It’s Monday morning. The sun has yet to rise where I live. It’s near frosted overnight at the elevation where I live. That will likely come later this week. These colors, these natural changes in the trees (above, from my neighborhood), continue to delight and amaze.
This day is named in several ways for me. One name is Canadian Thanksgiving. It conjures images of Thanksgivings past — with family, with grandparents. I celebrated this yesterday with a turkey dinner prepared by me, my sons, and my daughter in law. This included yummy sweet potatoes that honor a recipe created by my mom and grandmother.
Another name is harvest. There is something alchemically important in this turning of season from fall to winter. There is something important about the inner reflecting that any of us do, harvesting learning and celebrating connection that integrates us to next layers of being.
Another name is Indigenous People’s Day. It’s movement by current US Administration to more formally acknowledge inhabitants of North America that preceded Columbus and other European settlers and colonizers. It’s attempt to be in truth-telling.
And it’s also a birthday week for me. Friday I move to another year of naming how old I am. It was fun to receive gifts from my family yesterday, combining our Thanksgiving meal with birthday.
I feel much celebration at this time of year. Some deep inner stuff. And also, I feel life’s sorrows. Life’s unresolvedness. I continue to learn with the turning of years that being able to be with all of it without diminishing sweetness or challenge, is part of wisdom.
As my friend Katharine Weinman shared in her recent blogpost, a harvest from Joanna Macy, “May we love it all, and let life through in the biggest doorway of our being.”
I’m grateful for the wisdom that invites this biggest doorway.
