11/27/2025
I love this time of year, the coming together, the earth abundance, the fall colors, the crunch and slide of dried leaves beneath my feet. The feasting, hosting loved ones in our sunlit home on this pleasantly cool fall day, yard games, cinnamon apple pie and ice cream delicious laughter into the night. At the same time the stolen land, the buried culture, the reality for those who have called this land home for thousands of years who have not been given their land back or received any kind of reparations; the stolen and sold people who built America, padding the pockets of their abusers whose descendants still sit on those laurels soaked in blood; the abhorrent treatment of immigrants, sanctioned, enacted and escalated by the current powers that be; the version of Thanksgiving I was taught in public school, violent in the lies that continue to be upheld.
There are so many layers, always. Naming them feels important to me.
For this Thanksgiving gathering which my family will be celebrating on ancestral & unceded Catabwa Land, I ask the question of myself and as hosts- how to best honor and celebrate the diversity of the human experience, personally and culturally including the immigrants that make America what it is. I also ask how to best honor the indigenous people and life ways which actively work to preserve our planet for future generations despite the systemic oppression they face throughout the world and in the settler colony that is America.
Gratitude is always a good thing. Gratitude in the presence of historical honesty and truth is even better. I and we here at Wild River Wellness wish you and your loved ones good health, rest, safety, pleasure, nourishment and gratitude for all that you love and all that sustains you this holiday season.
