This feature is coordinated by The Post-Standard, Syracuse.com and InterFaith Works of CNY. Follow this theme and author posted Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday.
From Instagram captions to graphic tees, gratitude became a trend. Gratitude, a recent lifestyle fad, is one of the oldest traditions.
In Haudenosaunee territories, gratitude is a discipline. It is relational, a meditation and daily reorientation. Before conducting official business or ceremony, we offer the Ganohę:nyoh, The Words That Come Before All Else. In English, the Thanksgiving Address.
Our ancestors began mornings with a private version, greeting the world as kin. My son practices, sometimes asking, “Why does this matter?”
Research echoes our teachings. Gratitude is medicine. Gratitude reshapes neural structures in the brain, lowers blood pressure, reduces stress hormones and strengthens immunity. The mind, when trained in giving thanks, sees the world in the most vibrant way and responds in kind.
We approach the American Thanksgiving, a season layered with complexities. This is true especially as an Indigenous woman, but also anyone navigating the contrasts of joy and absence during the holidays. For some, Thanksgiving is a homecoming. For me it is both a celebration and reckoning, a distortion of history we’ve carried for generations. Gratitude, though, can exist beyond that tension. It exists beyond comfort and abundance. It endures the complicated seasons.
On cool mornings I inhale air tinged with leaf decay. The trees, even as they pull their energy inward, provide nourishment for the unseen world beneath my feet. My neighbor passes on his run, his breath rising in clouds, carbon joining the same air that feeds the soil and world beneath us. Between us, the trees and earth that sustains, there is belonging. Gratitude doesn’t need grand gestures; it lives in these quiet exchanges.
Notice your own thanksgiving in the corners of your day. Notice where the pulse of the world moves through you. That awareness steadies us, reminds us that even in stillness, we are held.
Asa Rose Shenandoah, Daiawendodeh, is a mother, an assistant project manager, IBEW lineman, jewelry maker and indigenous community advocate. Raised on the Onondaga Nation, she is steeped in Haudenosaunee traditions. Her work honors Indigenous knowledge, history, and resilience, weaving stories that reconnect people to land, identity, and each other.