This Thanksgiving, among the countless blessings of this life (attending gratitude as an antidote to fear) I’m grateful for artists who keep on painting, for their creative gifts in times of peace and also in times of immense pain, fear, and confusion, for poets who keep on writing poems, writers who keep on writing, musicians who keep on playing, dancers who keep on dancing, sculptors who keep on sculpting, calligraphers who paint words, photographers who interpret their visions, for the sense organs that perceive and distill the world, for compassion which helps me perceive more clearly. I’m grateful for the promise of an almond blossom, and the courage of the suffering man who painted it. Beauty breaks through.