Due to schedules our family will be celebrating Thanksgiving this evening with a feast. We will have close friends and loved ones sitting around the table with us, and we will celebrate freedom and gratitude for all that life has gifted us. And although this is my primary focus whenever I celebrate Thanksgiving, whether it be in October for the Canadian one, or November with our youngest who returns from California for her chance to celebrate; I can’t help but feel a little bit sad for all the damage we, white people, have done along the way. Reading about Standing Rock, and how we’re repeating a bad part of our history all over again, attempting to take what isn’t ours, using force, and brutality to do it has me meditating on how “we” need to take “no” for an answer, and how “we” need to honor those who already live on the land.

I mean, if somebody were to decide that they wanted to come and live in my house, or take over my property to run a pipeline, or something that I didn’t want, would I stand idly by and simply allow them to do so?

No. No I would not. With this in mind we also should not stand idly by and allow government and big money to disrupt the land/homes of thousands of people just because we want what we want. We’ve done this in the past and it was the wrong way back then, we’re supposedly more “evolved” now which makes this sort of behavior even more despicable. It is 2016 after all people, let’s not do this again, not now. We must stand together against racism, hatred and greed. Nobody can fight alone.

Alone

Lying, thinking
Last night
How to find my soul a home
Where water is not thirsty
And bread loaf is not stone
I came up with one thing
And I don’t believe I’m wrong
That nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

There are some millionaires
With money they can’t use
Their wives run round like banshees
Their children sing the blues
They’ve got expensive doctors
To cure their hearts of stone.
But nobody
No, nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Now if you listen closely
I’ll tell you what I know
Storm clouds are gathering
The wind is gonna blow
The race of man is suffering
And I can hear the moan,
‘Cause nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.