November 5, 1995

Samuel: Well, greetings, dears.

Greetings, Samuel.

S: Good. Aye. In your life right now do you feel the incredible rumblings of power going on? Do you feel just a stunning connection right now with the earth and all things that are upon it, as well as a true sense of spiritual connection in all that you do and all that you see, that absolutely lets you know that you are a being of such amazing ability, that you’re ready and you know that it must mean that there’s a doorway right at your front waiting to be open? Are you feeling that right now?

Or perhaps you’re getting that energy in a more typical sort of package. And that more typical sort of package would be you’re feeling very much the pressure that there are things to do and not enough time to get them done in. You’re feeling within you perhaps maybe even a bit of sickness. A lot of the stress-related things that circle around—gracious look at this—that circle around in your gut just a bit, sort of like something’s inside, screaming to get out. The things that you see are not quite so bright and beautiful, because you’re turning much more inward than usual. You find yourself being perhaps a bit short—that’s nothing to say for you Donna, Heidi, aye—meaning just a bit—what might be a nice word?—how about grumpy, nasty? You think that’s a good word for how it is? On the edge—that one works—these days, because something, something, something is just, maybe biting at the back of you just a bit. Are you noticing it that way perhaps just a bit more? Or maybe there is a third version. A third version which perhaps you also might find yourself connecting somewhat to, and that one is that sense of—and don’t get too excited with this one—that sense of change.

What’s he talking about? Things going more quickly? What’s he talking about? Life? Difficult? Connected with the earth? What’s he talking about? A greater sense of spiritual connection and power? Ready now?

[In unison] What’s he talking about?

S: Maybe it’s that one too, because, beloved ones, you are right now in the middle of one of the most delightful holidays in all your lives. You’ve got Samhain ending with a threshold. So.

Having said that—welcome back from the Holy Land—having said that, I thought that tonight we might talk about something that can help you move through what has been, and all that it happens to do to life, as you are working through intense periods. You know, don’t you, that if your life were not up and down like that, that you would not know you’re alive. It’s a gift that you create for yourself before you get here, setting it up so that you’ve got very high highs. And unfortunately more often than not by comparison certainly very low lows. You think of it as a roller coaster. And I think of it as life. To help you through a fairly intense time like that, and also to help you move through what is to come. Which, as this is a holiday month, what is to come?

Thanksgiving.

S: Thanksgiving. Holidays, holy days, everywhere, and not a drop to think. So my desire tonight is to talk to you about how not to be the turkey this holiday season. Or this life. And with that particularly as the metaphor, that with which to work, I thought the first I’d begin by talking a bit about turkeys. I don’t want any of you looking through your family tree right now, all right? Because holidays are a time—certainly Thanksgiving—in which the traditional meal, certainly in America, tends to be turkey. So while I am saying how not to be the turkey, perhaps one of the things that I am asking for you to be aware of is how not to be the centerpiece of everybody else’s fine dinner. But I’m also quite aware that the idea of calling somebody a turkey has different connotations than just—well a very, very interesting picture came to my mind, I hope it did not come to yours—than what I was just thinking. Did you get it?

What is a turkey? What is it when somebody’s a turkey?

Silly.

Don’t know enough to come in out of the rain.

S: Silly. They don’t know enough to come in out of the rain. They’re sort of …

Ridiculous.

S: … stupid. That might be a workable word. Silly. Not exactly bright enough to really function easily. Sort of dumb. So how not to be the brunt or the main course for somebody else this season, this life.

Anybody here, can you relate to when I am saying you’re being somebody else’s main course? Anybody else felt like they have ever been eaten alive, so to speak? Aye. You know what I’m talking about there then. Aye? Or do you know what I’m making reference to when I say the idea of somebody being a turkey? Perhaps even you in your life, maybe once or twice you had a very small, fleeting moment in your life when you sort of felt like you were the turkey, eh?

