Big time thank yous: a traditional prayer of thanksgiving

New Life Journal, Oct-Nov, 2003

Ted Williams is a writer, an artist, and an elder from the Tuscarora tribe in the Iroquois nation in New York State. He now lives near Asheville with his wife, Diana Osbourne, a homeopath, in the house that they recently built together. They built it with trees on their land that had been felled by a storm. This is quite an accomplishment for anyone but even more impressive for Ted, considering that he is in his seventies. My thirty-year-old friend Jay told me about Ted Williams. He plays frisbee golf with him. I asked Ted about his game and the recent world championship that he won in Flagstaff, Arizona.

Ted: So, last year I told the people I was playing against, "If you're going to win, it will be this year because I'm building a house."

NIJ: So, did they win?

Ted: No! So this year they didn't have a chance.

After we talked and laughed for a while about frisbee golf, and after he told me a number of amazing stories about the magic and humor of his life and experiences, we got to one question I really wanted him to answer.

NIJ: Ted, so many of us in this modern culture feel lost, like we're missing out on something that people raised in a traditional culture have. We're missing the magic of connection to our world. What you can tell people about learning how to connect?

Ted: Okay, the first thing would be, for me, every morning and every night I say what's called the Thanksgiving Address. I end up by saying to each element, "Three times three times three big time thank yous. Now in our life energy divine consciousness, we are like one."

In the beginning of it, it has a prelude to it. We say, "As you know, we're all just part of the great cycles of all things and because we're all part of the same Creation, we're all just part of one tremendous family. Not only within the element called People, but intimate kin to all the elements, in divine harmony with the Universe. So magnificent and so magical is this divine harmony of the Universe that even the greatest scholars, physicists, philosophers, theologists, astronomers, they still don't have all the answers, still seeking the answers. Our Faithkeepers in the Longhouse, they think gratitude is the beginning of knowledge and understanding, and so maybe they'll even say it twice so that the children will hear: "Gratitude is the beginning of knowledge and understanding."

And so before any significant occasion, the speakers of the Longhouse will always do the Thanksgiving Address and so powerful is it, it's like the life force of their teaching. When you do the Thanksgiving Address, it brings forth the Essence of Creator, or higher consciousness. So when that happens so powerful does the atmosphere become in a divine way that some of our secular thoughts just automatically drift off in deference or maybe in shame. It makes room for some of that divineness to enter, and when that happens, if we have decisions to make they won't be made by our know-it-all selves but with divine intervention. And so, they said that in the beginning, in creation, we, the element called People, were the last to be created, and we were designated to be caretakers. And so we were given four tools with which to do that. We were given our good thoughts, and second was our good feelings, and third was our good words, and last was our good deeds. That's the order of importance, and they ask, well, how come our good deeds come last? I say, because if you ask the person to do a good deed, they would never do it, for the four directions. First they would think of their own relatives or their children or another person. They would probably stay within the element People, you know, for good deeds. Or maybe environmentally they might go. But it's beyond them to think of taking care of making this a better world by talking to the four directions or anything that they would think of as far out elements. I'll just end that part by saying, for all the time our ancestors did the best they could to make this a better world using those four tools, they have left us with a great good feeling. With happy hearts we thank the Creator that this is so.

And then they do the Thanksgiving Address, and the Thanksgiving Address can be fairly long but I don't care, I do it in the morning and at night, too. We greet and we introduce into our consciousness, our mind, and our spirit the first element, People. And we start with People at the bottom of the ladder and work up. I guess it's for the sake of humility ... humbleness is the secret to power. I want to interject here a story that epitomizes that.

There was a guy named Empty Goad, He was Chinese, Buddhist. He was enlightened, but he didn't know it. And he was just traveling, walking, and when he came to a village and it was in disrepair, especially the temple, he wouldn't go until that was all fixed. When he would even be a mile yet from any village, all the bells would ring, that was how powerful he was. So, at this one place, when he came to it, one of the elders there was able to recognize and remember that such a phenomenon existed. He was all excited and said, "An enlightened person approaches! All the bells are ringing. So, let us go and meet him." So they rushed down the mountainside to meet Empty Cloud, and because he looked like a bum, they knocked him right out of the way and then he got up, and the last person was going by, and he said, "What's all the commotion?" He said, "An enlightened person approaches!" So he got in line! To me, that's why he was so powerful. So, that's the first element, that's what they speak about the element People. First we should be thankful because if it wasn't for our ancestors, then we couldn't be here. In the Six Nations tradition, we need to thank them for telling all the medicine, the ceremony, the songs that need to be sung, all the things they taught us about that. The biggest thing would be the Great Law itself, the philosophy of the Six Nations. And so that takes ten days. to recite, and they didn't have a written thing, so the people that knew would recite. So then they say, "We open our hearts to all the people, and we wish to thank you for all you have given us." I would say in the Tuscarora, "Three times three times three big time thank yous, now In our life energy divine consciousness we are like one."