MidWinter Holiday Commonalities Facilitator : Cloud Date : 23 November 1997

Red Deer:
1) If anyone present would like to facilitate an open discussion or present a class in Wicca 101, please E-mail me at HUZD85A.

2) Please keep all BBs, MMs, MPs, and side-conversations in IM for the duration of class, until approximately 10 PM ET.

3) Please hold all questions and comments until our facilitator opens the floor.

4) May I have volunteers who expect to attend the entire session log for backup?

Arcadia:
<--logging

Red Deer:
thanks loggersis

Arcadia:


Red Deer:
5) Thank you, loggers. I'll be in touch within the week if the back up logs are needed.

With that, I pass the besom to Cloud for a look at common themes of the midWinter holidays

Cloudburst:
Why, thank you, Red Deer

Red Deer:
{{{Cloud}}}

DancingAngel:
Does that include Christmas, or just the Solstice observances?

Sir Cai:
and Chaunnaka?

Red Deer:
Why don't we see what Cloud has to say before hitting her with questions?

Cloudburst:
OK, hang on. I was trying to do a technical thing. Thanks, RD.

Cloudburst:
I have a few prepared remarks, and the I'm hoping you will all have stuff to say.

What I want to talk about tonight is how we can manage to get the best out of the hyped-up "holiday season" for ourselves and our families, preferably in fine Pagan style. It's tempting to just have our own celebrations, and sit around on the actual American Days grumping about stolen traditions. If we spend time with our families of origin, it's all too easy to get into religious arguments, if we feel strongly that it's "not MY holiday". But the season swirls around us, and the world is full of all this energy, and I'd propose that it's actually easier to go with the (mentally modified) (symbolically understood) flow. Not that we have to rundle off to church, or buy into the commodification of love, but "the season" has its real human uses.

No matter how hyped and co-opted (by capitalism, mainly, not Christianity, IMO, but that's another class) these holidays have roots in the deepest fears and hopes of humans in temperate climates. Behind the hoopla, many of the dominant culture's celebrations are deeply valid for the time of year. They're based on ancient traditions formed in human-scale communities in times when survival depended on the goodness of the Earth and the comradeship of community members. If we look over, under, beyond and through the assorted consumerist missionary Stuffe, we do find ourselves on common ground.

THANKSGIVING is definitely the easiest. Sure, the harvest is long over, and we've been scattering gratitude all over every circle since Lammas.

moonshadowd:
The tree, lights, gifts, Father Christmas, holly, all of it is Pagan in origin.

Cloudburst:
The holiday America gives us is only secondarily Christian - it's rooted primarily on the toughness of survival for early communities.

Sir Cai:
moon I think based on the nature of the people here, we already know that.

moonshadowd:
Oh...then why are we discussing this?

MafiaMama3:
scuse me, but cloud has the floor folks,

Cloudburst:
The holiday America gives us is based firmly on survival in North America, and is actually the one time practically everyone almost says "thank you" to the Earth directly. We feel not just a little chill in the air, but the onset of real winter, hope the harvest is enough to get through on, give thanks for what we have, and in honor of what we hope is enough bounty, make a humongous thank offering of tons of food. So has it been for...a LOOOONG time. Before the Pilgrims, anyway, in one form or another. Despite attempts to turn Thanksgiving into a consumption frenzy (8 brands of turkeys by my count, "parts" not included), Mrs. Paul and "her" ilk don't do half the business Aunt Hattie does in her own millionfold kitchen. Around here, with deer season a biggie, it's not uncommon for hunting families to center their feast with

Kildeer:
not deer season.. sorry I had to say that I wont interrupt again..

Cloudburst:
roast venison (sorry, RED DEER), and this or some such practice does add meaning, but even with the Great American Food Holiday as we have it, the opportunity exists to participate without dissembling in America's nod to Mom - maybe even with your blood family, who maybe just this once don't disagree with you about where the blessings are flowing from.

GIFT SEASON, of course, is tougher. We're pushed to the walls to consume - North American Christmas was invented by Big Retail - and we're inundated by sales blandishments couched in warm, cozy, loving sentiments until we could choke them with their ten competing action figure sets if "they" were actual people instead of megacorporations. But the gift-giving itself stems from millennia of giveaways, potlatches, contractual gift exchanges of all kinds intended to show people exactly what terrific friends we all are, especially at a time of year that demands everyone's friendship, or at least good will, for survival. Besides which, it's wonderful to have a time of year when we SHOW each other, in very concrete terms, that we like/love/respect/value each other. We wouldn't want to throw the manifestation of the Santa Claus God aspect out with the crunkled wrapping paper,...but...? Best ideas have to do with fighting the consumerist propaganda. Give things you made. Give cards announcing donations to worthy causes. Give gifts of time, chores, even your old stuff. My high school jewelry, now (gasp) retro, has been going to my teen grandgirls for a couple years now and they love it. The point for us is the same as it is for diligent Christians, to see past the consuming frenzy to the deeper meanings of Yule, Hannukah, and Christmas.

Sir Cai:
bravo!!!

