Today is Thanksgiving. Except for two other years that I remember, I have spent all the others with family. This is the third one I am missing. I miss family, whether it was just my father and me, or whether it was siblings, aunts and uncles, cousins and friends who came together around the table. I also miss the traditional foods. But once I learned that the happy little story we were all told about the colonists and Native Americans bonding over a three-day celebration was only one tiny part of a much larger and horrific story that continues today, it became another holiday – along with the 4th of July and Columbus Day – that I no longer was happy to celebrate. (To add to the irony, November is American Indian and Alaskan Native Heritage Month.)

Since beginning my pagan practice 15 years ago, Mabon has taken the place of Thanksgiving for me. It just makes so much more sense to me to celebrate the harvest while there are still crops being harvested, and not two months later when it’s cold and dark and everything has died. I find this with other sabbats, too. Ostara replaces Easter for me, so by the time the rest of the world was into eggs and spring flowers this year, I was preparing to celebrate Beltane just nine days away. Quietly honoring the return of the light at Yule has replaced a manic, commercial Christmas. 

Every day I journal my gratitude. Today I will count among my blessings 28 days of my new life in my skoolie, you who are following my “Magical Mystery Tour,” the sister with whom I am spending the day, getting more and more comfortable more than 1,000 miles from what was my comfort zone, and a sunny 65 degrees.

May you never hunger. May you never thirst. Blessed be.