Well, let’s talk about turkeys. Well, actually, that’s “let talk turkey,” isn’t it? Other than turkeys are specially bred to have very big breasts and very nice legs, and many of you can relate to that. (All of a sudden Stuart says, I don’t think this one goes out on television.) As a bird, they’re very interesting creatures. There actually are a couple of you in here who have had turkeys—and I’m not talking about your current relationship—who were poultry farming in one form or another, who have had turkeys actually as pets. Some of you simply know about turkeys because of what you’ve read about them, or maybe you can just project some of the more difficult times of your life and catch up with me that way.

Tell me something about turkeys. Kathleen said …

They don’t know enough to come in out of the rain.

S: They don’t know enough to come in out of the rain. Now, what does that mean?

That means that when it rains, it’s not good for them, and they flock together. […]

S: Two things have been said there. The first one is rain, of course, is not good for them, mainly because turkeys have a tendency to be extremely curious. And now and again that which they are curious about will get them in trouble. They are curious, and something plops them on their head and what do they do?

They look up.

S: Look. Look. [Sounding like a turkey] Is that good? Did you like that? Sounded more like peacock you say. I thought it sounded like a pretty good turkey saying, “Look. Look.” And they literally drown in the rain.

They have a tendency that they will huddle all together because this is something new and they’ve got to show it to all of their friends, and everybody come and look at this, and they’ll smother one another by doing that. And that’s my point.

One of the first things that you might wish to keep in mind if you do not wish to be the turkey this holiday, would be two things. The first one is, be sure that you are in control of your curiosity. Curiosity? What could I be talking about there? The things you’re wanting to learn. The things you’re wanting to do. Because, although this is rather a reach in the point I’m making about turkeys, your desire to find out everything, do everything, take part in every bit of it, is one of the very first dangers for your life. Not only in the holiday season, but in all of your life. A tendency to over-commit, to overdo. Maybe to take on at a time that isn’t the best for you an opportunity that’s going to teach you something new or get involved in a new thing, whereas what you really might want to be doing this holiday season is doing what you know best.

A couple of very practical do-what-you-know-bests could be something as simple as, if every year of your life, you are in charge of the Thanksgiving dinner, and you have become the vegetarian of your family, and you’re going to cook the first vegetarian Thanksgiving dinner, you might be less of a turkey if you choose that for the day after, or the day before. Two reasons. Peace of your mind, and safety in your flock. That’s not to say you have to cook a turkey for your family. Go ahead ask your family that’s still the vegetarian to cook the turkey and bring that to your big meal, but why don’t you go ahead and do what is familiar, and go ahead and cook the … tell me what is familiar at your holiday meals. What is it that you have every year, over and over and over, because that’s just as much the tradition as everything else? Well, you have …

Candied yams.

Dressing.

S: Dressing and candied yams and mashed potatoes. Maybe it’s not the best time to try out your wonderful recipe for Five Bean Rutabaga Surprise. [Laughter] Because you want your family to know that maybe your dietary needs have changed somewhat, and you are going to elevate their taste buds to the finest in vegetarian cuisine. Maybe this is the time to stem your curiosity just the slightest and go ahead and allow yourself the love, the joy, the ease of safety in the familiar, and allow yourself to stare at the rain. Look [in turkey voice]. Peacock! After the main event.

What might be another version of that? Of paying attention to the time that you are spending, to not get yourself too overextended doing too many things, maybe insofar as what you cook. Or maybe an example might be, don’t this year, instead of do. You fill in the blank there. Maybe it would be don’t have a large party, have a small gathering. Maybe it would be don’t have a small gathering, have a large party. And only you could know.

Turkeys tend to get themselves in trouble when they are heedlessly flocking to one another. Turkeys, like you—wait, that’s not “turkeys like you”—turkeys, like human beings, do need one another, but very, very often in both cases too much togetherness gets you in trouble. A quick example of that especially at the holiday season is, how many of you have found that too much family togetherness gets you in trouble. Can you relate to that? Sure. I see several brave souls with their hands up. Some with two hands up. And this might be the year in which you want to change how you live that particular holiday experience. Maybe one of the easiest things for you to do would be to invite a few friends to dilute the intense family mixture. Maybe it would be to do something else altogether. But the family herd at the holiday, which tend to be a very easy way that a lot of people overstress, is not the only point about flocking together. Sometimes your stress comes because of the nature of your flock. Now what could I mean by that? The nature of your flock.

