11/23/2025
For me, the holidays can bring such joy AND such grief…and variegated emotions in between. This year feels particularly contemplative for me. The witnessing of so much loss of life, of jobs, of health. The experiencing of great fragility, of great empathy, of great pain.
Feeling through it all versus around it can be one of the best ways to bring awareness to the whys for me. One of the great advantages to awareness is the choice to take action or not.
Can’t change what one isn’t aware of.
Which brings me to Thanksgiving and all the joyful memories and melancholy also. Having the gift to be able to live on land in the Waccamaw Neck that was first primarily inhabited by indigenous people, it’s understood that there will always be and has been collateral damage to what was before no matter the nations, culture, geography. The frustration and grief for me lies in what feels like a degree of lack of respect and remembering for what came before. Pausing to give thanks for the life that came before, albeit, subtle, can honor and help shift back some sense of balance to great imbalances. Nothing wrong with a celebration combined with a sensitivity that somewhere anguish, also, is being experienced.
The Wampanoag people in Massachusetts taught the European Settlers how to grow food and live off the land and survive only to be slaughtered years later to obtain more possessions and territory.
Similarly, our sacred land in Georgetown County greatly grew because of the slaves teaching the plantation owners how to cultivate rice and indigo and, as we know, innumerable casualties resulted from that as well.
Moving here in 1995, the realtor told us Georgetown County zoning regulations wouldn’t allow for extreme changes to the topography to maintain the ecosystem and natural landscape. My idealism kept me momentarily in denial. Soon, however, my gut acknowledged that our relocating here would be and is responsible for contributing to the ripple of change that decades later now feels, at times, like a tsunami. And, of course, the obvious votes that modified those zoning parameters, contributed to the huge shift too. If these are some of my musings, imagine the true locals witnessing this quaking.
The quality of life for many residents in our community has diminished. Expanding and growing has been said to be “inevitable”. And, even though there hasn’t been a “genocide” there has been insidious losses in other forms; generations of locals being forced out of family land because the tax structure has been recalibrated; clear cutting is now common to expedite building volume not creating quality; lack of infrastructure is seemingly not a priority with bottle necking and lethal outcomes on the roadways; little reverence for creating a tapestry to honor the old and introduce the new as a complement versus an interference.
Savannah, GA and Greenville, SC seem to have expanded with more ingenuity, inspiration and inclusiveness for a more balanced vision of bringing about residents, transplants and visitors into a more harmonious union.
Ultimately, gratitude is definitely the emotion from my heart today. Also, perhaps a smidge of guilt, too, for living here all these years and not personally being able to implement tangible change versus feeble observations.
May this be an invitation to join me at my virtual Thanksgiving table to contemplate, articulate and resuscitate a cornucopia of concerns. And, perhaps encourage those with the resources and positions to respond versus react; to create abundance in terms of community rather than cash.
May this also be an opportunity to thank the earth that held the sweet potato to fruition for my nourishment. And also thanking our various ancestors who have toiled throughout the globe and have laid foundations for growth with impeccable integrity and discernment. All cultures, historically, have experienced pain and suffering. Let’s embrace one another with an energetically respectful hug.
Whew! Lots to digest before taking my first bite of pumpkin pie!
Thankful for Georgetown County, SC where my house sits and even more thankful for where my home nests within.
Wishing all could feel that comfort and know that peace. 🕊️🍂💛
