Wicca and Thanksgiving

Yes, it's that time of year again. Time to get out your turkey and dressing. Time to sit around a table with relatives that you may like or dislike, catch up on all the juicy gossip, and give thanks for the feast everyone is about to stuff their faces with (for the rest of the week ie. leftovers).

I must say that I typically celebrate Thanksgiving at Mabon which is the traditional Wiccan Sabbat to give thanks for the bountiful harvest. However, we Americans celebrate Thanksgiving on the last Thursday in November of each year. In school, we were all taught about how the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth and the Native Americans discovered them and helped them grow crops and learn to survive. If it wasn't for the the Native Americans, I'm sure all the Pilgrims would have died.

Anyway, many people see Thanksgiving in a negative light. It signified some of the first interactions between the Europeans and the Native Americans. Then later the Native Americans were driven off their lands, enslaved, converted, or murdered. So I can see where the negativity comes from.

However, you can make this day how you choose for it to be. You can look at it as a day of mourning and recite blessings, give offerings to the land, acknowledge those that were lost, or do a healing ritual. Or you could look at it as a day of Thanksgiving such as with Mabon and give thanks for what you have and your family and friends, offer thanks to the God and Goddess and for the harvest, bless the feast as an offering to your loved ones, and so on.

Here's a universal blessing one can do on Thanksgiving. It was written by Starhawk. Click here to view it.