The Reason for
the Season
Loren Toomsen, Clear Lake, set the stage
for the Pagan Yule Ritual with this background homily.
Our
Christian friends are often quite surprised at how enthusiastically Pagans
celebrate the 'Christmas' season. Even though we prefer to use the word 'Yule',
and our celebrations may peak a few days BEFORE December 25th, we nonetheless
follow many of the traditional customs of the season: decorated trees, caroling,
presents, Yule logs, and mistletoe. We might even go so far as putting up a
'Nativity set', though for us the three central characters are likely to be
interpreted as Mother Nature, Father Time, and the Baby Sun-God. None of this
will come as a surprise to anyone who knows the true history of the holiday, of
course.
In fact, if truth be known, the holiday of
Christmas has always been more Pagan than Christian, with it's associations
of Nordic divination, Celtic fertility rites, and Roman Mithraism. That is why
both Martin Luther and John Calvin abhorred Christmas on December 25th, why the
Puritans refused to acknowledge Christmas, much less celebrate it (to the
Puritans, no day of the year could be more holy than the Sabbath), and why
Christmas once was even made ILLEGAL in Boston! The holiday was already too
closely associated with the birth of older Pagan gods and heroes. And many of
them (like Oedipus, Theseus, Hercules, Perseus, Jason, Dionysus, Apollo, Mithra,
Horus and even Arthur) possessed a narrative of birth, death, and resurrection
that was uncomfortably close to that of Jesus. And to make matters worse, many
of them pre-dated the Christian Savior.
Ultimately, of course, the holiday is rooted
deeply in the cycle of the year. It is the Winter Solstice that is being
celebrated, seed-time of the year, the longest night and shortest day. It is the
birthday of the new Sun King, the Son of God -- by whatever name you choose to
call him. On this darkest of nights, the Goddess becomes the Great Mother and
once again gives birth. And it makes perfect poetic sense that on the longest
night of the winter, 'the dark night of our souls', there springs the new spark
of hope, the Sacred Fire, the Light of the World, the
Coel Coeth.
That is why Pagans have as much right to claim
this holiday as Christians. Perhaps even more so, as the Christians were rather
late in laying claim to it, and tried more than once to reject it. There had
been a tradition in the West that Mary bore the child Jesus on the twenty-fifth
day, but no one could seem to decide on the month. Finally, in 320 C.E., the
Catholic Church decided to make it December, in an effort to co-opt the Mithraic
celebration of the Romans and the Yule celebrations of the Celts and Saxons.
There was never much pretense that the date they
finally chose was historically accurate. Shepherds just don't 'tend their flocks
by night' in the high pastures in the dead of winter! But if one wishes to use
the New Testament as historical evidence, this reference may point to sometime
in the spring as the time of Jesus's birth. This is because the lambing season
occurs in the spring and that is the only time when shepherds are likely to
'watch their flocks by night' -- to make sure the lambing goes well. Knowing
this, the Eastern half of the Church continued to reject December 25, preferring
a 'movable date' fixed by their astrologers according to the moon.
Thus, despite its shaky start (for over three
centuries, no one knew when Jesus was supposed to have been born!), December 25
finally began to catch on. By 529, it was a civic holiday, and all work or
public business (except that of cooks, bakers, or any that contributed to the
delight of the holiday) was prohibited by the Emperor Justinian. In 563, the
Council of Braga forbade fasting on Christmas Day, and four years later the
Council of Tours proclaimed the twelve days from December 25 to Epiphany as a
sacred, festive season. This last point is perhaps the hardest to impress upon a
modern American, who is lucky to get a single day off work. Christmas, in the
Middle Ages, was not a SINGLE day, but rather a period of TWELVE days, from
December 25 to January 6. The Twelve Days of Christmas, in fact. It is certainly
lamentable that the modern world has abandoned this approach, along with the
popular
Twelfth Night celebrations.
Yule is the celebration of the return of the
Sun. It is the time of the winter solstice, when the nights are at their
longest. After the moment of the solstice, the days begin to grow in
strength again, and the tide in the struggle between light and dark begins
to turn. To Wiccans and Pagans of most traditions, the Sun represents the
male aspect of Deity His death and rebirth on the Winter Solstice is viewed
as the death of the old solar year and the birth of the new. This
eternal struggle is symbolized in some traditions by the battle between the
Oak King (God of the Waxing Year or the Divine Child) and the Holly King
(God of the Waning Year or the Dark Lord). At Yule, the Oak King vanquishes
the Holly King. At Litha, or summer solstice (when the days begin to grow
shorter), the Holly King is victorious over the Oak King.
The names by which the God was known have
varied from culture to culture; thus to the Norse and Anglo-Saxons he was
Balder, to the Celts, Bel, etc. Despite different names, his attributes
generally remained the same, making him easy to recognize.
