Gratitude And Mixed Emotion: My Thanksgiving Evolution Is Still In Process

Tomorrow (well today, since I’m ten minutes late in getting this posted) is Thanksgiving in the United States. I’ve had mixed feelings about it since the February 2017 raid on Standing Rock where Regina Brave made her treaty stand. After watching MRAPs coming down a muddy, snowy hill to confront a Lakota grandmother and Navy veteran on Unicorn Riot’s livestream, it was hard to go back to being a parade bystander. It didn’t feel right watching the Major Drumstick float go by as we took in drum corps performances and waited for Santa to make his appearance on the Ben Franklin Parkway, officially opening the season of holiday excess. To be honest, I was kind of a downer.

Six years later, I have more life experience and clarity around cognitive domain management, identity politics, prediction modeling, and the strategic use of drama and trauma. I sense now that Standing Rock was likely part of an unfolding spectacle that was intended to set the stage for the use of indigenous identity as cover for faux green sustainability markets linked to web3 natural capital – the rights of nature literally tethered to digital ledgers in the name of equity and acknowledgement of past harms.

That is not to say protester concerns around the threats of pipelines to water systems weren’t valid. They were. It is not to dismiss the injustice of broken treaties, to diminish the horror of violence waged against native bodies, to undermine authentic efforts towards being in right relationship with the Earth and one another. No, the reasons people came to Standing Rock mattered. They did, but I expect few who participated would have ever realized the community that arose on that icy riverbank was viewed by myriad analysts as an emergent complex system, an extremely valuable case study at a time when we were on the cusp of AI swarm intelligence and cognitive warfare.

I’d come to know a man through my education activism who was there on the day of the raid, a person I considered a friend and mentor. We’ve drifted apart since the lockdowns. Such digital entanglements now seem pervasive and ephemeral. Were we really friends? Was it an act? In some extended reality play? Part of some larger campaign meant to position us where we were supposed to be years hence? I don’t think we’re meant to know. Perhaps like “degrees of freedom,” “degrees of uncertainty” are baked into the “many-worlds” equations humming within the data center infrastructure spewing out today’s digital twin multiverses. In any event, his research opened the door of my mind to the quiet, devastating treachery of social impact finance as well as the vital importance of indigenous spiritual practice and sovereignty. His ties to Utah’s complex and troubled history, a place that birthed virtual worlds of encrypted teapots under craggy mountains soaked in radioactive star dust on the shores of crystalline salt lakes sitting atop vast stores of transmitting copper ore, spun me into the space where I am now.

Looking back I held a simmering anger that hurt my family in ways I did not realize. It was probably an energetic frequency. We didn’t talk about it. We didn’t argue. Everything was fine, until lockdowns happened and suddenly it wasn’t. I felt betrayed having been what I considered a “good citizen” doing all the right things for so many decades and then abruptly having the scales fall from my eyes. This culture to which I had been habituated wasn’t at all what I thought it was. Nonetheless we were supposed to continue to perform our assigned roles as if nothing had changed. As long as we kept saying the assigned lines, things in middle-class progressive America would be ok. I was expected to paper over the rifts that were opening up in reality as I had known it, tuck away my disenchantment, my questions. Once one domino fell, they would all go, and that would be incredibly painful to everyone around me. And anyway, I didn’t have an answer that would reconcile the inconsistencies ready in my back pocket. There was a sad logic in it. If there was no easy fix, why wreck the status quo? Surely that wasn’t doing anyone any favors, right?

Nothing turned out like I thought it would. Suddenly, I was a planner without a plan. Today I have lots more information, and if anything, I recognize that I know less than I need to – that is than my mind needs to. In a world of information you can never pin it all down, organize it, make sense of it from an intellectual standpoint. But maybe it’s time to lead with the heart, at least that’s what all the techno-bros are saying. Maybe I should just shrug and let Sophia the robot guide me into some transformative meditation? Well, probably not. And I’ll pass on the Deepak Chopra wellness app, too. I foresee a future where rocks and water and trees are my partners in biophotonic exchange. At least that is what feels right for now. Patience.

