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Today is the day of turkey massacre. Here in the United States, we celebrate Thanksgiving, which is basically a day to give thanks for everything you’re thankful for. The holiday centers around a feast of epic proportions, at the center of which is traditionally the Thanksgiving Turkey.This means, of course, that a lot of turkeys meet their end in order to provide for the millions of Thanksgiving dinners held all over the nation.

While Thanksgiving is a wonderful holiday for the humans, you can just image what it’s like in the turkey coops, with the great Turkey Prophet standing on a box and proclaiming, “Our time is nigh! The Great Decapitation is soon to come upon us!” Most turkeys won’t believe a word he’s saying, of course, and will just go about as usual . . . until the moment arrives.

We’re having a mixed crowd of meat-eaters and vegetarians over to our home for the holiday. Even as I type this, we have one of those unlucky turkeys roasting in our oven (the Prophet, perhaps?). And like every time I eat meat, I’ll be thankful for this animal that died to feed me. Indeed, this happens every time I eat plants, as well, because I consider them just as ‘alive’ as animals.

It all comes down to realizing that we kill in order to live. This can seem like a harsh statement, but from our immune system (which violently murders any intruders) to our dinners (where a single soybean has the potential to grow infinite fields of soybeans — a potential that is destroyed once we put it in our mouths), we must kill to live.

This sounds terrible just until we realize the beauty of it. We, too, will someday die and feed others, and all the atoms that make up ‘me’ or ‘you’ or ‘turkey’ or ’soybean’ will re-integrate into the whole and become new forms. It’s a sort of reincarnation, and right now your body is composed of atoms that were once part of mountains, waterfalls, clouds, people, foxes, dinosaurs, and mighty stones that have fallen from the heavens.

You’re all that.

So is the turkey we’re eating, and as we eat, that turkey’s legacy — all its past forms — become a part of us. What we think of as our consciousness is just a wisp, a ghost that we think we’re familiar with but who shifts and disappears beneath our gaze in the most confusing manner. Those who study this in enough depth come to the startling conclusion that it’s just an illusion.

Yet in a sense, all of this is recycled, reincarnated, and perhaps it is the feast (the killing), the thankfulness, and our ability to recognize the beauty of it all that makes this dance so wondrous.

Whether you’re celebrating Thanksgiving or not, I’d urge everyone to take a moment today to stop and give thanks for the many wonderful things you have in your life, even if it sometimes feels that they’re few and far between. There might be friends, or a kindness someone bestowed, or your own ability to smile when a smile seems difficult. Perhaps things are very good for you right now, and your list will be long and delightful. Or perhaps you have almost nothing left, but you’ll have the ability to be thankful for this very breath that you’re taking.

That might be the most magical thanks of all — to experience this single breath, this single moment, and to recognize the wonderful magic that is you.