Pluck of the Draw

With Thanksgiving approaching, many Americans are prepping for feasting, family time and football.  I would like to take a moment to shed some light on these traditions and put a new spin on them for those of you who are out growing them.  Feasting, fine.  Family time, great.  Football, whatever floats your boat.  But why do we fill our bodies and time with so much "stuffing?"  Consider for a moment why being thankful means we have to orchestrate an elaborate day of activity and eating?  Sure, there is a lot of value in ritual and tradition.  Ritual celebration has included abundance in many cultures for thousands of years.  But has something changed in these times we live in?  Explore these questions with me as we weave through the tapestry of the Thanksgiving tradition.

Why do we stuff ourselves?  An even more nagging question is why do we get pleasure out of stuffing a turkey first and then stuffing ourselves?  Am I just a bored and entitled Generation Xer or is my disdain for this tradition coming from a deeper root of wisdom coming to the surface?  So many of us from Generation X were labeled rebels and told that we were the great fall from the previous generation.  I had a government teacher in high school explain this to us as if it were just merely a study and wasn't implanted into our heads as a big fat "You suck."  Call me a rebel or entitled but I just do not see the value in over half of the traditions passed onto our generation and those that follow.  I would rather humbly spend Thanksgiving with True gratitude and all of the emotions that come along with it than to stuff myself into a numb state of following traditions that have been tainted by marketing and modern excesses.  I get no satisfaction from taking an animal's life, which is done in the most horrific of fashions these days, and lazing around with the boob tube.  Please do not mistake the bluntness of what I am saying for apathy or rudeness.  I just have a hard time wrapping my arms around something that is so blatantly excessive and out dated in a time when the first thing we all need to be doing is paring back for ourselves and our planet.

What has changed so much that we would buck the system of tradition and choose not to partake in a ritual that is seemingly so innocent?  First of all, the most glaring difference is that we are not living like people did in the past.  We live like it's Thanksgiving Day every day. So many of us spend insane amount of time planning and prepping food just so we can turn around and do it again 3 hours later.  And then there is the snacking.  How much of this time could be spent on humanitarian efforts?  Traditional feasting and celebration stemmed from cultures that did not live in excess and were able to truly benefit from the significance of the abundance.  Our culture is so out of balance I think it is time that we all start dialing back and taking a course correction very seriously.  The bounty of reward is in the spirit and once one begins to reap the benefits of that they can truly see the value.  Current Thanksgiving traditions begin to look, well, silly.

Family time.  Oh, how the American family dynamic has changed.  Sometimes it takes things breaking down before a new model can be built.  What about our real family?  We are all one big family and when we focus too much on our own little microcosm we miss the point.  Instead of sitting around obsessing over football, how about get out and really enjoy the Thanksgiving cornucopia of natural activities out there for us to do.  Moving our own bodies instead of watching others move theirs.  I suppose some can justify it by saying they hit the gym in the morning or went for a good run but this all a bit too compartmentalized for my liking.  Get creative with your family.  Suggest something new and creative.  I am particularly fond of spending time in nature.  Children flock to this type of stuff and flourish but its us adults who always hold them back.  We hold ourselves back.  Maybe we are all just children in bigger bodies who have been repressed.  Let yourself enjoy Thanksgiving like a child.

The last thing I would like to address is the turkey.  Can we just leave these poor animals alone?  They suffer so much this time of year and I would like to suggest that there is a direct link between the suffering of humanity and the suffering we impose on other living beings.  Not only do we ingest the energy of a creature that suffered immensely, never got to live out a full life with its family and probably suffered from neurological damage: we support a system of torture when we spend our money on animals for food.  When we ingest this energy it becomes a part of our chemical make up.  We become more unstable and less grounded.  Who knows what it is doing to our brains?   Did you know that wild turkeys can fly for short distances at speeds up to 55 miles per hour? On the ground they can reach speeds of 25 miles per hour. Domesticated turkeys usually weigh too much to be able to fly because they so fattened up.  In fact, many of them suffer from broken legs because they have been pushed so far from their natural state of being.  Kind of reminds us of some humans these days, huh? Benjamin Franklin wanted to make the wild turkey, not the Bald Eagle, the national bird of the United States.  How different would things be if he had succeeded?  Would we be dining on Bald Eagle for Thanksgiving?  Why do revere the Bald Eagle but slaughter and stomp the turkey?  I guess for the unfortunate turkey species they were handed the losing card in the "pluck" of the draw in a twisted and sad game we humans play to give our lives "meaning."

Do not be stunned by all of the suffering, confusion and inconsistencies of the world.  Step out of your trap and move into a higher level of awareness and kindness.  You can start small but keep your intention to progress.  If you take anything away from this please take a seed of compassion.  Take a small seed and plant it. With that I will leave you with a Buddhist parable:

COMPASSION (THE HIMALAYAN PARROT)

"In a thicket at the foot of the Himalayan Mountains there once lived a parrot together with many other animals and birds. One day a fire started in the thicket from the friction of bamboos in a strong wind and the birds and animals were in frightened confusion. The parrot, feeling compassion for their fright and suffering, and [remembering] the kindness he had received in the bamboo thicket where he could shelter himself, tried to do all he could to save them. He dipped himself in a pond nearby and flew over the fire and shook off the drops of water to extinguish the fire. He repeated this diligently with a heart of compassion [for all the animals in the thicket]. This spirit of compassion and self-sacrifice was noticed by a heavenly god who came down from the sky and said to the parrot: 'You have a gallant mind, but what good do you expect to accomplish by a few drops of water against this great fire?' The parrot answered: 'There is nothing that cannot be accomplished by the spirit of compassion and self-sacrifice. I will try over and over again and then over in the next life.' The great god was impressed by the parrot's spirit and they together extinguished the fire." (The Teaching of the Buddha)

BDK: 139

Sources:
http://www.dharmaweb.org/index.php/Thus_Have_I_Heard:_Buddhist_Parables_and_Stories
http://www.veganpeace.com/animal_facts/Turkeys.htm