What is the Thanksgiving Address
and why is the indigenous perspective on Nature a lesson to be learnt?
The students of the Aldini-Valeriani Institute doing some gardening in the school grounds and reading in turns the Thanksgiving Address with the supervision of Prof. Magagnoli
The Thanksgiving Address embodies the indigenous relationship with the world. We have read the version published by Robin Wall Kimmerer, PhD in Environmental Biology and director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment, in her book 'Braiding Sweetgrass' (2020).
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"..it is a reminder we cannot hear too often, that we human beings are not in charge of the world, but are subject to the same forces as all of the rest of life [...]. It also reminds the whole community that leadership is rooted not in power and authority, but in service and wisdom".
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from 'Braiding Sweetgrass', p. 112
This is why, while hoeing the ground around the school and making it ready to become a garden, we read the Thanksgiving Address in turns. Its words remind us that we have so much to be thankful for, but in a consumer society, contentment is a radical proposition. The overall result of consumerism is that the natural world, the Amazon forest for example, is disappearing under our very eyes, because selfishness and greed have transformed our greatest source of oxygen into a commodity.
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Read an extract from the Thanksgiving Address in English, taken from 'Braiding Sweetgrass' (2020) by Robin Wall Kimmerer.