Happy Thanksgiving!

A warm and tender Happy Thanksgiving to all my Canadian friends. And to those of you who join me from other countries (a big shout out to my new friend in India!), I include you all because you are a big part of my Thanksgiving this year. I am thankful that our paths have crossed. You are a part of my spiritual garden and I am ever thankful for that.

The History and Origin of the Canadian Thanksgiving

In Canada, the history of Thanksgiving goes as far back as 1578 when the English explorer, Martin Frobisher (who had been trying to find a northern passage to the Orient), arrived in the Canadian province now known as Newfoundland. He established a settlement and held a ceremony to give thanks for surviving the long journey. This is considered to be the first Canadian Thanksgiving; and when other settlers arrived, they continued these ceremonies of thanks.

Around that same time, French settlers, having crossed the ocean, arriving in Canada with explorer Samuel de Champlain, also held great feasts of thanks. They went on to form 'The Order of Good Cheer', sharing their food with their new Indian neighbours.

In 1763, after the Seven Year's War ended, the people of Halifax held a special day of Thanksgiving.

November 6th was the original ‘national holiday’ of Canadian Thanksgiving (in 1879). Over the years that date has changed many times. The most popular was the 3rd Monday in October. There was even a time, after World War I, that both Armistice Day and Thanksgiving were celebrated on the same day: the Monday of the week in which November 11th fell. It was in 1931, however, that the two days became separate holidays and Armistice Day was renamed Remembrance Day.

Finally, on January 31st, 1957, Parliament decreed "A Day of General Thanksgiving to Almighty God for the bountiful harvest with which Canada has been blessed…” to be observed on the 2nd Monday in October.

And here we are today.

A Continued Tradition of Thanksgiving

If our lives were a garden, how plentiful would they be?

The metaphoric seeds that have been planted, have germinated, have taken root and have cultivated, ever reaching toward our evolutionary intent. Give thanks for the harvest of our good deeds, for the good deed of others, for our own spiritual harvest.

God did not make the garden. He made the earth in which it grows. He created the seeds that are planted, He shines light upon it, rain upon it, and He provides an assortment of nutrients to ensure their healthy growth. But… we till the soil, we must nurture the seeds that are planted, we must protect and care for what we are growing. And if we hoard the harvest... there’s a very good chance that we’ll never consume all that it yields. The surplus will rot and it will spoil. And that is how we are meant to work with God.

How do we give thanks to Our Creator? We use all that He has supplied us, we grow our gardens well, and we share what we have harvested with our neighbours and friends alike.

This Thanksgiving let us not only give thanks for what we have; but thanks for what we have to share.

Quotes of Thanksgiving Through History

Not what we say about our blessings, but how we use them, is the true measure of our thanksgiving. ~ W.T. Purkiser

How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a weary world. ~William Shakespeare

I thank you God for this most amazing day, for the leaping greenly spirits of trees, and for the blue dream of sky and for everything which is natural, which is infinite, which is yes. ~E. E. Cummings

What if you gave someone a gift, and they neglected to thank you for it - would you be likely to give them another? Life is the same way. In order to attract more of the blessings that life has to offer, you must truly appreciate what you already have. ~Ralph Marston

If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is 'thank you', it will be enough. ~Meister Eckhart

I leave you with no affirmations of thanks, for I know that you each have already validated them in your lives, through how you live. You each are a testament to the fact that there is, in deed, beauty in this world.

May the harvest of your existence be plentiful and unyielding.

With Love & Blessings,
Christine Rossini

On Life’s Path
Numerologist & Life Path Intuit

www.lifepath.webs.com