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Subscribe to this list via RSS Blog posts tagged in yuletide

Posted by on in Paths Blogs
Yule Ritual Plan

Planning a ritual in the time of Covid may require some adaptations. My kindred usually does winter holidays indoors, as illustrated by the picture above of last year's Yule, but this year we decided to do a bonfire outside in my back yard. Outdoor events are considered safer than indoor ones.

Ritual planning can require some forethought even if you've conducted a lot of rituals. Here are some ideas for an Asatru style Yule ritual, which other kinds of heathens, pagans, and polytheists might like to vik as well. (Asatruars sometimes semi-humorously say we are "viking" something, because that sounds so much cooler than "stealing.")

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Posted by on in Culture Blogs

 

 

My hands-down favorite Jewsploitation film (yes, gods help us, there really is such a genre), is the campy, satirical 2003 Hebrew Hammer. Here's the story.

Evil gay Santa (hey, a little gratuitous homophobia always makes everything funnier, right?) formulates a plot to destroy all the other winter holidays by absorbing them into one big, undifferentiated Christmas blob.

So the Hebrew Hammer, a nebbishy Jewish superhero—he's straight, of course—teams up with the guy from the Kwanzaa Liberation Front (also straight) to foil evil gay Santa's evil plot.

 

Satire aside, you have to appreciate the very real problem that the film addresses. Christmas as we know it has become a cannibalistic microorganism that just wants to engulf all the other holiday amoebas in its environment.

Part of this, of course, is nicey-nice Kumbaya feel-goodism. See, we're really all just alike: we all celebrate at this time of year.

In fact, of course, we don't. Muslims, for instance, don't have a festival of lights at this time of year (or at all, really). Diwali, in late October or early November, is nowhere near the Christmas orbit.

Things get a little more complicated with Yule. Pagans like to think of Yule as the mother and Christmas the daughter festival, but that's really a pretty disingenuous reading of the relationship between the two. In fact—like it or not—our modern Yule has been reborn from the womb of Christmas, and the two holidays still look a lot (some of us would say, too much) alike.

Yes, it would be nice to think that, for a while, we can all just set aside our differences and celebrate together. But reducing all the other winter holidays to mere satellites of Christmas is no way to go about it.

So in fact, no, Yule is not the pagan Christmas, and we're not all just the same.

So what?

 

On Midwinter's Eve, we sing the Sun down from the highest hill in town and kindle a fire as it sets. This fire we keep burning all night. In the morning, we sing the Sun back up out of the Mississippi Valley.

Every year, as crows call overhead, and light and color stream back into the world after the year's longest night, I always think: this is it. This is real Yule, in the nutshell.

Let me tell you, it doesn't look anything like Christmas.

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  • Anthony Gresham
    Anthony Gresham says #
    When I was very young the Christmas decorations didn't go up until after Thanksgiving even in the stores. I remember being shocke

Posted by on in Studies Blogs
Perchta, Winter Goddess of the Alps

The Yuletide is a season of wonderment, with warm food and drink, songs of joy and peace, the soft lighting of hearth fires, candles, and strings of electric light, gifts and blessings. But there's a darker aspect: the nocturnal Wild Hunt, when the fierce spirits of the wilderness roam.

 

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Posted by on in Culture Blogs
Last Tree Standing

If it were a contest, I'd win every year.

Last Yule tree on the block.

Call it the “Long Yule.”

Up here in the North, through our dark days and cold nights, we come yet again and again to drink from that fountain of living light.

Yule is a long farewell. At Thirteenth Night we begin; again, a thirtnight later, at Twenty-Sixth (3 x 13) Night, we continue. Last of all is Thirty-Ninth Night, what in Shetland they call Up-Helly-Aa: “Up-Holiday-All.”

By then, of course, we can see the fires of Imbolc burning on the horizon: our midwinter, halfway hope, by which time the greens will all have been burned and the geegaws laid by, with nothing over but ash, and the pure, pure Light.

The rest of Yule is all boxed up and put away. Only the tree remains: a worn familiarity, its glories somewhat dimmed as the Sun's light waxes.

But for now, for just this little while longer, I'll fondly sit and warm my hands at the embers of a dying fire.

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Posted by on in Culture Blogs
Born, Born Upon This Morn

Born, born

upon this morn:

a sacred day is dawning.

Rise, rise

and walk the skies

of this Midwinter's morning.

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Posted by on in SageWoman Blogs

A Winter Solstice Blessing

May you have a warm heart, 
open hands,
a creative mind.
May you experience inspiration and brilliance,
clarity and focus.
May you laugh richly and deeply.
May you circle and celebrate,
may you change and grow
May that which is waiting to be unlocked
be freed.
And may you soar with the knowing
that you are carried by a great wind across the sky.
*

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Outdoor Ideas & Eight Great Reads for Family Yule

When the holidays roll around, it can be difficult to hang on to spiritual meaning. I have no beef with Starbuck cups or shopping mall Santas. But I want my kids to stay in touch with what Yule is all about. For us, that’s solstice, the longest night and all that it brings with it. It’s easy to honor Brigid and the gift of growing light and warmth at Imbolc when there’s no mainstream commercial holiday to vying for kids’ attention. But trying to merge commercial Christmas with Yule makes for a much harder sell.

One way I work to reinforce the spiritual meaning of Yule is to make sure my kids get plenty of time outdoors. It’s fun to bundle up and set out on bike or on foot. Family hikes offer a chance to enjoy the brisk air and observe what the season really brings. The kids enjoy the discovery of vacated nests, animal tracks in the icy ground or snow, and the different shades of evergreens. Armed with flashlights or dollar store glowsticks, they like to go out into the backyard and marvel at how early darkness arrives now, often before dinner! Our telescope is permanently set out on our front porch so we (or the neighbors, if so inclined) can marvel at the intensity of the Long Night Moon.

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