I go slit my wrists now or wait until later? That man had Sun in Aquarius too. Oh, but look at his chart - he has an overdose of Aquarius - that can do things to a person! A little of that goes a long way, I always say. ;-)
http://www.astro.com/astro-databank/Burroughs,_William


But, but, but...
With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.
(Desiderata)

Twilight said...

Here's a bright spot: Matthew McConaughey tweets that he is delivering meals on wheels today-- "meeting some wise and funny folks-- happy thanksgiving".

Imagine opening the door and finding Matthew standing there bearing turkey dinners - I'd say that'd be aw ri-ight aw ri-ight aw..right
:-D

mike (again) said...

All those planets of Burroughs in the 12th house, too, assuming his hour of birth is accurate! A bit peculiar, he really doesn't have what I would describe as an overly stressed chart. All those Aquarius planets make some decent angles to his Moon and Saturn. His "Thanksgiving 1989" poem is, mocking, morose, and excoriating, but perhaps best for a July 4th reading or election day. I confess that there are parts of the poem I enjoyed.

I'm pleased that your knowing Matthew was delivering meals, you are able to fantasize his knock on YOUR door...LOL. Don't forget about fixed star Maasym conjunct your natal Venus, bringing "dangerous passions".

Twilight said...

mike (again) ~ I wondered if I'd ever done a post on Burroughs - I know I'd considered it in the past - but no post. In searching I found him mentioned in a post featuring the writings of Sam Smith

Our society faces what William Burroughs called a biologic crisis -- "like being dead and not knowing it."

Then from Sam Smith -

Why bother? Only to be alive. Only to be real, to be made not just of what we acquire or our adherence to instruction, but of what we think and do of our own free will. Only, Winston Churchill said, to fight while there is still a small chance so we don't have to fight when there is none. Only to climb the rock face of risk and doubt in order to engage in the most extreme sport of all -- that of being a free and conscious human. Free and conscious even in a society that seems determined to reduce our lives to a barren pair of mandatory functions: compliance and consumption.

Life is a endless pick-up game between hope and despair, understanding and doubt, crisis and resolution.


LOL! Yes, but with my luck, if we ever have to rely on meals on wheels, we'd likely get a younger version of James Inhofe delivering 'em on Thanksgiving. Oh, but then I could tell him "Thanksgiving? Oh no - that's just a hoax!" :-(

Twilight said...

Link to that post

http://twilightstarsong.blogspot.com/2012/10/paradigmatic.html

mike (again) said...

You've done several on Burroughs; I remember the last two:

http://twilightstarsong.blogspot.com/2015/01/arty-farty-friday-brion-gysin-william-s.html

http://twilightstarsong.blogspot.com/2015/02/born-5-feb-adlai-stevenson-william-s.html

http://twilightstarsong.blogspot.com/2009/05/arty-farty-friday-celebrity-art_22.html

And he's mentioned in several others:
http://twilightstarsong.blogspot.com/search?q=william+burroughs

Twilight said...

mike (again) ~ Oh...well, thank you! I thought I'd done something on him somewhere in the past - but was just rushing through tags carelessly. :-)