native american story – Feminism and Religion

When I offered to write the FAR post for Thanksgiving a month ago, I had no idea how difficult I would find that task to be. I suppose I had a different vision of what these days would be like. I had no idea how heartsick and wordless I would become in the wake of a second and even more bizarre and dangerous Trump presidency. It hardly feels like a time for celebrating a national holiday.

Thanksgiving in the United States and the colonies before has gone through several iterations – from the mythologized feast of the Puritan colonists in Plymouth, Massachusetts with the indigenous Wampanoag following the successful corn harvest – corn the Wampanoag had taught the Puritans how to plant after half of them had starved to death the previous winter; to George Washington’s Thanksgiving proclamation giving thanks for the successful ratification of the US Constitution; to Abraham Lincoln in 1863 acceding to Sarah Josepha Hale’s 36-year quest to establish Thanksgiving as a national holiday — “to heal the wounds of the nation.” Goddess knows we could use that now, but it seems farther out of reach than ever.

Lesser known is the proclamation of a day of thanksgiving by the Massachusetts Bay Company to celebrate their defeat of the Pequot nation following the Pequot Wars of 1636-1638 in which most of the Pequot peoples were killed or enslaved, giving rise to many indigenous peoples observing Thanksgiving as a National Day of Mourning.

Now that my Animal Wisdom Oracle is out in the world I’m delving more deeply into the stories and legends associated with the animals I’ve learned about. Though many legends of animals are strongly associated with goddesses and gods, there are also many that focus solely on animals themselves. In both cases these stories help us understand our place in the world and teach about living in balance and harmony with all beings – a cornerstone of feminism and goddess spirituality.

As winter nears its end, I’d like to share my re-telling of a story with you about Crow. It comes from the storytelling tradition of the Lenni Lenape – a Native American tribe whose traditional territory spanned what is now eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, lower New York, and eastern Delaware. This is a different kind of crow from the one we know today. It goes like this….