In the United States, the fourth Thursday in November is the federal holiday known as Thanksgiving Day.  Many other countries have a thanksgiving day of some sort during the course of the year.  In the case of the US, it is claimed to commemorate a celebration had by the Plymouth Pilgrims to celebrate a bountiful harvest after a hard winter in which many of them died of starvation and cold. 

It is a mundane holiday, and we are spiritual people.  What can we do with this?

This is a celebration of "the harvest" in the same manner as Lammas, Mabon and Samhain are the celebrations of three distinct harvests.  For those of us in modern times, this might not seem so apparent to someone whose food comes not from a field but from a supermarket.  But there had to be a harvest even if you and I don't experience it.

Another dimension of the mundane Thanksgiving holiday is the number of families who come together, some of them overcoming miles and others setting aside issues for the sake of the celebration.  How well I remember trips to Duluth (Minnesota) for Thanksgiving.  What a way to give thanks, including for family!

But it is a time set aside for giving thanks.

And the kind of thanks we can give at such a special time (or any other time we set aside) is more than just thanks.  It is the basis of something which we can build upon!  And build we shall!

Blessed Be!

When it happens?  Yes, it can happen and it will!  It's what you've been praying about, isn't it?

When it happens, what are you going to do?  As one actor in a commercial for travelers' checks once expressed it, "What will you do?"

You've prayed, you've done (or attended) rituals and other gatherings, and done everything else you're supposed to, and maybe worried about not doing enough, and suddenly - there it is!  What you've asked for is yours.

Strange thing, there isn't much good advice about how to handle things when it happens.  From Sister Sweathog and/or Mrs. Broadbeam at Sunday School to Brother Billy-Bob behind the pulpit telling you about "God's will," there just isn't much decent advice about what to do when you have what you've been asking for!

Will you know what it is when it is staring you in the face?  It might not look like what you thought it would look like, you know.  Some seeds do not look much like the trees which they can become.

Will you know what to do with it once you have recognized it?

Will you have any idea what the next step will be once you understand what is yours?

Please understand that there might be something coming to you.  You do not have to give in to the naysayers, the meddlers and the people who ought to mind their own business.  It can be yours.

And if you can grow that into what you pictured in your minds' eye, what can be next?

Blessed Be!

Here are the ten most popular ways to destroy your own spiritual life!

With the coming and going of Samhain, we have the end of one year and the beginning of another year.  And this is a most appropriate time to reflect for a bit on some of the most basic of basics.

Everyone from the Pope and the Dahlai Lama down to frizzy-haired church gossips will offer advice on how to have a quality spiritual life.  Some of the advice might be excellent.  But, there is so much of "how-to".

Some folks take another approach and speak of "how not to".  They show the more common shortcomings of some efforts in hopes that we'll avoid repeating the mistakes of others.

Here' I've taken a third approach.  Every day, there are people whose spiritual life just sort of whimpers.  One day, someone wakes up and suddenly discovers that their spiritual life is not only gone, it has been gone for a long time.  So, I've decided to show how to make your spiritual life do an outright crash-and-burn!

Now, of course, it is not my intent to encourage you to be spectatular failures.  Rather, it is my hope that in this list of the most popular ways to colossal spiritual failure, you'll find some clues as to how to be a major success.

As is often the case in many fields, the difference between success and failure is the grasping of a basic principle.  Take marketing as an example.  One store prospers over the long run, while another store does very well initially but then just sort of dies and goes out of business.  There's a principle that says that once you've got the customer to come to your store, you need to give that customer reason to come again.  And so one store flourishes over time while another store seems to be doing very well and then suddenly begins to wither away.  It's the same thing with your spiritual life.

And perhaps there might be some clues here as to how to make your spiritual life sizzle!

Blessed Be!

Spiritually, just possibly the most powerful of all Sabbats has just made its yearly visit to us here in the Northern Hemisphere.  So, what now?

The answer can be found in a term often used by athletes and their coaches: follow-through.  In baseball, it's what you do with the bat after it encounters the ball.  In football, it's what your arm does after you release the ball.  In golf, it's what you do with the club after it hits the golf ball.  Sometimes, it seems as if follow-through is as important as anything else you do.  Quite often, it actually is!

We often make jokes about our more mundane friends and the resolutions which they make at the mundane new year - and usually break before February.  Then again, they make the same jokes about themselves.  They make the resolution, but what's next?

Like all Sabbats, this past Samhain will be with us until the next Samhain.  And while our mundane friends make their December 31st/January 1st resolutions to family, friends, the office water cooler and the person filling their glass, we do more.  Samhain is a time for endings and beginnings.  And so, we do well to be a bit more serious.

And how to follow through?  There are some basic principles, and a few "rules" which seem to work for me.  At any rate, at the 2007 Samhain I once again resolved to end my smoking habit, and it seems to be ended.  At any rate, I am 11 months smoke-free.  I can't say that precisely what I did will work for you, but it was follow-through and I share some thoughts on follow-through.

We have some great things to build, and the building begins at Samhain.  And the follow-through continues through the year.

Blessed Be!

It's Samhain!

If there's ever a time when we shouldn't have to mention the specific date, it would be Samhain, and it is Samhain!

According to lore, Samhain is the time of the year when the veil between the worlds is thinnest.  That is when we can most easily reach through the veil to those on the other side, and when those on the other side can most easily reach through to us.  

That is not to say that it is not possible at other times, because it certainly is.  But this is when it is the easiest to get things done which involve both sides of the veil.

This is when we can remember those who have left us, especially those who have left us since last Samhain.  But we can also remember anyone else who has left, even someone who left before we began this particular incarnation.  Not only do I commemorate those I knew, I also commemorate those I wish that I would have known (and maybe might have known in another life).  

This is a time when we can also look ahead to what is to come.  Do you have a vision of what you wish to make of your future?  I certainly do.  And if you do, now is a great time to ask for it.

So long as you remember the basic "rules" about what you wish for, there is no limit.  And, it can happen.

Why do I say that it can happen?  You might recall my comments about Chase Utley, the second baseman of the Philadelphia Phillies.  He and his wife Jen do a lot for animals.  They came to my attention about a year ago when they were involved in the rescue of a dog who had been terribly abused.  I'm not a fan of athletics, but someone like that has my respect.  It became my opinion that someone like that deserved the best honor he could achieve in his profession - and in his case, that would be winning the World Series.  And he did!  And those of you who joined in with me had a part of it.

So, yes you can!

And so, this celebration of Samhain can be the most powerful that you have ever experienced, if you're willing to see what's on the other side of the door.

Blessed Be!