Greetings And Thanks To The Natural World

In eleven hand-lettered and watercolor-illustrated panels, Greetings and Thanks honors the universal message of gratitude and thanksgiving. It is long and narrow when hung on your wall (it comes with hanging string!) or small and handy for prayers and meditations when kept on your night stand, altar, or near your dining table. Inspired by the Thanksgiving Address of the Haudenosaunee, an oral tradition used at gatherings.

Poster printed on %100 postconsumer waste stock, dioxin free, not chlorine bleached. Biodegradable cellophane package.

In eleven brief, tender panels, this message encompasses so much that humans have lost to spectacular artifice. The reading draws us closer to our universal nature. My partner and I have operated a Native art gallery for nearly seventeen years, and nothing that has moved through our doors has provided deeper meaning to our existence than Greetings and Thanks.
-Annette Huenke
Ancestral Spirits Gallery
Port Townsend, WA

The Making of Greetings And Thanks To Each Other As People

I’ve known Jeanne Shenandoah for many of her 60+ years. My work in community as artist, baker and organic gardener has created many opportunities to share culture with folks from the Onondaga Nation. Over breakfast at the Village Eatery in Jamesville, NY, our conversation had drifted to our children and the constant dose of TV and video games that so consume their time and energy. Jeanne wished there was a way to put Haudenosaunee core teachings back into their daily lives. The Thanksgiving Address (literally”the words before all else”) came to mind, as these words best express the importance of living in harmony with the natural world. Recited to open and close civil and religious meetings (as well as a daily sunrise greeting) the Address thanks each life-sustaining aspect of our lives, connecting all present in harmony with one another and the natural world.

As art director at Syracuse Cultural Workers, one of my jobs is to help create these kinds of visual “tools for change”. The thoughts in the Address flow from “greetings and thanks to each other as people” to thanking the earth, the waters and fish, the plants and animals, the winds and 4 directions, the thunderers, the sun and moon and stars, the teachers and all the gifts of creation. The shared experience of reciting or listening to these words puts “our minds as one” and conveys respect for all that surrounds us. I wanted to preserve the flow of thoughts and was challenged to create a “slow release” poster. With Jeanne’s 60th birthday coming up, I gathered many of my thumbnail drawings, taping them together much like those packets of postcards you buy in souvenir shops. The card opened like an accordion, over 5 feet long, working as both poster to hang on wall or small book to rest on table or nightstand. Jeanne was thrilled. So was I.

My copy hangs next to the sink in my bathroom. Every day my eyes scan down and linger here or there…reconnecting me to the world around and recommitting me to my daily work in this world. -Karen Kerney / Art Director