Mother.

How are you getting along with one another.

S: How are you getting along with one another. Are you the weakest turkey in the flock, and therefore you’re the one that gets pecked on all the time. Oh that was a good one, did you miss it? Gets pecked on. All right. I’ve worked on this one for ages. Maybe your flock around the holidays in life is perhaps one that you might have outgrown a long time ago, but it’s habit. But it’s familiarity. But it’s fear of trying something new, getting yourself out there, meeting new people, doing new things. Perhaps it is they’re a group that maybe is more negative than you’re wanting to be right now. Have you ever been in a room that everything seemed really down? And Miss Mary Sunshine walked in the door, and before you knew it, everything was brighter; before you knew it everybody had gravitated over to that smile and that joy, because it’s a habit in this world to function at the lowest common denominator. It’s a gift to be, or to be around, one who purposefully chooses to raise that up and work at the highest. Maybe your flock is getting you down.

Another way not to be a turkey this holiday season might be to try not to follow some turkey-like behaviors, such as drowning in the rain, such as getting suffocated by your flock. How about also such as forgetting your true heritage. I believe that for most of you turkeys come wrapped in plastic and frozen. Feet and heads are not attached. Feathers are long gone. And although that probably is one view of turkey you know that they also were living, breathing, squawking, silly creatures. But do you know that the turkey that more often than not graces the tables of most Americans at Thanksgiving is not at all, is not at all what graced that first Thanksgiving table? Of course you know they had tofu, eh? But, that’s not the point. Because a wild turkey is quite different than a domesticated turkey, isn’t it? What’s the difference? One of them will get you really smashing drunk and the other one … no that’s not it. [Laughter] Somebody was thinking it. Right in front of me, there you go. Thank you, Colleen, that helps. Wild Turkey is an alcoholic beverage. All right. Well, it’s also a wild bird. Do you think that the domesticated turkey, pumped and primed to give a good front-and-rear show for your table—I tried to say it nicer that time—do you think that that turkey remembers its heritage? Do you think it has the foggiest notion that its maybe many-great-grandparents were, in a rather mild safe sort of sense, one of the forms of warrior birds. Talons. Angry beak. Aye. Do you think that the turkey strutting about the barnyard has the foggiest notion of what its heritage really is? Well, darlings, you’re going to be a turkey this holiday season if you forget yours.

And what is your heritage? Well, you are also a wild warrior … spirit that is. Absolutely a warrior spirit. Now what do I mean by that? What you really are, that which you should not forget, and that [which] by forgetting puts you into the flock of turkeys that make this holiday season so nice for many. What am I saying here?

Warriors tend to stand out in a crowd because they overcome the mundane, they overcome the things that destroy the flock.

S: Don’t be afraid to stand out in the crowd. To get strong. To remember that you are a being of light and power—pure spirit clothed in the temporary feathers of this life—but that in your blood those feathers are angel wings, not turkey wings. Standing out in the crowd and being a warrior bird, even if that must be a warrior turkey for now, is also something that is not done by your typical table turkey, because it is desired that the typical table turkey be soft and full. And so to guarantee that you be within this life a good turkey, one of the things you might continue to do is eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, because the farmer doesn’t want the scrawny one. The farmer doesn’t want the warrior turkey. The farmer doesn’t want the one that’s going to give it a fight and is hard to get at. It wants the one that is stupid enough to just follow the rest of the turkeys to the guillotine. Is that you?

