As we prepare for our Thanksgiving Day celebrations tomorrow many of us in the Pagan community might be feeling a sense of déjà vu; didn’t we do this back in September? We did! On the autumn equinox in September many Pagans of different traditions, including Wicca, celebrate the holiday known as Mabon, a day that is affectionately known as “the Pagan Thanksgiving”. In many Pagan communities and at many Pagan gatherings you would think that you were at your family Thanksgiving Day dinner. In a way you could say we’re kind of lucky because we get to celebrate this twice!
There are a number of different harvest traditions that contribute to the modern, secular traditions that we know today. But, not surprisingly, many of them have Pagan roots.
Mabon is one of three harvest festivals, the other two being Lughnasadh in August and Samhain in October. Mabon was a time for the largest of the harvest hauls bringing in the majority of the grain, fruits and vegetables from the fields for the winter. After the harvest a time for reflection along with prayers and offerings to the Gods and Goddesses of the earth and harvest were made to thank them for what was brought in. Then the communities would get together to celebrate and feast, often under the knowing guise that not everyone would live through the coming winter.
The English festival of Harvest Home, another commonly used name for Mabon, brings us many of the familiar Thanksgiving and harvest traditions of today including the feast, community apple and pumpkin picking, harvest parades and harvest crafts (which today we often see still with fall craft fairs). Harvest Home also brings us the still often practiced Pagan tradition of selecting a Harvest Queen (though today many groups that honor this may also select a Harvest King who may be symbolically scarified as the Lord of the Harvest during rituals and celebrations).
Harvest Home took place in August and was a time for bringing in the first of the crops for the winter. Time was set aside for silent prayer and reflection on the success of the harvest and was followed by community celebrations of feasting, dancing and singing. Once the Harvest Queen was selected and she would be decorated with grains and fruits from the fields and was seen as the spirit of the harvest.
In some modern Pagan traditions the Harvest Queen may be chosen and honored during the Mabon ritual and celebration and seen as a representation of the Goddess of the Harvest where she may be honored in ritual drama for giving up her bounty.
Keeping this all in mind it’s interesting to see that our modern harvest celebration of Thanksgiving Day takes place at a time so late in the year that the harvest is well over and in many places winter has already begun to take hold.
So tomorrow many American Pagans will find themselves giving thanks the Goddess, God and the earth for the harvest bounty for the second time as we celebrate with our families and friends during the secular Thanksgiving Day celebration. And there is nothing wrong with that and no certainly no harm in counting your blessings twice.
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