For the moment I am on my own. I still love my small family with all my heart, and I really miss my dad every day. I have his watch with the scent of his Polo cologne on the band. It makes me tear up, a mix of poignant loss, and remembering hugs in his strong arms. It’s funny since I seem to have fallen outside of “civilized” time now. The days all run into one another and mostly I’m just aware of the contours of the seasons as I wait for the next phase of my life to start in the spring. Oh, that watch – there is a sense of irony in the universe for sure, a trickster energy I have to learn to appreciate more.

I have a small turkey brining in the fridge. I’ll be eating alone, but that’s ok. I don’t feel pressured to make all the fixings – sweet potatoes and broccoli will be fine. Maybe this weekend I’ll make an apple pie, my dad’s favorite. I’m downsizing. I’m leaning into less is more. I’m going to work on seeing playfulness in the world and practicing ways to embody the type of consciousness that might bring more of it in. I have a new friend, we’ll just say my Snake Medicine Show buddy who has been practicing this art for many years in a quest to move into right relationship and, well maybe vanquish is too strong a word, but at least neutralize what she calls the McKracken consciousness. She’s the kind of fun friend you want to have around to riff off of one another. I’m fortunate to have a small group of people in my life who despite my oddities manage to vibe with far-out concepts that stretch well beyond not only the norm, but a lot of the alternative modes of thinking. We are learning, together.

So for tomorrow I will concentrate on being grateful. Indigenous worldviews center gratitude. In spite of all of the disruptions to my year, I still have many blessings. Those who read my blog and watch my long videos, I count you among them. Thank you. Below is the stream we ran last night. It is the first in what will probably be an ongoing series about our trip from Colorado to Arkansas and back. My relocation plans are centered around Hot Springs now, so if you are in the area or have insight, do send them my way. I will include a map I made that weaves together photos from the trip and historical materials. You can access the interactive version here. Underneath I’m sharing a write up I did of insights gifted to me by my Snake Medicine Show friend. I love new tools for my toolbox. Maybe you will find it helpful on your journey.

Much love to you all; we are a wonderous work in progress, each and every one.

My summary of insights from Snake Medicine Show who gifted me with a guest post last December. You can read her lively linguistic offering, Emotional Emancipation – A Prayer of Proclamation, here.

We’ve been conditioned to perceive the world from a perspective that prioritizes matter. Such a view reduces our lived experience to leaderboards where our value is measured by the things we acquire objects, stuff, credentials, prestige. And yet an open invitation has been extended. We can try on different lens. What if we shift our worldview to center the dynamic potential of energy in motion. Rather than getting entangled by inconsequential nodes popping up here and there within the universe’s vast current, we can join as partners in a cosmic dance of fluid motion and unlimited possibility.

As authentic beings, grounded in truth, attuned to nature and the wonders of cosmic creation, we have the opportunity to dip into that current and reflect imaginative constructs into our shared reality. We are prisms of abundance.

The sea of shared consciousness is mutable, playful, and emergent. We can invite ideas into this dimension. However, once we do so, we have the responsibility to nurture them by giving them focused attention. Through creative partnerships, we can bring more energy to the process than we can acting on our own. As dancers in the current we hold space together, wombs to sustain modes of being beyond our conditioned expectations. We can choose to be patient and await what unfolds.

With proper tuning we will encounter guidance, grace, that directs us towards actions furthering a larger purpose. We many not even be fully aware of what that purpose is. As playful co-creators we should have faith and hold space for circuits to connect, activating the generative feedback that can begin to heal zero-sum consciousness. Mingle our unique bioenergetic frequencies with the understanding that resonant harmonies will guide sacred signals to the right receptor(s). It doesn’t take much to activate healing, just the right amount.

Show up with right relationship and the current will meet us there. We don’t need to know the right time or place; we just need to embody the right tune.