Tag: Yule

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yuletide blessings

I am, admittedly, not the most devout and practicing Pagan, aside from Samhain, which has always been my favorite holy day. But today marks the Winter Solstice, the start of the twelve days of Yule.

I’ve always loved a good fire, and in ancient tradition, the Yule fire burned for twelve days. This can be looked at as a sort of sympathetic magic, meant to encourage the sun to move forward and lengthen the days because, on the Winter Solstice, the Celts (and others) believed that the sun stood still.

From the Summer Solstice, the days grow shorter until we reach the Winter Solstice. This is the dark time of the year, but from this day forward, the days grow longer and the nights shorter until we complete the cycle at the Summer Solstice.

The Yule log isn’t the only sympathetic magic we engage in at this time of year. Those lights we hang on our trees, porches, eaves…that all started the same way. Drive out the dark, entice the sun to return. And that feast? Back in our pre-Christian, pre-electricity days, we had to squirrel away food from the harvest to get us through the winter, but by Yule, we know the spring is coming, and with it, the earth will once again bear fruit. So we eat heartily as a way of trusting that we will plant again and harvest again.

I don’t want this to turn into a diatribe about stolen traditions…or even stripping those traditions of their original meaning/purpose. I want to celebrate, because gods know this year could use a little celebration.

I don’t have a fireplace, but if I did, there would be a fire burning in it. Instead, I will light candles and wish for spring.

Whether you celebrate Yule, Christmas, Hannukah, or some other holiday this time of year, I hope it brings you joy, the comfort of home, the love of family, and blessings for the coming days, Readers.

Photo by Nathan Lindahl on Unsplash

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the sun will rise

I am, admittedly, a lazy sort of Pagan. I keep an altar and I light candles and burn incense on the holidays and sometimes at other times, but I don’t go all out like I used to when I was newly arrived in pagandom. My daily meditation practice is pretty lax in the best of times, and lets face it, these are not the best of times.

I am generally more into Samhain and Beltane than I am the solstices, but this year at Samhain everything felt suppressed under the weight of world around me, and Yule has dawned with a feeling of hope.

I know that the fight with this virus isn’t over and in fact we are facing some of the worst days to come. The fact that we now have two vaccines being deployed gives me hope that we might win this fight.

I also know that getting a new president and vice president isn’t going to fix the mess we’re in politically or financially (and do not get me started on this $600 congress thinks is a boon), but the upcoming inauguration also gives me hope that we can close this chapter on the American story and get to work rebuilding our nation and our relations with the world.

The world turns, and we with it. The longest night will pass and the sun will rise. I hope that it burns away the vitriol and hatred that has held the hearts of so many hostage and that with the lengthening of the days, the thawing of the earth, and the warmth of the sun, we begin to grow into better versions of ourselves.

Blessings to you, Readers. May you feel the sun on your face and know you are loved.

Cover Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

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yule logs and pumpkins and the fear of 13

It’s Friday the 13th, which honestly is a day I love, and not only because I was born on one.  I’ll be honest, most superstitions strike me as odd, but they tell us a lot about who we are, or who we came from.  The roots of such superstitions can be illuminating, and they illustrate the times and lives of our ancestors.

I’ll be honest here, I often take a perverse sort of pleasure in purposely defying superstition.  I dress in black on Friday the 13ths, today replete with skulls.  I adore black cats, the only fear I have of ladders is of falling off of them.

This juxtaposition of Friday the 13th against the landslide down to Christmas is amusing, not the least because it invokes the whole Nightmare Before Christmas scenario.  I’m that person who has Halloween decorations up (for some value of decoration, I don’t do much) year round.  Right now the area in front of my TV is filled with pumpkins and witches and candles and some pine boughs…

I don’t do a lot of decorating, mostly because I hate taking it down and putting it away!  One year I had Christmas lights up until nearly July.  I save that urge for my mother’s house, where I will be going tomorrow to help her get the tree up and all that fun stuff.

