it's that time of year again |
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This week is Thanksgiving in the United States, and many of us are preparing to have difficult conversations with family.
It's become a widespread joke in the dominant culture that "well Thanksgiving will be a mess." This time of year sees us gathering with family more than we have in other times, and in a polarized America that means that we are in the same space as people we are "supposed" to love that have voted against our basic human rights. This moves from fear of a group of people who don't share our beliefs in equity and justice into the possibility for interpersonal violence. Whether that violence is in microaggressions, harassment, verbal abuse, or in some cases physical abuse, people are bracing themselves.
If this is you, I hope that you are able to take a moment to pull a rune or a card, and keep that guidance close to your heart.
I have a theory. Beneath these anxieties lies a primal disconnect between ourselves and the land that we live on.
Animism - the belief that all things, including animals, plants, rocks, and even technology, have a distinct spiritual essence and are animated - urges us to reconnect with the land. It's hard to be an animist and to not develop relationship to natural spirits. There is also a deep grief that we inherit as a part of this process. When we recognize the enspirited natural world, it's hard to process how gravely we have insulted that world as humans.
I'm speaking from personal experience, of course, but it is something that I've heard reflected back to me from other people in the pagan community. Once you wake up to the beauty of interrelationships with the more-than-human world, we become horrified at the lifestyles we lead that perpetuate consumption culture and lead to climate change. We become more aware of the disconnect between ourselves and the natural world.
And I do think that we still have feelings and emotional needs that are connected to what the natural world around us is doing.
Thanksgiving comes at a time where there are a lot of changes happening in the natural world - it's Autumnal, death energy, shifting from the abundance of the harvest season into winter. Folk cultures have ways of managing this relationship emotionally. I would argue that many of the public rituals and holiday traditions are ways of honoring our relationship with the earth, and therefore they are ways of maintaining our emotional connection to the seasons and the times. But because of our disconnection with the land we don't have that outlet for grounding, and so we become unmoored.
On a human scale, Thanksgiving is also a relic of cultural mythology that is harmful to Indigenous people. The myth of Thanksgiving distances us from the brutal reality of colonization through sanitizing this early period of American history. This feeds into the egregore of American identity. An egregore is a concept in Western esotericism of a non-physical entity or thoughtform that arises from the collective thoughts and emotions of a distinct group of individuals. And the myth of Thanksgiving and Black Friday is a powerful one.
What is a nation without an agreed upon, imagined identity?
The Thanksgiving story is just that - a story. According to the National Museum of the American Indian, the "first Thanksgiving" story dates to the mid-1800s, when English accounts of the 1621 harvest event resurfaced and fueled the American imagination. Later, Abraham Lincoln made Thanksgiving a national holiday, encouraging families to come together after the Civil War tore them apart. The story dovetailed with articles that supported the idea of Manifest Destiny - as in, it is the right of white people (especially Christians) to continue to move West and push Native people onto reservations and actively steal their land.
Manifest Destiny was the justification of the continuing and escalating genocide of Native American peoples. If you are just learning about this term now, the Muwekma Ohlome Tribe has a succinct article on their website about its origins. It basically is the idea that Europeans who came to North America were "more advanced" than the Native peoples who already lived here, and that they were ordained by God to occupy their lands, and even that this would be good for native peoples.
In the 21st century Manifest Destiny has shifted to consumer capitalism. And Thanksgiving, as a foundational holiday within the myth of America, has also taken on this mantle. Black Friday sales are rampant, and there is so much pressure to buy buy buy. This extends the myth of Thanksgiving from one of colonization into capitalism, the two working in tandem. Colonization is the control and exploitation of land and people, and capitalism is selling those commodities back to the people for a high price.
Black Friday is not about the sharing of resources and knowledge: It highlights the competition for resources and the culture hooked on overconsumption. So really, this whole weekend plays into the egregore that is American dominant culture. Winona LaDuke refers to this as the Wendigo Economy in her talk with Nonviolence Radio: "The Wendigo economy, or the economy of a cannibal, one which destroys its mother. One which destroys every source of wealth upon which it would live."
Black Friday feels like the feast of this Wendigo Economy. It is a sacrifice made on the altar of capitalism, to ensure another year of high profits. Those who are in power are becoming even more wealthy even as the struggle becomes harder for those of us on the bottom. It is economics, and it is also a power dynamic.
But I want to offer some nuance as well, that we are not all one monolith under the crushing weight of the American economy. For many people, Black Friday sales are the only time in the year that they can afford certain things. I know that I have taken advantage of Black Friday sales as someone who has lived a very low-income life. I also know that for many small businesses this weekend is critical to ensure they are able to continue to stay in business - they call it "Black Friday" because for many small businesses, this is the weekend where they get out of the "red" (aka debt) from the year's operations.
My revulsion for the capitalist-colonialist holiday does not extend to these Small Business Owners who are trying to make ends meet or to the people who would not be able to afford certain items normally. These groups of people are engaging in survival tactics, and that is very different from a billionaire who is racing to steal as much profit as possible. The power differential is essential to note.
This weekend, think about how your Thanksgiving traditions may or may not be feeding these egregores. Is there a way that you can make offerings to more benevolent spirits? Is there a way that you can pay reparations, even if you are also in a position where you need to participate in sales for one reason or another? There is no easy way out, no path cleared.
Personally, I plan on donating 10% of all sales this weekend to the MN Indian Women's Sexual Assault Coalition. I'm not doing a sale for Lore - though I am participating in a Small Business Saturday market. If there are things that you wanted to purchase from Lore, great! This is a good weekend to do so! If you want to donate directly to the MN Indian Women's Sexual Assault Coalition, I encourage you to do so! They're linked here.
And if you want to shop at Lore, you can do so here.
I leave you with some journal prompts to help you navigate this weekend:
How can I practice gratitude for the land and my community in a meaningful way?
What does it mean to me to give thanks during this season?
What is happening in the natural world where I live, and how does that make me feel? How do I respond to it and interact with it?
If you have to participate in Black Friday for whatever reason, this one's for you: How can I spiritually offset my participation in Black Friday? What thoughtforms do I want to make offerings to (for ex: the egregore of collective action, anarchist utopia, etc.)?
What support am I able to provide to local Indigenous groups?
What are some positive actions that I can take toward a better world that don't cost any money?
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