It's easy to toss it back to the ancestors, talk about the genocide of 125 million aboriginal peoples, stolen land, revoked treaties but this is today 11.25.04 Thanksgiving here in the usa. I'm searching for gratefulness so I'll park the anger for now.

I'll even accept the Germanic root of the word thanks that traces it back to the root of the word, 'to think'. So if we think deep enough gratitude should be the bedrock emotion. First then we are thankful for the land, grateful to the ancestors that still live on in the soil, waters and sky.

As fallujia burns, questions of elections fraud and war crimes scorch. The truth that the face of America is one of meanness and intolerance stings, we still give thanks. We can restore the countenance of compassion and innovation being how America is seen. If you have to retreat to being grateful just to take a breath, then do it. Work up from there, as having a life still takes on more importance in a world filled with natural causes to die from like daisy cutter bombs (Iraq), starvation (Sudan), urban violence (urban usa) on and on.

So our thanks at first may be intellectual, a mental process, reminding us that yes there are probably a couple of billion people that would trade up for our drama at any time. In the throes of it all we should take a breath, show some of that gratefulness, and maybe spread it out to someone outside our normal circle.

Inside that circle of one-degree family let's send it out in a new way; make sure that those near you feel your sense of caring for them. It's never to late to break out of the grump and get supportive. The facts are in, even someone who witness you exercising you grateful muscle gains second hand.

Scientists say that displaying compassion and gratefulness raises the serotonin levels in the brain. This we know equals health and happiness. So maybe thanks giving at it's least and most self-centered is still a tool of health. Now more than ever, each one teach one, each one heal one.

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