Thanks~Giving

This day is Thanksgiving Day here in the US. And here I sit, safe and warm in my home..with my family around me...I am blessed and so very Thankful for this. I wasn't sure what to write today..the shadow of the attacks in the country that I love so much, for all of the death and sorrow and for all of the families who have now lost loved ones...innocent people going about their days...one minute they are here and the next...gone. So, in light of what we all know so far, I want to send out my Prayers and all of the Healing Energy that is inside of my being to all of those people in Mumbai....I will share an entry from one of my dear friends Tracey, and eloquent writer who says just what I cannot say..yet feel so much with all of heart....May we never take for granted that which we are blessed with.

"Fortunate are the people who reside on the banks of Ganga".

Yes, these people are fortunate, indeed.

For they live in the holiest of holy places in India - a place where people from all over India come to pilgrimage, bathe to wash away their sins, bury, cremate or spread the ashes of loved ones or to die themselves.

Many people in India save up for their entire lives, or go into masses of debt, for such a pilgrimage. People from all over the world like myself pay large sums of money to float silently on a boat in the early morning to drink in the beauty of the river and the color of its people - people who are laid back, happy to be here and lead a simple life without many of our western complications. Looking at it from this perspective, these people are quite fortunate indeed to live on the Ganga.

But many people would not see these people as fortunate - I reckon most Americans wouldn't see them this way at all. For while there is great beauty here there is also great peril. This river is heavily polluted. The traffic is bad. Varanasi is severely overpopulated, and the air pollution is so bad that it makes your tonsils shrink and the rate of lung cancer is high. People in these parts are are hungry, illiterate, extremely ill, dirty, crippled, dying, homeless, blackmailed into hard labor through dowries and other debts - and their laid-back attitude of going with the flow of life is simply because they don't have any other choice - there are no opportunities or choices in lifestyle, career, education, housing, health, family planning and other such luxuries that we consider necessities, or parts of life, in the west.

They simply go without and make do with what they have - and what they have is the Ganga.

I consider myself extremely fortunate - and you probably consider me, and yourself, extremely fortunate after reading the above peril.

But I wonder, would the people along the Ganga think us fortunate?

Let's take me for an example:

I'm an unmarried woman, 32 years old, with no marital prospects at this time. I have no children, no true sense of home (as I am renting out my place to travel more), and I basically lead a very disjointed, decentralized personal, professional and family life - I have traded a more stable situation for freedoms upon freedoms that the people along the Ganga have probably never even thought of - let alone wanted.

Yet I think it's fabulous - I wouldn't trade where I am in life for anything.

I have chosen (and would choose again) everything that I have right now. Yet, those along the Ganga would feel sorry for me for not having the attachments and cultural obligations that bring them such little choice - a situation that gives me a panic attack just thinking about it.Is one lifestyle better than the other?

Who is *really* more fortunate?The answer is that it is all in what *you* believe is best for you - and only you. After all, you are the one waking up every day and living your life.

You cannot live the lives of others - for their fortunes are also their choices and their perspectives. Being fortunate, being thankful, on this day is really all about your individual perspective - whether you live in poverty on the Ganga or temporarily in a nice cottage on Long Pond.

Today, I am fortunate not only for all the blessings that I have - my family, friends, good health for me and everyone else in my life, the choices I have, the opportunities and the wonderful freedom, but I'm also thankful for the perspective I have:

I am fortunate that I *feel* fortunate - for if you cannot see the good in your life, then there *is* no good in your life, no matter who or where you are.

I hope today on Thanksgiving you take some time to think about how fortunate you are - and may good blessings continue for you wherever you may be.