Spiritual Essence
|
Spiritual Essence The Holly and the Mistletoe |
by
Pippin
The
Winter Solstice is my favorite time of year. I know this seems odd, the
days are getting darker and darker, the sun is weak and cold. He is far
to the south in the warm lands, the green lands. He is walking through
the verdant and fertile fields of the southern hemisphere. Everything
is reversed in its polarity from just a few months ago. On the Summer
Solstice, the Horned God, the King Stag, was reaching the peak of his
power. His marriage to the Goddess, consummated at Beltaine, was building
through the summer to the Solstice and to Lammas. At Lammas, he was cut
down with the harvest, and he has been journeying to the lands of death
through the fall.
But now, Blessed Be, he is reborn of the
Goddess just as we are convinced that the light has failed forever! And
now he is the golden child, Gwydion, the bright, shining one. He is the
laughing, smiling infant grasping at the light. The Winter Solstice is
the shortest day of the year and the longest night. In Vermont we will
have less than eight hours of daylight, and the darkness comes with seemingly
interminable cold. Yet in the darkness is also the return of the light
and the growth of the new King, beginning the cycle anew.
The Solstices and Equinoxes are sun festivals,
masculine in their orientation. The other four Sabbats - Imbolc, Beltaine,
Lammas and Samhain - are more related to the moon and thus feminine. Yet
these cyclical festivals are not polarized by gender, for in each there
is the aspect of the other, and the festivals cannot happen in a setting
that excludes masculine or feminine energy. They must blend in order to
stand fully in their power.
We can see this blending in many ways.
Although the pagan festival of Yule has long been co-opted by the Christian
celebration of the birth of Jesus, we can easily note the parallels between
the birth of Jesus and the rebirth of the sun god. We can look to Mary
as an incarnation of the triple goddess represented in Maiden, Mother
and Crone. We honor her transformation at the Solstice from Maiden to
Mother, seeing in that story the inevitable continuation. She will transform
from Mother to Crone as her child is sacrificed for the survival of her
people later in the liturgical drama.
Many of today's "Christmas Traditions"
are built on earlier pagan rituals. While I regret our reliance on Vermont
Yankee to power all those Christmas lights, I love driving through the
snowy streets to see my neighbors' elaborate displays. I am reminded of
the Solstice bonfires that were kept burning on every hilltop each mid-winter
night for thousands of years. The fires were representations of the sun
and burned in order to welcome back the pale light and celebrate the birth
of the new god.
The bonfire lights are also lit in miniature
in our Christmas trees The evergreens are reminders of the hope of summer
in the darkness of winter. In many pagan traditions the Yule tree is stripped
of its branches after the Solstice and used at Beltaine as the Maypole.
By the time the cycle of the year has returned to the Winter Solstice,
the trunk is dry and cracked, ready to be burned in the ritual fire as
the Yule log, laced in flaming brandy to remind us of the sun.
Morning Glory Zell, a pagan priestess,
describes the earth religions as like a tree, an important metaphor as
we bring evergreens into our homes and let the scent of pine and spruce
cheer us. Zell writes, "A Pagan religion... emerges alive from the Earth,
grows, changes (both cyclically in seasons, and continually in upward
and outward growth), bears flowers, fruit, shares its life with other
living beings. ...And when, after many thousands of years... it should
come to the end of its time, it does not pass from the world entirely,
for its own progeny have, in the interval, begun to spring up all around,
again from the Earth, and again, similar, yet each unique. A world of
Pagan religions is like a forest."
Holly, mistletoe and ivy are also evergreens,
reminding us that the darkness will fail and the sun will return. The
bright red berries of the Holly remind us of the summer sun, while the
pale white fruits of the mistletoe are reflections of the winter sun at
its nadir. So many of the Christmas traditions come from the earth and
from our Pagan past, and yet they have been overtaken by the materialist
wonders born of television advertising, blue light specials and, lately,
of internet shopping - are these new gods perhaps? Are they at war with
the old gods of nature? They are certainly unconnected to our roots, except
in perhaps the most tangential of ways.
We would do well to remember the natural
roots of our holiday season and dig deep into the earth to reclaim them.
The Winter Solstice should be about rejoicing at the birth of the new
God and the turn in the cycle of the year. I often hear people say that
Christmas is for the children. Can we offer gifts to our children as we
offer gifts to the newborn god of the sun? Can we look at the three Kings
of the east and recognize in the Magi, the pagan priests and astrologers
celebrating the birth of the new sun?
Is the Christ child another incarnation
of Gwydion? Is he the bright, shining one? Shall our gifts be offered
to the returning sun and the coming spring? Let us light the winter fires,
decorate our homes with holly, mistletoe and ivy. Let us exchange warm
fires and clementines and honor the mother who has given birth to the
sun.
Pippin is a radical faerie touring the back roads of Vermont looking for best Solstice light display in the state. If you can help him find it, email pippin@sover.net. He is also known as Christopher Kaufman, Executive Director of R.U.1.2? Community Center.