Paganistan: Notes from the Secret Commonwealth

In Which One Midwest Man-in-Black Confers, Converses & Otherwise Hob-Nobs with his Fellow Hob-Men (& -Women) Concerning the Sundry Ways of the Famed but Ill-Starred Tribe of Witches.

  • Home
    Home This is where you can find all the blog posts throughout the site.
  • Tags
    Tags Displays a list of tags that have been used in the blog.
  • Bloggers
    Bloggers Search for your favorite blogger from this site.
  • Login
    Login Login form

Making Light

Posted by on in Culture Blogs

 

Gods, there are a lot of Yule trees up already.

Driving around last week on the Sunday before Thanksgiving, I was struck by how many Yule trees I saw in the windows of the houses I passed: far more than there would usually be this early in the season that Americans know collectively as “the holidays.”

No, I don't think that it's just Christmas creep. (If you think that the “Christmas Creep” sounds like some nasty little wight that invades people's homes earlier and earlier every year, probably wearing a little red hat, you may well be right.) Yes, more people are spending more time at home with more time on their hands than usual. But I think that there's something deeper going on.

It's a dark time in a dark year: a pandemic, a nasty election, a summer of disquiet and reckoning with collective sins past and present. In such times, there's really only one thing that you can do: make some light.

Every year in December, together we work a massive act of collective sympathetic magic. The light goes away; we make light in the darkness; the light comes back. In some ways, all those other years seem like rehearsal for what we need to do right now.

Right now, we need that magic, and we need the light. Usually I wait until the days before the Sunstead to bring out the Yule boxes. This year, though, I may reconsider.

Gods know, we need it.

 

Photo: Wren Swart

 

 

 

 

 

Last modified on
Tagged in: Yule 2020 Yule tree
Poet, scholar and storyteller Steven Posch was raised in the hardwood forests of western Pennsylvania by white-tailed deer. (That's the story, anyway.) He emigrated to Paganistan in 1979 and by sheer dint of personality has become one of Lake Country's foremost men-in-black. He is current keeper of the Minnesota Ooser.

Comments

  • Anthony Gresham
    Anthony Gresham Sunday, 29 November 2020

    The people who lived in this house before me left their outdoor Christmas lights behind. I've never touched them in the 3 previous years, but this year I'm actually looking at them. This year I might actually pull them out, because it's just been that kind of year.

  • Please login first in order for you to submit comments

Additional information