LETTERS FROM HOME: SURROUNDED BY THANKSGIVING'S NEW WORLD BLESSINGS

Nov. 25, 1999Dear Adams family,The first winter in the New World took the lives of more than half the 110 Pilgrims and crew who left England in 1620. Some histories of the Pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving in America tell of an English-speaking Indian named Squanto who then taught the struggling immigrants to tap the maple trees and to plant Indian corn. The Pilgrims' next harvest was bounteous, and they celebrated by inviting Squanto and members of the Wampanoag confederacy to join them in a feast that lasted three days. Usually missing from the tale is the fact that Squanto, a member of the Wampanoag sub-tribe Patuxet, had been kidnapped by a European ship's captain and taken to Spain as a slave in 1614. Spanish monks bought and tried to "civilize" him. Eventually Squanto was freed and made his way to England, signing on as an interpreter for a British expedition to Newfoundland. But when he finally returned to Massachusetts, Squanto discovered that epidemics had killed his entire village. It's difficult to imagine how alone Squanto must have felt. When a member of the Iroquois Nation commits a terrible crime, the ultimate punishment is banishment. The person is denied any further relationship with the people and the land. The Iroquois believe a person must wither and die when disconnected from the people and place he came from. In a sense, Squanto had become a ghost. But his tragedy begat a blessing. The last Patuxet benevolently taught the Pilgrims living at the site of his deserted village the skills their village required to survive. He became sick and returned to live with the confederacy the next year.

The first Thanksgiving spent far from home is an event for everyone and not always a pleasant one. I was only a few weeks in Northern California when a very good reporter named Larry invited me and Norm, another new immigrant from Philadelphia, to Thanksgiving dinner. Larry's gorgeous girlfriend, Marsha, prepared everything edible Thanksgiving dreams are made of. Afterward, a game of Charades turned silly. I felt welcomed. As a stranger in your strangest of lands, I learned to prize that feeling.

It was there at your Thanksgiving table. Or rather tables. Looking around, I saw so many unrelated people you accepted as family. The world heals itself, I think, when we embrace each other, and especially ourselves.

At Thanksgiving, the Galway Kinnell poem I discovered the meaning of in Big Sur always stops by for a visit.

The budstands for all thingseven for those things that don't flower for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing.

Blessings hide among the injuries. Marsha left Larry, moved to Salt Lake City and married a poet. Broken-hearted and cynical, Larry descended Highway 101 to Steinbeck country and discovered a soul mate, a shamanic woman named Tisa, to play Thanksgiving games with. When Norm fell in love he decided to return to the East Coast to raise children. I came back to Missouri, reclaimed my place in my family and married a woman whose Indian name would be Full of Surprises.

The thanks go on.

The Iroquois observe a Cycle of Thanksgiving, a year-long series of rituals giving thanks for the bounty of the land, honoring the life-giving sun and the female energy embodied in the moon. They believe in a Creator of all life and believe a living spirit exists in all things animals, plants, minerals, water, the wind. They believe in giving thanks for this creation every day. So do I. DC and I send our love to your table today. Look around. We are surrounded by blessings.

Love, SamSam Blackwell is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.