Today I baked a pie.

A pumpkin pie, to be precise. A pumpkin pie using pumpkins who I first met as seeds before I tucked them into the soil last May. Pumpkins whose prickly vines twisted and twined and cavorted amidst the nasturtiums throughout the summer. Pumpkins I harvested in early autumn. Pumpkins that I roasted in October with a bit of salt until the skins were charred and the insides were soft and fragrant and sugar sweet. Pumpkins whose flesh I scooped and pureed and spooned into containers and tucked into the freezer.

Today I baked a pumpkin pie, and it represents all that I planted and harvested last year.

It represents the personal truths and deep knowing which started as small seeds in the darkness and put down roots and blossomed in the warmth of my gut and the light of my heart.

It represents the love and the attention and the sweetness that nurtured growth.

It represents the love and the attention and the sweetness that were reaped.

Growing up, we ate pork on New Year’s Day. It was meant to usher in financial prosperity and forward progress (for humans at least, not so much for the pigs). As a kid, I thought those were great things to wish for at the start of a new year.

Now, though, I see that tradition as being based in grasping and desire and a sense of never having – or never being – enough. More money and undefined and endless progression are the last things we need. They certainly aren’t what I’m looking to cultivate.

And so, today, this year, I began a new tradition. A rite I plan to continue on future firsts of future Januarys.

I baked a pie.

I baked a pie using that which I planted and watered and nurtured and spoke soft words to and harvested and prepared and preserved. Time and love went into magicking flour and butter and sugar and pumpkin and spices into something far more special than the sum of its parts.

This evening, before Darin and I cut into our New Year’s pie, we’ll take a moment to express gratitude. We’ll express gratitude for that which was harvested and for the sweetness and the bounty that we’re carrying forward. We’ll set an intention that the seeds we sow in the coming year will be seeds of love and compassion and kindness and gratitude.

And perhaps, if we provide our soul seeds with enough nurturing kindness and soft words and just the right amount amount of water and light and darkness, in a year from now we’ll be expressing gratitude for another lovely bounty.