GRATITUDE

Mt. Washington

It's that time of year when we're drawn to the well-laden table where we offer our gratitude, our thanks and our blessings.   My heart holds a bounty of good this November -- so unlike years past.  I stand reminded by the Wise Ones:  Things change. Conditions shift and nothing ever stays the same, no matter how stuck life might seem.

On Tuesday November 6, we voted at the Town House and then drove north.  For us, this election was clear-cut.  No questions.  No dithering.   The choices were black and white, and we voted black.   

We voted for what we value and cherish -- human rights, women's' rights, the environment, education, single payer healthcare, diversity, peace, the arts, economic justice, social justice, civil rights.   We voted for all those things the Republican platform threatened to end, abolish and corrupt.

Rather than sit home and endure the telephone invasion of PACs and candidates, we headed north into the vast and implacable beauty of the White Mountains.   It was a day for far vistas.  The trees were bare and the cold air cut clean to the bone.  Granite and fir were encased in snow and we counted more ducks than people, just as we had hoped.

Late that night and into the next day, I watched the numbers turn into victories.  New Hampshire scored a first and elected a woman governor and two women to the House of Representatives.  They join our two women senators to make an all-women Congressional team.   A first in U.S. history...

Even the power in our state legislature shifted, and the right-wing idiots with their guns and prejudices will be sent home in January.  Stay there.  Don't even think about coming back.

What irony!   Florida's electoral votes were irrelevant.  The Super Pacs did NOT prevail even with their billions of dollars.  Karl Rove made a spectacle of himself and Fox News.  Planned Parenthood lives on and we have another chance to reset the priorities of this nation.

During Thanksgiving grace, I added my quiet thoughts.  I am thankful for a renewed faith in people.  I feel hopeful and relieved, yet ready to act and raise my voice for what I love.    

And when I doubt my own heart, I'll head north again to where the natural world endures with her healing gifts and lessons, her mountains and snows,  trees and rivers, sun and shadows.