Well, let me say a couple of words about that eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, because it’s very easy to associate that what I’m saying is food here. And in America it’s probably fairly simple to say that many, many beings are filling themselves up with things that make for very nice fat, plump beginnings and endings, and not so much for being able to make a good run from the hatchet. But actually that sort of eating behavior is not my point in this particular metaphor. Let us think, instead, simply about the idea of compulsive behaviors that are not working for the highest good. For one thing these compulsive behaviors can be many more things than simply overt eating. There are a whole lot of people within this society who get away with an awful lot of pretty bad living habits, but because they’ve not overeaten they can hide it. Such behaviors perhaps as overfill of negativity, bigotry, hatred, anger. Overfill of … fill in a few blanks for me here. What sort of things?

Television.

S: Perhaps an overfill of mindless entertainments. Television might be one of them. One of the most remarkable exercises I have given—well, I ranked it somewhere up there—is asking everybody to give themselves a week, a month if you can do it, of no television. Or, at the very least, of structured and preplanned television. Anybody that says to me, I don’t have enough time, if only there were more time I could do these things, I have no time for a spiritual life, I have no time for a meditation every day, I have no time for my family, to do better in my job, to make my life better, to do more. Try putting out television and see how much more time you have.

Yes, maybe overfilling on mindless entertainment. Overfilling. Go ahead, a certain amount of mindless entertainment’s good for the body, eh? But overfilling is a turkey behavior. What’s another?

Compulsive talking.

S: Compulsive talking could be one. Gobble, gobble, gobble. That’s better. You like that one better, dear? All right. Sounds more like a turkey. All right. Good. How about compulsive whining? That’s definitely a turkey behavior, don’t you think? And it even sort of sounds like, [Talks very quickly in a whining voice sounding like a gobbling noise] Eh? Getting better, eh?

How about that tendency to hold on to what has been, rather than moving forward into what might be. A marvelous turkey behavior, because holding on to what has been absolutely guarantees one of two things, and if you’re really good at it, it guarantees both. It guarantees that either you never have to be responsible for where you are now, because you can always look at your past and remember such things as “the last time something like this happened I skinned my knees and it hurt me, and I know that the Universe does not want me to be hurting, so I’m not going to skin my knees any more, I’ll just never walk again.” Or maybe it allows you to never connect to the power you’re so afraid of in this life. Because if you’re never living in your moment, you never ever see it. So many people are so tied into past lives, because they have no life now. Some people are very connected into past lives, because it’s the only power they’re not afraid of—power where all the lessons were already learned. Yes, you don’t ever get to experience who are now if you’re never now. That’s absolutely turkey behavior.

Turkeys don’t look at the big picture. Think about it for a moment. If you are a young turkey and you noticed that every year one of the biggest, grandest turkeys around you disappeared just when the weather started getting a bit brisk. And you noticed that perhaps the farmer people who took care of your turkey lot seemed to have what looked like a large headless, featherless, footless, turkey shape on their table, once the weather got cool and one of those … you would think that somewhere along the line the turkeys might start whispering among themselves, wouldn’t you? Saying things like, “Don’t hang out when the weather gets cool.” That could be a good one. “Stop eating. Don’t get so fat. Let’s start exercising. Hide. Learn to fly up into the trees and hide when you see them coming. Only come out when it’s safe.” Turkeys don’t have the big picture, and as a result have never been able to control their destiny. And that probably is one of the greatest signs of turkeydom, don’t you think? The inability to control their destiny, which is due to the inability to look beyond their meal, their brother and sister turkeys, their life. Not holding onto the past and living in your now does not eliminate the necessity of having a larger picture, which is not saying look into your future instead; it is saying look for the bigger picture.

And in your life what is the bigger picture? Well, at holiday time the bigger picture might be, it’s holiday time, and it’s going to be over soon, and when it’s over I take a rest. Aye? Or maybe during holiday time the bigger picture is this is a time of love and awareness, and I choose to put that first, even if that means changing some of my traditions or even if it means holding my breath now and again in order to make it through without losing my temper or getting upset.

