by Judith Gayle | Political Waves
Earlier this week, a friend mentioned she was pondering what she was thankful for this year and asked what my thoughts were. My thoughts, as are everyone’s during this stressful period, are a bit conflicted. Everything seems a tough slog on spongy terrain these days, and womping up enthusiasm for the rigors and expense of another hydra-headed holiday season — Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa and New Years, the trappings of which hit the store aisles in early September — feels burdensome and exhausting. Still, our formal day of thanksgiving continues to be a favorite of many, and certainly of the grocers of America. Were I to suggest we make Thanksgiving a day of contemplation and fasting and contribute the money we might spend feasting to whatever worthwhile cause pleases the heart, I’m pretty sure I’d get booed off the cyber-stage.
We’re tradition-bound in this country, which is both productive and nonproductive. Tradition is productive when respect for the principals upon which we were founded keep us grounded in reality and basic democratic virtues; it’s nonproductive when we fasten upon antiquated forms of social structure, the kind that must give way to growth and movement, with unyielding stubbornness, and so create fissures in both our evolving social contract and governance. With only two political choices in America — both too flirty with big money but the one not currently in power urging complete incest with all the hubristic bravado of a NAMBLA devotee — that’s the pendulum swing of the moment, the Baggers attempting to ride their wave of rebellion back through a century or two to “simpler” times. Or maybe we should just say “whiter” times, certainly more stubbornly patriarchal and obviously more classist. The irony is that those who want this regression so desperately don’t understand what it would actually mean for them, for their family or lifestyle, and there I find my first reason to be grateful this Thanksgiving.
Can we get out of our own way and allow, during this extraordinary time of transition, the ‘dead to bury the dead?’ What is no longer useful to our evolvement or responsible to our environment need not be resurrected and in fact needs deeper burying. I’m able to look forward into the future and see the kind of world we might make if we stopped beating tribal drums and putting ourselves first. I can feel the joy of what we might accomplish if we began to work with, and for, one another and the stability of our beautiful planet. And if you’ve gravitated to Planet Waves, my friend, then you can too. Essentially, we’re awake and aware of the system of pitfalls surrounding us. We’ve worked hard to get here, haven’t we? We’ve earned the blessing of standing in our power of choice about what to do, what to think, what to intend. Most importantly, knowing where we’re planting our feet makes all the difference when we’re walking through land mines.