RITUALS CONTAIN MULTITUDES ...
Some of our dearest seasonal traditions are treated with sacred care (however you might define that in your particular household - for although the word 'sacred' has religious foundations, it has also expanded to a secular meaning for anything that we assign great reverence or respect).
On the other hand, many rituals occur through the force of social momentum, and are often undertaken through something closer to habit, arrived at with little understanding or recognition as to the why of what is happening.
This might be a familiar feeling to you around many holidays or other social gatherings or customs. For us, none more so than the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States, whose very origin is foundational to American myth-making, and therefore embodies the deepest of conflicts: a denial of truth that plays out in continued harm well beyond one day in November.
As Gina Lorubbio of Heirloom Food Project put it so aptly last year, "Thanksgiving seems to be the only holiday where we have food traditions rooted in a deep sense of place, season, and gratitude for the miracle of food."
Yet what we know of this holiday is inaccurate, incomplete, and - in the end - very little, compared to what we know of many other moments in history. The meaning of Thanksgiving has become more of a self-fulfilling story about an idea the founders of the United States had about themselves. Many cling to it out of a sense of nostalgia or joy, and perhaps a dim awareness that to do otherwise is to confront a grief so uncomfortable, we would find it hard to know what to do next.
Our own thinking around this holiday, tinged with Gina's insights about the importance of food culture, has resulted in a feeling of bewilderment. But we have wondered: if that bewilderment didn't live alongside intense grief, would we be so paralyzed by it?
My typical reaction to bewilderment is to seek out a way forward, starting with learning and understanding. In the last few weeks, the words 'truth' and 'reconciliation' have come up in my mind repeatedly. And although there is a history of formal truth and reconciliation commissions, offering much to learn from, and Canada has gone so far as to create a national Day for Truth and Reconciliation on September 30 each year, I have been thinking about what it must feel like on an individual level to wait for one's governing bodies to address what feels so urgent and immediate.
Truth and reconciliation may contain multitudes, as well. Truth and reconciliation means what it means to you. How will you address truth in your daily life, in your sacred rituals, and in the habits that you can bring your awareness to, and seek to change?
We'll be thinking about this with you throughout the week, with the help of a series of posts that Gina has created to share with us, inspired by her Thanksgiving rethinking in 2020. We hope these questions and thoughts will provide resources and support for those who are uncertain how - but desperately seeking a way - to pause in the midst of the Thanksgiving rituals that are carrying us along without the reverence or respect we feel called to witness.
And in the most brilliant and boiled-down terms, as always: Nikole Hannah Jones. May we all learn to experience the glory and share the burden.
In gratitude for this community,
Dor + Tay
photo of Saeed Mahmoud picking an apple from his orchard on the border of Iran and the Kurdistan region of Iraq by photojournalist Emily Garthwaite
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