I may go so far as to decorate a Yule log and burn it in my fire pit one night, we’ll see how I’m feeling about it, and if the rain lets up long enough to make it happen.  Yule is pretty low key for me generally, as a Pagan, but I do want to recognize the rebirth of the sun and the return of the daylight as we pass the solstice and the days grow longer once more.

Christmas is a secular celebration for me, a time to spend with those that love me and to give gifts that remind them of my love for them.

But for today, I’ll just wrap my arms around the day and celebrate the overcoming of fear.  I should probably also re-heat my breakfast, which has gone cold and drink some more coffee, because coffee is life!

Happy Friday, Readers!  May the 13th shower you with good things!

 

Photo by Hannah Gibbs on Unsplash

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shining lights and quiet nights

We’re less than a week out from Christmas, which hardly seems possible.  I think I maybe finally found the knack of not going overboard on spending for my family this year.  I’m a gifter.  I like to give gifts.

For a lot of people, this time of year can be difficult.  The days are short. The nights are long.  We try to compensate with lights.  We put them on our trees, we put them on our house.  For me, it’s candles.  I love to fill my living room with candles during the holiday season.

It’s a form of what we call “sympathetic magic,” the act of calling something to you by imitation.  What we’re longing for is the sun, so we light our lives up with artificial light to tempt it to return.

The only thing I like better than candles lit against the cold dark of winter, is the cold dark of winter itself.  The winter solstice is Friday, the day of the longest night.  Every day after that the days will grow slowly longer and the wheel will turn, spring will come.  There will be candles in the early evening, but before I go to bed, I will put them all out and spend some time alone in that quiet that only comes in the dark.

It’s a good time to do a self-inventory, to judge your progress against goals, to adjust your attitude toward yourself and others.  Preparation, for you to return with the sun and ready yourself for the growth to come.

At least, that’s my solstice tradition.  Followed on Christmas with family time, food and gift giving.  I hope that however you celebrate, and whatever you celebrate, that this season of good will finds you happy, healthy and hopeful, Readers.

I am more grateful for all of you than you will ever know.

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yuletide musings

It is still pretty early here in California.  I’m in the office of my day job, a job I thoroughly enjoy.  The sun is casting golden beams of light in through the blinds and it’s hard to imagine that it is actually December. The mornings have been cold, but by noon most days it’s back to t-shirt weather.

The holiday season is always a bit crazy, and being a Pagan in a psuedo-Judeo/Christian society can be strange.  Here in America, everyone seems to just default to Christmas.  If you live here you MUST celebrate Christmas, and if you don’t, you tip their world over.

It isn’t even the really devout Christians that get the most weirded out all the time.  I mean, sure, they’re the ones who started this idea that there is some sort of war on Christmas, but I’ve gotten the most flack when I talk about how Christmas to me is a secular, family holiday, much like Thanksgiving, only with presents.

I don’t really decorate for Yule or Christmas.  I live alone and it seems silly to me to spend a weekend putting stuff up, then take a weekend pulling it down and storing it when I’m the only one to see it.

That isn’t to say that all the years of my life as a Christian, and all of those Christmas traditions have gone away.  One of my favorite memories of those times was Christmas Eve candlelight service.  All those candles, lit one by one, passing the flame…the sanctuary lit up like daylight, only the light was softer and warmer than the sun ever seemed to be in winter.  We lit candles at home on Christmas Eve long after we stopped attending that church.

Today I light candles a little earlier.  On Yule I like to light my entire living room with candlelight.  It is said that candles at Yule are what we call sympathetic magic…we are reminding the sun that we need it to return, and welcoming him as he is born anew.

There is a feeling of hope that permeates these winter holidays, whether you celebrate the birth of the sun or the birth of your God, whether you ignore all that and give gifts of love to your family…there is hope.

That is something that can be hard to see.  It’s there, if you look.  Just light a candle.  Even one candle can dispel the darkness for a time.