Thanksgiving, while being the brunt of any number of comedy skits and films about dysfunctional families, is still one of our favorite national holidays. Why else would this weekend have the most travelers of any weekend of the year at airports and on the highways? The famous Normal Rockwell painting with the beautiful burnished turkey and the family around the table is an icon in the minds of any American over the age of 50 at least!

Nourishment, enrichment, warmth, prosperity, home, family, safety, friends...it represents all that is "Earth" in Chinese medicine and in our idealized best world. And for some of us, it is a time to remember people who have supported us in the last year and what in our lives is worth being thankful for! So here's my list.

I'm thankful for the still breathtaking beauty of our lovely planet. The sunsets, oceans, forests, rolling plains, and endless, impossible profusion of plant and animal life.

I'm thankful for the opportunity to be useful in the world and do things that might help people (or other creatures)...even if only for a little while.

I'm thankful not to be hungry or cold.

I'm thankful that my parents were sane and well-meaning people who taught me how to work and who believed it was right to give back at least as much as you got from the world.

I'm thankful that humans have five senses to experience everything.

I'm thankful for colors, stories, cordoroy, silk, wool, fireplaces, warm Sake on a cold winter night, lilac bushes in May, the sound of crickets to sing me to sleep in July, maple trees in October, and chocolate all year round.

I'm thankful for great film-makers, stand-up comics, and music that can make me dance, or cry.

I'm thankful to live in a country where people can disagree vehemently about politics, but not come to blows (or worse).

I'm thankful that in our country (unlike most of the third world), we have traffic lights and people don't have to honk their horns all-at-the-same-time-and-every-10-seconds to drive through town!

Of course I'm thankful for my friends and family...as we all should be...and especially for my husband who loves me to distraction.

I'm thankful to the Chinese medical professional community who have embraced Blue Poppy and all we have offered as a company.

I'm thankful that acupuncture is the magical, effective treatment that it is.

I'm thankful that Cold Quell really works (and that Chinese herbal medicine in general is so effective).

Finally, I'm thankful for the faculty of consciousness itself...that which allows the whole crazy magical display to be experienced!

So what are you thankful for?

I'll close this little THKSGVG ramble with a quote from the Christian mystic, Meister Eckhart,

"If the only prayer you ever said in your life was 'thank you,' that would suffice."

Happy Thanksgiving to all our blog readers!