Events | A Dark Thanksgiving

It is again that time of the year. It starts from the last Thursday of November when the US celebrates Thanksgiving which marks the apotheosis of consumerist culture, culminating in Christmas, now known as holiday season, when the festival of lights turns into the shopping malls pseudocomforting bright cheap hallways.

Somehow my personal situation is a mirror of the socio-political context: darkness and anxiety lead to the fear of losing control of basic rights. My divorce is horrific, constellated by encounters with human nature at its lowest, dominated by greed, narcissism, deception,mental cruelty: my husband, his family and their money. They have been so powerful to even buy my daughters. 

Uncannily even the usually cheerful balloons from the Macy's Thanksgiving parade have a gloomy. dark appearance. Signs of the times?

However there a few things I can be thankful for: a relative good health, resilience, and the means of reinventing my life. finding new friends and meaningful relationships. Perhaps it is just the darkness of the night to give the balloons a gloomy appearance and tomorrow sunlight will cherish the usual yearly extravaganza.

Being Thankful For...

The dreaded time  has arrived announced by the Thanksgiving dysfunctional family gatherings and consumeristic madness. This year I am on the other side of the planet, where, thankfully, there is no such holiday. It has been a challenging year, dealing with bullying and abuse with almost no support. Being in such far-away place brings healing and quiet.
After all, this year I have something important for being thankful: resiliance, standing strong during the several cowardly attacks, keeping positive behavior...and no loosing faith about angels, that, do exist.

Thanks Geelong for bringing peace and rest with your sun bathed shimmering waterfront.

Thoughts | Giving Thanks

Today, across the Pacific in the northern hemisphere, people travel hundreds, perhaps thousands, kilometers to gather with families and friends to celebrate Thanksgiving. Usually this holiday represents for me the approach of winter, and the feared holiday season: the apotheosis of consumerism announced by the black Friday madness —as well as  the beginning of overeating and over-drinking to cope with family dysfunctionality. And of course Thanksgiving day is also about the hyperreal Thanksgiving Macy's Parade  which I am able to witness on first line, as my home is one block away. But this year while I am remote from all the above, in a faraway country, Thanksgiving day offers some moments of quiet time and reflection. 

And right today I have a major reason to be thankful: it is the first almost pain-free day in over four weeks! And the anticipated return to one of my favorite endorphins releasing activity —power walking— makes me compile a list for the many things,I am thankful for, some given for granted, until we loose them, like walking.

I am thankful for: 

• walking pain free again;  
• good health;
• inner strength which always prevails on my fragility
• a comfortable home I will return to next week
• the "angels" I always encounter in the moments when they are most needed
• a yoga practice which has been my faithful companion for several years
• using creativity and art as survival means in the most difficult situations
• finding a soft spot between a rock and hard place
  

It has been a tough year, adventuring in this research project on the other side of the planet. A research I truly believe in, which has encountered so many obstacles. I have been facing solitude and marginalization, found myself in a disability condition without a support system. Yet I was able to endure as challenges of different nature intersect my path. I am still here, pursuing something I believe in: I am not giving up is what I decided when purchasing a return flight ticket.

NAMASTE

Tales from Hyperreality: Macy's Thanksgiving Parade

It is again the time of the year...

When over 40 million of American travel over 50 miles or more from their homes. In the same day $282 million worth of food will be wasted, according to the NRDC (National Resource Defense Council). The day after is "black Friday" which is not the title of a horror movie but the day when several hundred million of shoppers (226 millions in 2011) floods shopping malls, retail outlets, or cybershops.

In this surreal apotheosis of consumerism I try to relax and, as always, enjoy recording the most grandiose spectacle extravaganza of consumerism: the Macys Thanksgiving Day Parade. Over 100 feet high cartoon characters float in the Manhattan skyline, cheered by hundred thousand spectators: it is only three weeks after hurricane winds roared over Manhattan and in this unseasonably warm day (what's new?) and New York city seems to be fully back to its relentless rhythms.