A friend sent me this and I thought it very illu­mi­nat­ing so wish to pass it on here

We learned from the wis­dom of our elders to thank the Cre­ator for; Mother Earth… Father Sky… Grand­fa­ther Moon… our Uncles the Four Winds… our Cousins the Stars, and… our Broth­ers and Sis­ters the ani­mals. The Algo­nquins believed that humans were not dis­tinct from or supe­rior to nature, but rather part of nature. We also believe that ani­mals could take human form. More­over, we believed that a long time ago, humans and ani­mals spoke the same lan­guage. Then there was a cat­a­clysm that upset the uni­verse and only a few shaman retained the abil­ity to speak with the ani­mals. We thank the Cre­ator for all our rel­a­tives, for what is good in the world, and for all our har­vest, not just one crop, but all. We give thanks for the straw­berry, it is the first berry of the new spring, we give thanks to the tree spirit, for the warmth it pro­vides in our fires and the saps that flow in the fall, we honor the ani­mal spirit, who laid down its life in order for the peo­ple to go on. Sub­se­quently we give thanks for each har­vest year round. It is said, when the Cre­ator cre­ated the Uni­verse, “He placed his hand on the Whole thing… so every­thing is spir­i­tual.” He never told us to sep­a­rate any­thing… but to look upon every­thing that he has made us as holy and sacred and act accord­ingly with respect.

The Thanks­giv­ing the greater soci­ety cel­e­brates, occurs dur­ing a beau­ti­ful time of the year; thus, Thanks­giv­ing time means, as Joyce Sequichie Hifler so elo­quently writes, … the first hard freeze, the first spit­ting ice to rat­tle the dry autumn leaves. Early morn­ing frost crys­tal­lizes grasses in rods of light. The last bit of bright color is gone from the woods… thus; a time of great soli­tude and for giv­ing thanks for all the gifts pro­vided for us by the Cre­ator, espe­cially for our fam­i­lies health and well being. Thanks­giv­ing tra­di­tion­ally denotes a har­mo­nious time in the cycle of sea­sons; fur­ther exam­i­na­tion of the times sug­gest oth­er­wise. For Algo­nquins, the behead­ing of King Philip, son of Chief Mas­sas­oyt, and the sale of the Wampanoags into slav­ery has a dif­fer­ent con­no­ta­tion then being har­mo­nious. Dur­ing the time of the Puri­tans; every Church, every Syn­a­gogue, and every Quaker Meet­ing House was built on money gen­er­ated from Indian slav­ery. (Pro­fes­sor Robert Venables)

Read it in full here