Of course, the Christian version of the
holiday spread to many countries no faster than Christianity itself, which
means that 'Christmas' wasn't celebrated in Ireland until the late fifth
century; in England, Switzerland, and Austria until the seventh; in Germany
until the eighth; and in the Slavic lands until the ninth and tenth. Not that
these countries lacked their own mid-winter celebrations of Yuletide. Long
before the world had heard of Jesus, Pagans had been observing the season by
bringing in the Yule log, wishing on it, and lighting it from the remains of
last year's log. Riddles were posed and answered, magic and rituals were
practiced, wild boars were sacrificed and consumed along with large quantities
of liquor, corn dollies were carried from house to house while caroling,
fertility rites were practiced (girls standing under a sprig of mistletoe were
subject to a bit more than a kiss), and divinations were cast for the coming
Spring. Many of these Pagan customs, in an appropriately watered-down form, have
entered the mainstream of Christian celebration, though most celebrants do not
realize (or do not mention it, if they do) their origins.
For modern Witches, Yule (from the Anglo-Saxon 'Yula',
meaning 'wheel' of the year) is usually celebrated on the actual Winter
Solstice, which may vary by a few days, though it usually occurs on or around
December 21st. It is a Lesser Sabbat or Lower Holiday in the modern Pagan
calendar, one of the four quarter-days of the year, but a very important one.
This year (2002) the Solstice occurred last night, December 21st at 7:14 pm Iowa
time about sixteen hours ago.
American Indian tribes who observe the service
say something like this: "The time of Earth Renewal is very strong, and the
energy of this time lasts up to twelve days before and after the Solstice
itself. If you are sensitive, you can generally pick up on these energies
as they begin to peak (4 days before and after the Solstice). This time of year
is a chance for you to give your thanks and to give your energy back to the
Earth Mother and Father Sun."
I like that statement, "If you are sensitive, you
can generally pick up on these energies." Have you ever felt that moment?
I have. To me it is a magic time, a moment where the sun has begun it's
pull north, and I believe our DNA is sensitive to the change in the suns
direction. We feel it in our bones. We are, after all, solar
powered. I generally feel it several days after the solstice when the suns
direction north has been established. I would like to go so far as to say we
life forms in the great inter-dependent web of life on earth all are sensitive
to the suns sudden redirection in the sky as it affects each of us individually.
For the past four billion years the sun has been pouring it's creative life
energy upon our planet moving upon the face of the elements of this earth,
powering the engine of organic evolution. Nothing supernatural here, just
a natural event occurring in real time. The angle of the earths axis
causing an annual cycle in our relationship with the sun.
I can empathize with our ancestors in the
northern hemisphere, across time and generations for seizing upon this magical
moment of connection with our creative life source and to recognize it in
celebration to gods and goddesses that looked an awfully lot like them. It
does not surprise me that the Jesus story, over the years has taken on the story
of the rebirth of the Sun-God.
Pagan customs are still enthusiastically
followed. Once, the Yule log had been the center of the celebration. It was
lighted on the eve of the solstice (it should light on the first try) and must
be kept burning for twelve hours, for good luck. It should be made of ash.
Later, the Yule log was replaced by the Yule tree but, instead of burning it,
burning candles were placed on it. In Christianity, Protestants might claim that
Martin Luther invented the custom, and Catholics might grant St. Boniface the
honor, but the custom can demonstrably be traced back through the Roman
Saturnalia all the way to ancient Egypt. Needless to say, such a tree should be
cut down rather than purchased, and should be disposed of by burning, the proper
way to dispatch any sacred object.
Along with the evergreen, the holly and the ivy
and the mistletoe were important plants of the season, all symbolizing fertility
and everlasting life. Mistletoe was especially venerated by the Celtic Druids,
who cut it with a golden sickle on the sixth night of the moon, and believed it
to be an aphrodisiac. (Magically -- not medicinally! It's highly toxic!) But
aphrodisiacs must have been the smallest part of the Yuletide menu in ancient
times, as contemporary reports indicate that the tables fairly creaked under the
strain of every type of good food. And drink! The most popular of which was the
'wassail cup' deriving its name from the Anglo-Saxon term 'waes hael' (be whole
or hale).
The most common use of the term "wassail" is
in describing a festive drink, of which there are various recipes to be
found, using ale or cider. It was also the custom to carry the brew about
the neighborhood in a wooden bowl (wassail bowl), leading a procession from
door to door singing and spreading the feeling of benevolence and good
cheer.
Another form of wassailing is seen in the
British Isles. There, in addition to the drink being observed among people,
the locals "wassail" the trees. A hymn is usually sung to the tree wishing
it good health and long life. A blessing is also bestowed upon it to be
fruitful; then guns are fired or some other loud noise is made in order to
drive off any woeful spirits. Toasts to the tree are then drunk from the
wassail bowl. When all have finished their toasts, the remainder of the
liquid is poured out on the earth around the trunk while bread or cakes from
the wassail celebrations are placed upon its branches.
Medieval Christmas folklore seems endless:
