By Stephen Dinan, founder and CEO of The Shift Network

I hope you and your loved ones have a beautiful Thanksgiving, and that you take the opportunity to experience gratitude for the many blessings in your life.

It’s so easy to focus on what’s missing in our lives or to get overwhelmed by all the tragedies and political chaos in the news and to take for granted the little everyday miracles — from safe drinking water to being able to communicate across the world with email or simply holding the hand of a loved one.

May we take the time to feel gratitude for blessings such as the basic needs of food, water, and shelter that hundreds of millions of people around the world are lacking. With our own abundance comes the responsibility to create a world that works for all by extending these blessings to more people.

On Thanksgiving, I also believe it’s important that we take some time to address the painful history of a holiday that celebrates pilgrims while we too often forget the past (and current) atrocities committed against Indigenous Peoples.

The Shift Network is deeply committed to our Indigenous brothers and sisters and sees their upliftment as essential for the larger healing of our world. That’s why we dedicated this issue to hearing more of their voices of wisdom, which carry important medicine for our time.

Our dear friend, Hereditary Chief Phil Lane Jr., has written a poignant and powerful article for this issue entitled “Understanding 500 Years of Colonization, With Thanksgiving.” We truly appreciate Brother Phil’s open and transparent personal reflections on a painful part of human history.

And Grandmother Sasa shares a beautiful audio message about healing the past and preparing the future for seven generations in part by recommending that every day be Thanksgiving. We are grateful to Brother Phil and Grandmother Sasa for their friendship and sharing of their wisdom and hearts with us.

We invite you to visit the free Indigenous Wisdom Library, a collection of audio and video interviews featuring Indigenous leaders from around the world sharing prayers, sacred songs, prophecies, spiritual teachings, and pathways to healing, as well as concrete examples for birthing a new era — one in which all members of the human family are treated with respect, understanding, compassion, and justice.

And be sure to check out all the session videos from our recent Global Indigenous Wisdom Summit 2018 on our Facebook video library page. These free resources were produced in partnership with our Indigenous brothers and sisters, who offer profound insights via hours of authentic interviews.

We also want to hear your ideas about a new initiative we’re exploring: creating in-person events where Shift community members can study transformative education materials together. Please take a moment to click here to watch this one-minute video, complete the survey, and receive your free gifts. We’ve heard from many community members that you’d like to meet each other in person — this is an opportunity for us to develop this vision together. Your input is greatly appreciated!

Finally, we want to remind you that November 20 is the United Nations Universal Children’s Day, a time to recommit ourselves to creating a better world for generations to come. (See Movement News to learn more, including how to access a free ebook, The Divine Child, by Emma Farr Rawlings.)

And before you delve into the illuminating articles, videos, and other content below, we’d love to hear your answer to the question, How has Indigenous wisdom deepened and enriched your life? To share your thoughts in our Facebook Page community, click here.

The Great Spirit is in all things: he is in the air we breathe. The Great Spirit is our Father, but the Earth is our Mother. She nourishes us; that which we put into the ground she returns to us.
— Big Thunder (Bedagi) Wabanaki, Algonquin

Understanding 500 Years of Colonization, With Thanksgiving
By Hereditary Chief Phil Lane Jr., Ihanktonwan Dakota and Chickasaw Nations

As a result of empires and kingdoms rising, colonizing, and falling over the last 4,000 years and even earlier, there are still deep sources of unresolved, intergenerational grief, trauma, internalized oppression, and lateral violence that continues to impact our human family even today. Therefore, to understand and heal the colonization of the past 500 years, it’s crucial to address the impacts of all the various forms of colonization, that we ourselves, as a human family, have inflicted on our own human family, due to what was inflicted on us in the process of colonization.

To read more, click here.

Ancestral Reconnection as a Journey of Cultural Healing and Repair
By Daniel Foor

Thinking about ancestors is not the same as relating. Just as money still owed to us doesn’t pay the bills and imagining food doesn’t fill our bellies, thinking about our ancestors is not the same as directly relating. We know this when it comes to connecting with other humans; if we don’t spend quality time, the relationship gradually dies out. It’s no different with the souls or spirits of the dead.

To read more, click here.

Our Salmon Are Priceless:
Canada's First Nation Rejects $1 Billion From Pipeline
First published on WhiteWolfPack.com

Canada’s Lax Kw’alaams show us how we can be saved: by loving the natural world and local living economies more than mere money and profit

Everything has a price. Everyone can be bought. We assume this principle is endemic to modern life — and that accepting it is most obvious to the impoverished. Except all over the world, people are defying it for a greater cause. That courage may be even more contagious.

Last year, following our modern principle, Petronas offered the First Nation an offer they imagined couldn’t be refused: in exchange for their support, a whopping $1.15 billion in cash. But put to a vote, the Lax Kw’alaams resoundingly said “no” — every single community member.

To read more, click here.

Cultivating Indestructible Gratitude
Audio talk by Mark Matousek

Happiness is not happiness that collapses at the first clue of darkness or pain. And the gratitude that we feel only when things are going hunky-dory isn’t the indestructible gratitude that we’re going to be talking about when considering the question of what it means to have enough, to be enough, and to be satisfied — deeply satisfied — with our own existence.

This definition of gratitude can be hard to take in sometimes, and part of the reason for that is that we live in a culture of insufficiency. It’s an addictive, acquisitive society where more is very often seen as better, and where striving and struggling and craving and reaching are the bywords of everyday life.

To listen to Mark’s talk, and to read the transcript, click here.

The Lens of Gratitude
Book excerpt from Through God’s Eyes By Phil Bolsta

Before long, expressing gratitude becomes a habit. Eventually, it becomes innate and you instinctively view every experience through the lens of gratitude.

If the only prayer you said in your whole life was,
“thank you,” that would suffice.
Meister Eckhart

To read more, click here.

A Special Thanksgiving Message from Grandmother Sasa, the Swan of the North

Grandmother Sasa shares beautiful insights on the importance of making every day Thanksgiving in these turbulent times. She also shares poignant reflections on healing the past traumas caused to Native Americans, and how to prepare a more harmonious world for seven generations to come.

To listen to this 24-minute interview, click here.

Lotus of Gratitude – A Simple Daily Practice
Featuring Nithya Shanti

This beautiful 2-minute video offers a simple yet profound practice to start or end your day. Practice the Lotus of Gratitude daily and you will find that your life will be overflowing with blessings. Click here to watch.

The Importance of Women in Our Collective Awakening and Rebirth

Aleutian Island Native (Unangan) Ilarion Merculieff shares hidden knowledge of women's collective power to manifest change.

“We’ve reversed the laws for living,” he says. “And one of the reversals is that it’s now the male telling the female, the feminine.” Click here to watch this 6-minute video.

The Art of Healing: A Muse Finds Medicine for her Soul
A video by Lisa Sniderman

The Art of Healing is a 24-minute portrait video that highlights key moments of my journey as a determined artist living with a chronic illness, and finding strength and purpose creating arts and music to heal myself and inspire others. Part one paints a picture of my life as me, Lisa Sniderman, and as my artist persona Aoede, the Muse of Song in Greek mythology, battling a rare progressive muscle weakness disease: dermatomyositis. Part two shows how as Aoede, I started creating full-length fantasy musicals melding mythology, magic, and music to counter the darkness I was experiencing and living with daily. I discovered music and art are my lifelines, and I cannot stop creating! Click here to watch this video and others that chronicle Lisa’s healing journey.

Weaving Strands of Joy
Web of Light Subtle Activism Series

Join Subtle Activists and life partners David T. Nicol and Kate Naga the first Saturday of each month for their Web of Light Subtle Activism Series, in which they tap into a different quality of our shared essential presence as a strand of light in the global Web. This month’s presentation, “Weaving Strands of Joy,” was designed to help absorb and transmute excess despair and depression in the collective psychosphere. Click here to listen.

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Like Us. Collaborate!

Practice the Lotus of Gratitude for seven days. If inspired to do so, share this 3-minute video with others and let them know how it’s affected your day-to-day life.

Becoming a Visionseeker — A Free Video Event with Shamanism Teacher and Anthropologist Hank Wesselman. Discover healing possibilities for yourself and others by journeying to ancestral grounds. Wednesday, November 28, at 5:30pm Pacific

Stop Trying to Fix Yourself — A Free Video Event with Zen Buddhist Meditation Teacher and Author Deborah Eden Tull. Experience a fresh, embodied approach to meditation and mindfulness designed to organically transform your life. Saturday, December 1, at 10:00am Pacific

Integrating Your Instincts Through the Enneagram: Healing Your Personality & Balancing Your Primal Drives to Find Spiritual Wholeness — With Renowned Enneagram Teacher Russ Hudson. Identify and transform imbalances that are keeping you stuck... through your Enneagram subtype and your instincts. New 10-week Video Training Starts Tuesday, November 27

Combining Herbs & Essential Oils: A Complete Home Formulary Course — With Plant Medicine Pioneer David Crow. Receive expert insights into the science behind combining herbs and essential oils — when to combine and when not to — to treat common health conditions. New 8-week Audio Training Starts Wednesday, November 28

Qi Medicine: Traditional Chinese Techniques to Activate the Healer Within You — With Author, Acupuncturist, and Master of Qigong and Tai Chi, Dr. Roger Jahnke. Discover Qigong methods that awaken Qi Medicine within you and create a daily self-care practice you can use for the rest of your life — to revitalize, energize, and heal your body, mind, and spirit. New 7-week Video Training Starts Wednesday, November 28

More Upcoming Events: (all subject to change)

December
• Andrew Harvey 10-week course
• 21 Days of Sacred Awakening
• Hank Wesselman 12-week course
• Deborah Eden Tull 7-week course
• Suzanne Scurlock 3-month course

January
• Toko-Pa Turner 7-week course
• Mark Matousek 7-week course
• Winter of Wellness
• Rhys Thomas 7-week course
• Shiloh Sophia 7-week course
• Shift Mentorship Program

February
• Deb Soule 7-week course
• Caroline Casey 7-week course
• Holly Tse 7-week course
• Personality Typing Summit
• Chloe Goodchild 7-week course
• David Crow 7-week course

Indigenous Environmental Network

IEN is an alliance of Indigenous peoples whose mission is to protect the sacredness of Earth Mother from contamination and exploitation while maintaining and respecting Indigenous teachings and natural laws. Click here for more information. Click here to make a donation.

The Global Center for Indigenous Leadership and Lifeways

The GCILL is an informal umbrella created to support short-term and long-term projects that educate and inform people about indigenous ways of knowing and wisdom for modern times — spirituality that raises human consciousness and harmonious relationship with Mother Earth. GCILL’s primary focus is to advance the capacity to share the messages of wisdom keepers, including the work of founder (and Global Indigenous Wisdom Summit speaker) Ilarion (Larry) Merculieff while helping others and Mother Earth.

Click here for more information. Click here to make a donation.

Four Worlds International Institute

Hereditary Chief Phil Lane, Jr. co-founded, with elders from across North America, the Four Worlds International Institute (FWII) in 1982. With the guidance of the Four Worlds Elders Council and Brother Phil’s leadership and applied experience, FWII has become an internationally recognized leader in human, community, and organizational development because of the institute’s unique focus on the importance of culture and spirituality in all dimensions of development. To find out more about Chief Phil Lane, Jr. and the Four Worlds International Institute, click here.

Solar Action Alliance

Peace Through Commerce

Evolutionary Leaders

The Foundation for Conscious Evolution

The Shift Movie

Humanity's Team

Green America

The National Peace Academy

Sacred Centers

Center for Sacred Studies

International Cities of Peace

Agape International Spiritual Center

Gaiafield Project

Click here to apply for inclusion above.