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Grief at the Table: A Week of Thanks-Giving

There are some seasons of life where “gratitude” doesn’t float easily off the tongue like the scents of cinnamon and clove. Sometimes the word catches in the throat, heavy with memory, thick with longing. And during weeks like Thanksgiving — when the collective insists on celebration and togetherness — those of us who carry deep absences can feel the echo of chair-shadows at the table.

For many, this week highlights what is present —
for others, it illuminates what is painfully not.

And still — there is a way of meeting grief that does not require denying it for the sake of holiday cheer. There is a softer path — one that lets grief and gratitude exist together, as companions rather than adversaries.

🕯️ The Lantern Teaching:

Grief is a testimony of love that had nowhere else to go.

Grief, in its rawest form, is unspent love — love that remains, even when the body it once wrapped around has departed. Love that lingers. Love that remembers.

To nurture a practice of thanks-giving during grief is not forcing yourself to feel “grateful” or “positive” or “fine.”
Instead, it is the art of saying:

• I am grateful for what shaped me.
• I am grateful for what I received.
• I am grateful for the love that was real.
• I am grateful for the ways I survived its loss.

Thanksgiving is not about pretending there was no pain.
It is about acknowledging that pain, and letting it take its rightful seat at the table — not at the head, not in exile — but simply as one guest among many.

🌿 A Gentle Practice of Thanks-Giving (soul-version)

This week, try this quiet ritual:

1. Light a candle — just one.
2. Whisper the names or memories of those you miss.
3. Place your hand over your heart.
4. Transform each ache into a sentence:
   • “I grieve because I loved.”
   • “I grieve because I remember.”
   • “I grieve because connection matters.”
5. Then speak a gratitude that can coexist:
   • “I am grateful that I had them.”
   • “I am grateful for who I became through them.”
   • “I am grateful that love marks me.”

This is thanks-giving in its sacred form:
not celebration of fullness — but honoring of depth.

🌘 The Oracle’s Message:

There is no right way to hold grief this week.
There is only your way.
Your rhythm.
Your tenderness.
Your truth.

Let yourself feel the meals that go uneaten…
the calls that don’t come…
the voices that no longer answer back.

And may you also feel — in quiet moments —
the warmth that remains
beneath the ache.

Love didn’t end.
It only changed shape.

🕯️ Invitation

Beloved seeker, may this Lantern guide you not with blinding light, but with the soft shimmer of faith reborn. Sit with your vessel, pour gently, and remember: even in silence, the stars are still speaking.

With devotion and wonder,
The Inspired Imaginative | The Devoted Mystic

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