Feast Days for the Radically Reverent ~Thanksgiving

The challenge with Thanksgiving is, in a way, the challenge with our current state of affairs.

Here we have a holiday where the national narrative (at least here in the US) makes it seem as if this is a uniquely American phenomena when Thanksgiving celebrations – a designated day of thanks, or in some cases, several days of thanks, are found throughout the world, time, and culture.

What many conceive of as a most nation-specific holiday is one of the holidays, and one of the holy days, that most connects with the rest of the world.

Thanksgiving is not a day that was shared between the pilgrims escaping from religious persecution and the Mashpee Wampanoag people who were staring down the long scope of colonialism and conquest. Thanksgiving was a day, a moment, an obligation, that was mutually recognized by these two groups of people, a point of commonality between two very different cultures and communities.

Nowadays, Thanksgiving is eclipsed by Halloween and the Sacred Days of the Dead on the one hand and the merry making of Christmas on the other. Walk into any department store on November 1st and you will find that Christmas trees are up, the lights are strung, and the carols are blaring from the loudspeaker. Thanksgiving is not an afterthought…it is an absent thought…and that tells us a lot about where we are in this moment, doesn’t it?

But it’s not surprising. Nothing should be easier than taking a moment, taking a breath and beat of time out of mind and reflecting on all that we have, all that we have been blessed with since the last full dance around the sun, all that we want to say thank you for. Maybe it’s because it seems so easy to do that culturally we have stopped taking it seriously…or decided to use it as a wedge issue to separate and divide one group from another, instead of listening to the spirit of the holy day and the spirit of the place and recognizing that the simple act of giving thanks is one we share with all of humanity.

Acts that bring us together, that re-affirm our connection to each other, without overshadowing our differences, are the bravest acts. They are, in many ways, the hardest. Thanksgiving is a challenge, and many of us feel it that way and I think that’s good…it means we haven’t totally lost our edge.

It means that when we finally do get around to saying thank you there is some weight and meaning behind the words.

It also means that no matter what the messages are out there…in here we know we are more alike than we are different, more connected than we are divided, and that is something worth saying thank you for, ever and always.

Areas to especially consider as you make your petition include:

  • Restoration of common ground
  • Right relationship with local lands and food ways
  • Saying Thank You
  • Honoring of Ancestral kitchen traditions and food ways
  • Nourishment
  • Tolerance, kindness, and adaptability
  • Calling in luck and wishes granted as we enter the Winter season

As always, those who wish to add extra magic to their celebrations may order the featured candle for this service: Horn of Plenty. Find it here.

Colored dried corn
  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.
Briana Saussy Spinning Gold

What are Feast Days for the Radically Reverent?

Born into a family full of many devoted Catholic practitioners, Feast Days are one of the aspects of folk tradition that I love best. There are hundreds of Feast Days – in fact, according to official Catholic calendars every single day is a feast day – and that alone is a though worth pondering – what would happen if you treated every day as a feast day?

Years ago in my own practice I began creating altars and honoring ceremonies on Feast Days that have deep personal significance to me and inviting my community of soulful seekers to join in the process of honoring by sending in their own prayer requests, blessing ways, petitions, and thanks givings.

The results are always stunning. They remind me again and again that the act of blessing is transformative and also deeply universal — every year individuals from all over the world and many different cultural and ethnic backgrounds identifying as Christian, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, and followers of various alternative spiritual paths come together in blessing. It is a profound time always and one felt deeply by all participants.

These Feast Days can be found on various calendars but we celebrate them together with one thing in common – radical reverence; this is reverence that goes right down to the root of things in plain speech and in direct, heart-felt actions.

Feast Days for the Radically Reverent are open to all people who would like to come together to celebrate, request, and bless. They are 100% free of charge and always will be.