Thanksgiving

Indian Corn 2 by Alessandra Cimatti. You can use this link to see this and her other work.

This is the time of year where no one should go hungry. Though the large majority of us have the means to keep ourselves well fed, we hunger for something more. Whether it’s familial, material, spiritual or just a sense that something’s missing, this “lack of” manifests itself as anything from mild hunger pangs in the form of dissatisfaction or “not feeling right” to an insatiable growling of envy, depression or needless striving. Some of us stuff ourselves with material items believing they can fill that void, others move briskly from quick fix to quick fix never realizing that all this movement is like eating sugar – it may seem sweet going in, but it leaves us over stimulated and ultimately unsatisfied. Paradoxically, through our continued consumption we end up bloated and undernourished.

Through this whole process, this never ending meal called life, we forget how much we already have, how little we truly need and most of all, to be thankful. Gratitude is comfort food; it sticks to our ribs and satiates us. Gratitude certainly won’t solve all of our problems and it does not mean “bad” things won’t happen to us, but it does help us to appreciate what we do have, and it’s usually much more than we thought. When thankfulness enters our consciousness, contentedness can follow. It’s with this in mind that we encourage you to give thanks for the abundance in your life. Pull up to the table for some down-OM cookin’ and dig in!

Love After Love
by Derek Walcott

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.