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“When my mind was cleansed of impurities,

Like a mirror of its dust and dirt,

Magic Most Sympathetic

Here, try some of my grandmother's lemon-poppy seed cake.

If you don't, the Sun may not rise in the morning.

If you're reading this, I'm betting that you probably have a food that it wouldn't be Yule without. What's yours?

For me, it's my legacy poppy seed cake. I only bake it at Yule. Bright with lemon zest, dark with poppy seed: a dark-light balance of bitter and sweet. (Very much like life, that.) It's got a lovely gritty texture, and as for that melting lemon glaze over top....

And seriously, if you don't have some at Yule, the Sun will not come up.

One year, I had dental surgery in early December. Afterward, they gave me the list of post-surgical food taboos: no nuts, no seeds.

Seriously? Hey, man, I'm from Pittsburgh. F*cking Yule is coming, and you're telling me that I can't have poppy seed?!?

At this remove of time, I can no longer remember whether or not I followed the doctor's orders. In retrospect, I'm guessing that I probably had at least the obligatory ritual bite.

After all, the Sun did come up the next day.

Poppy seed: black as rich, dark Earth, bitter as love, plentiful as stars or grains of sand.

As symbols of abundance go, it doesn't get much better than that.

American Kleptocracy

Why has Luigi Mangione, slayer of healthcare CEO what's-his-name, become a modern-day folk-hero?

Easily told.

He's cute.

Yes, Americans really are this superficial. So were the ancient Greeks.

People love the beautiful. Studies show again and again that the good-looking regularly receive better grades and lighter sentences than the rest of us.

Is this really news to anyone?

People hate the American healthcare industry.

We hate its greed, we hate its unfairness, we hate its untouchability. Get sick, risk financial ruin.

We're sick of a so-called “healthcare” industry that actually prioritizes profit over care.

With its uncaring, (literal) life-and-death power over us all, why in the world wouldn't we?

People hate the corporate takeover of America.

Corporations run America, and we hate it. Why in the world wouldn't we?

It's even official, now that the president elect, himself a convicted criminal, is appointing his fellow kleptocrats to “legally” run things.

Even supposed left-leaning billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg are now lining up to—you'll pardon my Yiddish—lekh Trump im tukhis.*

Of course we hate it.

People are sick of having no recourse.

Americans have lost confidence in a bought-and-paid-for “justice” system from which the wealthy can buy any verdict they like.

When even the Supreme Court is corrupt, what other recourse is there?

Making massage candles is very similar to making any other type of potted candle. I recommend using soy wax as it is so gentle on the skin. Soy is also nice and soft, so it melts easily and stays together in a puddle after melting and can be reused for us thrifty crafters. It won’t irritate your skin unless you have a soy allergy; if you have an allergy to soy, you can use beeswax instead, which is widely used. (For example, beeswax is in nearly every single Burt’s Bees product.) The addition of the oils prevents it from hardening again and enables your skin to absorb it. Essential oils or cosmetic-grade fragrance oils are also added to create a soothing atmosphere. All soap-making fragrances, which are also soy candle safe, are perfect choices for scenting your massage candles. Try the basic directions below to make your first candle. For every three ounces of wax, you’ll add one ounce of liquid oil and one-quarter ounce of fragrance. I suggest making two candles in four-ounce metal tins while you master this craft.

You will need these elements:

Every August from infancy on, I’ve been carried or made my way to a quiet beach on the Maine coast, where there’s nothing to do but play in the surf or lie in the sand, gazing at the sea.

From the shore, you can see a small island hugging the horizon off to the east. Two green humps divided by a swath of meadow, just far enough away that you can’t really tell what may or may not be there. Over the years it’s kept watch over my personal stretch of ocean, providing the setting for childhood fantasy, teen daydreams, and adult contemplation.

“An Island of Paganism in a Sea of Islam”

The Kalasha people of what is now northwestern Pakistan have begun their celebration of Chaumós, their month-long Winter Solstice festival.

Numbering some 4000, the Kalasha are something of a miracle: the only remaining Indo-European-speaking people who have practiced their traditional religion continuously since antiquity.

Though, unsurprisingly, some Hindu nationalists have claimed them as Hindus, their religion is actually closer kin to the Vedic religion as practiced by the Indo-Aryans when they first entered the Indian Subcontinent some 3500 years ago: the ancestral ground from which the various “Hinduisms” later arose.

Who Is Balumain?

During Chaumos, the god Balumáin rides into the Kalasha valleys on a steed with flaming hooves to bring back light and bless the Kalasha people for the coming year.

It's unclear what his name means. The Kalasha themselves no longer remember, and various scholars have construed it variously.

His identity, however, is not in question. His secret name, used only in certain chants sung by a handful of elders at high points of the festival, is Indr.

He is the Indra of Vedic mythology.

An Indian Thor

Though no longer actively worshiped in Hinduism—to the best of my knowledge, he no longer has any active temples in India—Indra was the major god of the incoming Indo-Aryans' pantheon: the Divine Thunderer, chiefest of gods, akin to Thor, Taranis, Perkunas, Perun, Jupiter, and Zeus.

Like his brother Thunderers, his chiefest deed, as celebrated repeatedly in the hymns of the Rig Veda, is his defeat of the dragon Vritra.

What Has the Thunderer to Do with the Solstice?

Why invoke the Thunderer, of all gods, at the Winter Solstice, of all times? The Kalasha themselves no longer remember.

Italian anthropologist Augusto Cacopardo, a lifelong student of Kalasha religion and culture, though, has a theory: that, in its original configuration, Chaumos was precisely a festival that celebrated—and, indeed, actualized—the god's primal triumph over the chaos-dragon.

The name of Balumain's foe has been long forgotten, but an early night of the festival, featuring torchlit processions, is still called by the Kalasha Nong Rat, the “Night of the Serpent.”

A Vedic Key

Why does Indra fight Vritra? He does so to free the Waters, Cattle, and the Sun, which the monster has greedily imprisoned in a cave.

O lord Indra: you caused to appear the hidden rays held captive in the cave as the Sun, releasing them to all the people, says the Atharva Veda (20:40:3).

It seems likely that a similar myth once underlay the Kalasha festival.

More and Many More

On the final day of the festival, as the Kalasha dance to honor the god's departure from their valleys, it is said that Balumain counts the people. If they number more than in the previous year, then there will be yet more of them in the year to come.

In the face of a hostile Islam, Kalasha culture is currently undergoing something of a renaissance, driven, among other things, by the interest shown in them by Western scholars and, indeed, the knowledge that, here in the West, there exist those of us who are intentionally choosing to return to the Old Ways that are theirs by right of inheritance.

I

Caput apri defero

reddens laudes Domino

“A boar's head I bear,

rendering praises to the Lord.”

The Boar's Head Carol

English, 15^th century

II

...cum ingenti Priapo

“...with a huge 'Priapus' [= erection]”

Adam of Bremen, Gesta Hammaburgensis (ca. 1080)

Description of the idol of Freyr [“the Lord”] in the Great Temple at Uppsala

III