During this season, more often than not, simply being aware of what the purpose is can keep you from a turkey’s fate, don’t you think? If the turkey connected Thanksgiving, turkey, turkeys leaving, dinner, I’m out of here, [if it] had that big picture, that might make a difference. And in your life the big picture might be what is your vision, or it might be what is your connection to all things. And if you are truly heart fortunate, it’s both. What is your vision? That is the big picture for this life. If you could do anything, what would you do? If you could be anything, what would you be? If money or time were no issue, if you absolutely knew that you were guaranteed to succeed, how would your life be different than it is right now? What would it really take to get you there? Vision.

And recognizing the big picture that says I have a connection to all things, to everyone, can take so much of the pressure off, the stress. Don’t you know that if the turkey were to recognize its oneness with the cows and spent a bit more time with the cows, the farmer might not be able to find it? See the advantage that could be.

Perhaps there is also that part of being a turkey, however, which is recognizing that it’s time now to boldly go where no turkey has gone before. Joyous says turkey trick. It’s the energy, I told you. That by going ahead and saying, “I know that what I am here to do is be dinner for some poor soul that still eats animals”—did I get a commercial in there just then, aye? And recognizes that that is what it’s here to do, and purposefully becomes absolutely the best tender turkey it could be, that absolutely marches forward into the turkey hatchet when it becomes its time, first. Do you think that if that ever were the case, you would ever eat a turkey? I don’t think so. But when the time comes when the turkey says, “It’s my turn. I will go. Take me.” That’s the Christmas story though, isn’t it? All of a sudden you would stop eating turkeys because you would be aware that you were taking part in a sentient, powerful, being, and beloved ones, maybe that’s true in your life too. That when you stand up and say, “All right, I recognize that the nature of my life is this and in my eyes that sort of ranks me amidst the turkeys, they’re nice turkeys, they’re the best bred turkeys on the planet, but all right, but humanity is silly birds and I’m going to be the very best one of them there ever has been, and I will reach forward and take what life has to give me with delight,” do you not think that would change the world too, that that would cause those in your family, in your job, in your life who have been treating you like the witless turkey to stand up and take notice, to say, “You know, this old bird might be a bit too tough. Maybe we want to look elsewhere for a meal”? which then puts you in the ranks of incredibly spiritual turkeydom. How do you know a spiritual turkey from a non-spiritual turkey?

It’s still around.

S: It’s still around! Maybe not. The spiritual turkey is the one giving thanks that you are able to use its highest work.

Thankfulness is a very major part of this holiday, isn’t it? The whole idea. It is the time to give thanks. And if what you are thankful for is simply that you have made it through one more year—the form is trying to get a group creating bumper stickers or something that says “I survived ‘95.” You think it’s going to work? Fund-raising says, “We’ll sell it. We’ll do it”—but is thankful. Well, we’re talking spiritual turkeys here, remember, not the run-of-the-mill, ready-for-the-hatchet, too-stupid-to-know-better turkey. We are talking [about] the one that has moved forward and said, “All right, the last time I looked the costume said turkey—cold turkey tonight, eh?—and if that turkey is what I am, I’m going to be the best I can possibly be. I am going to live to the height of my being. I am going to awake and aware until the time comes that what I am has fed others.”

Well, darlings, I’m sort of fearful to think what kind of meal you are for somebody. Bitter. Makes the backs of your cheeks tighten up. Bitter. Or maybe too sweet. Maybe too stringy. Do you feed others? Do you know that part of your big picture is that you are here to feed others? How do you do that? And I’m not just talking passing around pumpkin pies, which is another story. What are you thankful for? Do you see the joys of your existence? The power you have, the vision. Is it yours? Do you live in the now? Are you in charge of what you bring into your life, how you live it? Are you the centerpiece for somebody else’s typical tender turkey tidbit meal? Or are you learning how to move out from the flock? To be thankful for what you are, whatever that might mean? Thankful for what you do, however you live that. Thankful for what you have so that you can be willing to go when it’s time. Yes. This year it’s time for a difference. It’s time to make sure that at your holiday table you’re not the second turkey. Or the ham. But to be sure that you are a part of that which makes this holy day holy, leading your life into a place of thanksgiving.

Have fun, beloved ones. It’s a very interesting time. Don’t be the turkey.

Happy trails. Glochanumora.