Thankfulness and the Heart of the Festival of Lights

The universe has its own rhythm and reason, so it was entirely fitting that we received word this week -- as Canada turns its heart to Thanksgiving -- that the Department of Canadian Heritage has once again awarded significant funding to the Dundarave Festival of Lights.  This means that we can keep the Festival's 20th Anniversary this Christmas by providing urgently needed financial support to our performing artists, allowing kids their first opportunity to sing in public and bringing the magnificence of the season as-you've-never-seen-it-before to the heart of Dundarave Beach and Dundarave Village.  And it means all of us, performers and audience alike, will have warmth and shelter against the bracing weather of a North Pacific winter.

This moment of thankfulness, running the three days of the long weekend, drives home the fact that to be human is to live in relationships, with others and for others.  None of us would be who we are today were it not for the people who in loving us and sustaining us make us the persons we are.  There are so many inducements to loneliness in our culture, especially if you're insecure in your housing or reduced to homelessness, and it often takes a conscious effort to turn our minds to the fact that every beat of our hearts is due to the hearts that made us.  The blood in our veins carries the blood of our ancestors, and our sense of identity is woven through with the identities of the people who have taught us, befriended us, and loved us through our lives.

So here's a way to bring this fact to light, a new Thanksgiving tradition.  More and more families and community organizations (like the North Shore Dragon Busters) are using the Dundarave Festival of Lights as a beautiful and public moment to honour the people they love.  Sign up for your own Festival Tree this season and let your tree shine for everyone who has loved you into being.  Let your Festival Tree be a beacon of thankfulness for them, a sign of hope and encouragement for everyone who sees it.  Then bring them with you to Dundarave Beach on November 26th to for the world's most spectacular tree decorating party, to celebrate together the ties that keep us human, the love and friendship that make us the people we are.

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