Compliments of joiseyshowaa via Flickr

Thanksgiving season evokes homage to that which we’re grateful – family, friends, and often times the tangible. But what we can touch misses out on giving of ourselves based in gratitude – reaching out in either a material or an emotional way to make life better for someone else.

In The Book of Awakening, Nemo underscores that (like tree roots) we are all interconnected in a way that eludes us on an eye-level – in ways that we may not initially sense (particularly in times of stress, when we can snap in the heat of the moment). We may thus seem cavalier in our casual dealings; subsequently “. . . in choking roots, we choke our own growth.”

Gifts that continue giving are the memories that we leave in the mind’s eye of other people. We experience gratitude not just from the joy of initial gifting, but from the countless times that recipients relive our positive intentions.

Receivers may in turn be inspired to mimic our beneficence, spread delight, and experience a similar gratitude for themselves. At this time of thanksgiving counting what we’ve shared is as important as delineating what we’ve received. Gifts to another are in fact one and the same.