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.
Not Yule Yet
Time Between
Remember, it's not Yule yet.
When the orange lights come down and the remnants of the jack o' lantern, flesh melted away like some collapsed, leathery bog body, shoveled off to the compost pile, it's tempting to dive right away into Yule.
Don't.
No: Yule is coming, but it's not yet here.
Now we're in the Fallows, that poignant Time Between, when the old is ended and the new not yet begun: a dead time, but paradoxically, a pregnant time as well, the synapse awaiting the spark.
'Ware premature celebration. All through the lead-up, we party, we sing, we feast. By the time Yule gets here, we've already done it all; we're actually a little bored with it.
No, let us heed the ancestral wisdom of the lean before the fat, the fast before the feast.
Let us string up the lights, but not yet light them.
Let us meditate on the carols, but not yet sing them.
Let us bake the cookies, but not yet eat them.
Yule will come, in due time.
Meanwhile, we make ready. We wait, a holy waiting.
We savor the dark, the cold: the Time Between.
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