It's a time for remembering our childhood, this Thanksgiving holiday. Really, for remembering all previous Thanksgivings, the happy ones, the not-so happy ones, and the ones definitely icky.

I was glad to find this quote today:

I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody. Bill Cosby

I've had my share of 'failure' lately. There's something 'yicky' in the stars lately, for the weirdness Julia and I have experienced lately seems to be experienced by others as well. Is it we are connected on some rock level ground by a delicate system of nerves? Don Webb speaks of this arena of 'magical currents', ''the part of ourselves that acts upon the Cosmos, and is acted upon by entities in the Cosmos on a magical level. It has access to data that is not bound in chronological time, it can cause effects at a distance, it can lead you to items and persons that are desirable even if you do not recognize their qualities due to their surface manifestations . . .'' (From Uncle Setnakt's Essential Guide to the Left Hand Path)

Yes, this is the area in which all the mysterious goings-on go on. I wrote this poem in 1997:

I who hope to climb the ladder and bring down Fire, I pray to the Divine, I pray to the divine in you. Can you hear me? We are not island universes. Underneath, the rock bed unites us all. Can you hear me? JAL, 11-30-97

The following Norman Cousins quote was read responsively in last Sunday's Unitarian/Universalist meeting: "I am a single cell in a body of six billion cells. The body is humankind. I am a single cell. My needs are individual but they are not unique. I am interlocked with other human beings in the consequences of our actions, thoughts, and feelings. I will work for human unity and human peace; for a moral order in harmony with the order of the universe. Together we share the quest for a society of the whole equal to our needs."

We can debate about this 'moral order in harmony with the order of the universe', but on the whole, I like this quote. My needs may not be unique, but I am unique. To be aware of our relationship to others does not mean we lose our sense of uniqueness. To those who think people on the Left Hand Path 'are only in it for themselves', Don Webb offers this challenge: ''Since the Left Hand Path is centered on the self, there is always the temptation not to enter into exchange with these levels, to be some sort of vampire that merely tries to absorb without giving. Such pathetic creatures may attain a certain level of power in this world, but they remain small and twisted, they can not partake of the fullness of being that fair exchange allows.''

Of course, it is these individuals that help foster the idea that those embracing the darkness within are 'evil'. But it is up to us who know better to get the word out that this is not so. We can set loose an encouraging word, which rumbles along the highways of this underlying rock bed, and it will bring its liberating air to others.

May you find many 'encouraging words' today. On this day set aside for 'thanksgiving', which ideally is a daily event, may each of us have much for which to be grateful.

Getting those wheels moving forward . . .