PaganSquare.com - WitchesAndPagans.com

I adore cranberries—here at Witch Central (North), they're a wintertime staple—but most standard cranberry preparations involve truly toxic amounts of refined sugar. Fruit-sweetening seems a smart (to say nothing of aesthetically-preferable) alternative.

To palates accustomed to commercial cranberry sauces, the fruit-sweetened variety can at first seem overwhelmingly tart. (Unsurprisingly, witches value tartness, both behavioral and gustatory.) If you find that this is true for you, just up the proportion of grapes to cranberries.

Old Warlock's Fruit-Sweetened Cran-Grape Sauce

12 oz. (1 bag) fresh cranberries

1 generous bunch table grapes (red, white, or purple)

apple cider

pinch salt

Pick over the cranberries and wash them. Wash the grapes and stem them.

We went out the door, wrapped in coats and scarves, with our paper lanterns lit. The streets were dark, but ahead of us, we could make out the shadows of other children and their parents, their faces softly illuminated by their own lanterns hung on sticks. The lanterns swayed gently as we walked. We went up the street, up the long hill, through the little Bavarian town we were temporarily calling home. It was the eve of Martinstag, November 10, and our neighbors who lived in the flat below ours had invited us to come along.

It wasn't a solemn ritual. There was laughter and chatter, an air of excitement. On the main street, a crowd gathered on either side, the lanterns brightening the darkness. A parade advanced and thundered down the street, roaring with music, vehicles decorated like ships, horses, and other modes of travel. Costumed celebrants called out, "Halloo!" a traditional battle cry, and tossed out candy that we scrambled for and stuffed into sacks.

On this Equinox Day, a guest post by longtime Minneapolis priestess and liturgist Magenta Griffith: a Harvest Invocation first delivered at our coven's 40^th Annual Harvest Supper last night.

After the invocation, those around the table chimed in, thanking specifically the lives that came to an end for the sake of our feast: “Thank you, lamb!” “Thank you, cabbage!” (The onions, of course, got a big cheer.)

It ends with a toast, and the feast begins: Witches' Thanksgiving, 2019.

Harvest Invocation 2019

Life feeds on life, life feeds on death

And some will die so all might eat

Greens are pulled alive from earth

Wheat is scythed to make our bread

Beans are boiled that we might feast

Grapes when crushed become our wine

Spuds are dug to make our soup

Barley roasts to make our beer

Eggs are taken from their hens

Cows are robbed to make our cheese

Cider comes from apples pressed

Sweetness comes from looting hives

Corn is ground to make our meal

We shall someday change into soil

And so the circle turns.

Thanksgiving, as celebrated in the United States has a complicated history. We are inundated with bucolic images of blue-eyed, cherubic pilgrims in the buckled shoes, sharing a bountiful table with the ever so grateful and equally generous natives who are just so gosh darned pleased that the pilgrims could stop by for dinner. Then, of course, after dessert, the genocide.

The "real" story of Thanksgiving is particularly bloody, and not just for the turkey. The Pequot Nation lost over seven hundred men, women and children.The ensuing decades brought near total devastation for the First Nations peoples living all around what is now New England.