Thanksgiving

Each day I wake up and perform a little ritual in my mind. Tonight, in anticipation of a great day tomorrow, I want to put some of it in writing and add to it an annual ritual. It's a little list of things for which I'm thankful:

• I thank the sun in the east for rising to find that once again, by some miracle, I am not dead.
• I thank my house for shelter.
• I thank my dogs, cats, chickens, horses and chuck the rabbit for filling my life with the peculiar camaraderie that pets bestow, and the worms for shredding my compost, and the spiders for keeping my world so clean and the birds and bugs and frogs and bees for being such good stewards of the land.
• I thank the spirits of the earth for giving us the mountains and the water, and the spirits of the air for the wind and weather.
• I thank my mother and my father for not selling me into slavery or cutting my throat or selling me for cash or whatever they could have done rather than raise me.
  
• I thank Garvin, Steve, Tim and Nate, whose stalwart friendship, character, vigor, and love of life and adventure, and in whom I'd trust my life, inspires and amazes me every day.
  
• I thank my wife Susan for sharing these things with me and giving me her constant companionship and the gifts of love.