On a quiet Monday morning in the Onondaga Reserve, in New York, the week begins with words of thanks. The Thanksgiving Address, or in the language of the Haudenosaunee, The Words That Come Before All Else, is spoken aloud. Not as ritual for ritual’s sake, but as a deep breath of belonging. Learning about it in Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass felt like a soft reorientation towards gratitude and abundance.
The Thanksgiving Address is the central prayer of the Haudenosaunee, but it is not directed to a single deity. It is an offering of gratitude to the entire web of life: the people, the earth, the waters, the plants, the animals, the winds, the sun, the moon, the stars. Each one named. Each one thanked.
Many Indigenous communities have similar practices of opening every meeting, council, and ceremony with words of gratitude for the gifts of the World. Like many of these, the Thanksgiving Address teaches mutual respect, conservation, love, generosity, and reciprocity.
I would like to include here the opening section, but for the full text, the Great River Rapport has an incredible version with drawings by Victoria Ransom.
The People
Today we have gathered and we see that the cycles of life continue. We have been given the
duty to live in balance and harmony with each other and all living things. So now, we bring our
minds together as one as we give greetings and thanks to each other as people.
Now our minds are one.
━━━━━•°•°•❈•°•°•━━━━━
These words are also political. In a world shaped by consumption, competition, and craving, this kind of contentment is a quiet revolution.
𖦹 Recognizing abundance rather than scarcity undermines an economy that thrives by creating unmet desires. Gratitude cultivates an ethic of fullness, but the economy needs emptiness. The Thanksgiving Address reminds you that you already have everything you need. 𖦹
In this economy of desire, we are told we are never enough. That we do not have enough. That we must chase more. But the Thanksgiving Address says: you already have everything you need. The water still flows. The trees still breathe. The sun still warms. We are surrounded by givers.
━━━━━•°•°•❈•°•°•━━━━━
An important of part of the Thanksgiving Address is that the text changes with the speaker, so there is no official version of it. Still, the version I was introduced to is the widely-publicised version of John Stokes and Kanawahientum. Yoou can learn more about it on this wonderful video made by Stokes (Thanksgiving Recitation begins at 9:23).
I want to be clear that this is not my tradition, and I do not want to come across as preching about a culture I know nothing about. But reading the Address felt like being invited to reflect how can I, in my very much Western life, invite more gratefulness into my life? The Thanksgiving Address isn’t about pretending everything is fine, or letting yourself soak in urgency and outrage. This invitation to practice attention and humility in the face of all the gifts we have, I think, allows whatever decision taken after the Address is said automatically roots them in a deep sense of gratefulness. And I have realized that I am smarter when I am grateful.
Leave a Reply