Pagan Thanks

It’s Thanksgiving, and my times have changed a little concerning this holiday. For 30 years, I spent the day itself at a big dinner party with my chosen family, the Chameleon Club. We’re the conspiracy behind the Starwood festival, and one of the original pagan organizing teams in the NE Ohio area. Like all families and affinity groups, life moves on, and as young boomers we’re not that young any more. So last year we chose, for the first time, to skip a communal dinner on Thursday and move the whole shebang to the Friday after. I went to dinner with the bio family, and that was a very good thing for me, because last T-day was our last with my mom. Sometimes things work out.

So I’m in a more reflective mood about Thanksgiving this year as well, and I suppose I’ll go on a bit about what there is to be thankful for. Here at Into the Mound, I’ll try to stay on-topic…

• I’m thankful for my birth, as a North American in this era. I have had access to information, resources and freedoms unavailable in much of the world in the past or today.

• I’m thankful for the decline of Christian authority in the west, which has allowed spiritual adventurers and heretics to experiment somewhat publically, to write and teach.

• I am thankful for the Founders of the USA, who made it impossible for the government to tell me I can’t worship the Old Gods in parks, rental halls or my own backyard.

• I am thankful for my teachers, whether the writers of books or those who have taught me personally. If I’ve grown my own Path, I’ve done it from seeds they helped me plant.

• I’m thankful to Isaac Bonewits especially, for his vision and effort in founding the system I’m working in, and the trust and confidence he showed in my work.

• I’m thankful for the work of Pagan and occult organizers, publishers across the world, who are remaking the Old Ways for new days.

I could go on, but I think I’d become redundant, and if I get specific I'll never be done. I am supremely thankful for my partner, who is my spiritual coworker, my lover and my best friend. And I am thankful for the love and co-work of my friends, as we make our lives together.

So, I know this is corny stuff, but ‘tis the season, and nothing is harmed by it.
May we all be blessed on this American holiday for all of us.