Roasted turkey with stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, cornbread, cranberry sauce, autumnal vegetables of squash, sweet potatoes, corn, green beans — and feasting with family, friends, community, and Spirit.
The holiday celebrated as Thanksgiving comes later than the Pagan Sabbaths of the Wheel of the Year marking the harvest time. But whatever myth surrounds this time, there is the sense of gratitude, thankfulness, and appreciation through prayer, speech, action and ritual.
First harvest has been celebrated at Lughnasadh/Lammas and our ancestors and our beloved dead remembered and celebrated at Samhain/All Souls Day/Day of the Dead. This is the last of the harvest and the darkening of the year. So what better way to appease and honor the deities than by gratitude and doing rituals to reflect this.
But gratitude magic can and must be practiced all year round, especially when we are asking for personal things, e.g., love, money, health. A long time ago, when I first started my spiritual journey, I kept hearing “pray as if you already have what you want.” Later I translated it to “start with what you are grateful for, what you already have. Then speak what you want as if it were already yours.”
Ways To Offer Gratitude As Magic Spells
• If you are by a body of water with wave action, write on the earth/sand at the edge — where water and earth come together — what you are grateful for, your blessings. Allow the water’s movement to take your gratitude into its self.
• Write down what you are thankful and grateful for, anoint the paper with Blessing oil, and put it under a white candle. When the candle is done, take the paper and fold it 3 times toward you. Keep this paper on your person (in a pouch, in your left shoe, under your pillow) to always remember your blessings.
• Offer fruit juice, wine, milk, grains, and vegetables to Mother Earth and the harvest deities by placing them in a wooded area slightly away from people.
• Each evening find something new to be grateful for. Write it on a slip of paper and add it to your Gratitude Treasure Chest. At the full of the moon, remember each of these blessings, burning them with Blessing incense or by the flame of a candle anointed with Blessing oil.
• Sing, chant, speak out loud your gratitude and blessings.