Thankful

I am thankful, and I mourn. I mourn for the devastation brought to Indigenous people by hordes of colonizing strangers. I mourn for the victims of the Sand Creek Massacre, who number in the hundreds, with over half of the victims being women and children, literally the future of the people. I mourn for the Old Ones killed in 1890 at Wounded Knee, half of which were women and children. They gathered at Wounded Knee, to dance for the future of their people.  

I am thankful for my wife, my family, and my friends. I am thankful for the amazing community of activists of many faith traditions, worldviews, and seeking paths with which I am engaged in meaningful work.  I am thankful that I have the ability and access to follow my calling, and pursue education towards that end. I am thankful that I have adequate food and shelter, and do not take that for granted. I am thankful that I am able to follow the spiritual traditions of my ancestors, a right that was denied to many of my ancestors when the practice of Native American "religion" was against the law. 

I am thankful for the beautiful abundance of creation, the ways in which Mother Earth arranges and rearranges herself fascinates and humbles me on a daily basis. I am thankful that my ancestors clung fiercely to their culture and their ways and that the inherent tenacity and integrity of Indigenous People is why we persist today. We are not gone... we are not "tamed." 

This year, I am particularly thankful that not EVERYBODY builds a celebration this "Thanksgiving", upon the bones of the dead.  
Igwein Gitchimanido!