Robin Wall Kimmerer on Thanksgiving

All powers have two sides, the power to create and the power to destroy. We must recognize them both, but invest our gifts on the side of creation.

When a language dies, so much more than words are lost. Language is the dwelling place of ideas that do not exist anywhere else. It is a prism through which to see the world.

Time is not a river running inexorably to the sea, but the sea itself⁠—its tides that appear and disappear, the fog that rises to become rain in a different river. All things that were will come again.

On Thanksgiving Day we acknowledge our dependence.

William Jennings Bryan1860–1925

Not what we say about our blessings, but how we use them, is the true measure of our thanksgiving.

What we’re really talking about is a wonderful day set aside on the fourth Thursday of November when no one diets. I mean, why else would they call it Thanksgiving?