Cloudburst:
YES,CHRISTMAS (oh boy, here she goes) It's all Winter Solstice, folks. The deep human, never mind religion for a minute, meaning of all this winter stuff is that at the very darkest possible moment of the year there is Light. Far away, perhaps - a new baby and next spring both exist mainly in potential - but the HOPE is there for a new beginning. This reaches back to something pre-human in us that wonders if the Sun will ever come back, and it is THE common ground, IMO, for all winter holidays in times and places with seasons. The trappings and symbols change, but the meanings don't.

Owl gifted us with a story on the BB a couple weeks ago. I don't remember all of it, but the Baby is the Sun Child, and "where else would She lay her Child except in the wheat of the harvest?" (thanks, Owlie)

Generally, the traditions that are "stolen" by ascendant religions are the ones that mean the most to the culture they're taking over - the ones people can't live without. In my city, the lighting of the Christmas decorations in the downtown park is an opening ceremony of the retail season.

PAniteowl:
ahh, sorry Cloud, I can't take the credit .. I think it was Warmuth

Cloudburst:
But it's also a true, and rather deep, kind of civic Winter Solstice ritual. There's some music and speechifying, of course, but the core act is that EVERY light, streetlights included, goes out for just long enough for the crowd to *hush* - not long enough to cause accidents - and then PRESTO! Light in darkness! The whole park is ablaze with tasteful but profuse displays of the electrician's art. The experience is *real*, it's probably the closest many come to really feeling the Solstice, and I go every year. Religiously.

Red Deer:
at least they're tasteful

PAniteowl:
LOL

Cloudburst:
If Thanksgiving is about Earth's providence and Christmas is about human community and the return of light, what's NEW YEAR"S? OK, so we celebrated new time at Samhain and/or Yule. This is another one. Some way I think the whole period from Samhain to Jan. 1 is a kind of elongated Yom Kippur. We look back at the past, cement relations with friends and relatives, make resolutions, etc. for the whole dang fall-early winter period. But we have to at least participate in the annual ritual of buying a new calendar, so

Sir Cai:
No harvest....

Cloudburst:
it seems worth it to look at New Year's symbols - other than those promoted by the booze and football industries - with an eye to what's really there.

Sir Cai:
no work to do... it makes sense to make winter a three month long party

Cloudburst:
The big part of "the holidays" that has to do with New Time is the symbolism that can be summed up as "The King is dead, long live the King"

Cloudburst:
This is, of course, the old dude with the beard getting pushed offstage by some upstart brat of a kid, but I think (and this is just me) that it's also the Christmas tree, slain, decorated and brought inside as if for a state funeral. I suspect that the tree actually originally belonged to Samhain, and is a form of god/king sacrifice for forest people. In England, until fairly recent times, the village lads used to hunt a wren (symbol of the old year) and parade it around all decorated up in grand procession.

PAniteowl:
sorry for interrupting Cloud .. but for the passed 20 years, we bring live, balled trees in for a week, then plant them out in our yard

Red Deer:
<-- likes the sacrifice aspect myself, but only farmed trees

Cloudburst:
They left us a few good songs, but not the custom (whew!) The wren was an overt, stated old-king sacrifice. The tree isn't, to my knowledge, but it has all the ingredients.

Cloudburst:
I love the balled tree thing. Actually, I was just getting to that. I was going to tuck in here that I don't hold with cut trees in these days of not enough trees. In Germany when the forests were being destroyed, people invented ingenious forms of artificial trees, and they were on the right track. If you have the know--how, Owl's balled-up tree is just the ticket. If not, and if the green plastic consumer model doesn't wind your clock, think about arranging something with twigs, dowels, or even straightened hangers. The main things are the shape and the decorations:
sun symbols, and/or bright things, and/or anything that embodies potential and new-ness. Some places in Europe the pregnant pig is a common image - symbolism obvious

PAniteowl:
Dried herb bunches, hung from your curtain rods, and decorated with gold, red, silver .. make beautiful holiday statements

Cloudburst:
Back to "out with the old, in with the new", you probably did the resolution bit at Samhain. I don't think we need to concern ourselves with resolutions (again, already), BUT the cultural outpouring does charge up a lot of energy that might be tapped for a resolution that needs a little reinforcement.

Cloudburst:
Ooh, Owl - love the herbs!

Red Deer:
THANKS cloud sis... that was great

PAniteowl:
there are many ways to blend our traditions into the times others are celebrating .. we just have to be a bit more "creative"

Cloudburst:
Exactly, Owl!!!!!!

PAniteowl:
And, we have to talk with each other to reinforce the meanings

PAniteowl:
Thanks so much for bringing this up Cloud ... GOOD JOB!!!

Targe Dubh:
<------ we have a traditional scottish Yule supper every year

Cloudburst:
That's one of the big reasons for having some kind of community - great bonus to cyberspace

Norda:
I enjoyed the background and the commonality themes. What I see in myself, and in others who celebrate different traditions is a sort of starvation for light.

PAniteowl:
We try to do an outdoor breakfast ... the more snow the better

Red Deer:
sounds like fun PA... we'd likely get rain

Cloudburst:
Norda, when I was covening I actually used to go out and take sunfire in the AM - magnifying glass and all

PAniteowl:
hehehe ... just like the summer gathering, eh Red Deer???

Norda:
What my friends and I love is how many ways we can light candles, and for diverse reasons

Cloudburst:
RED DEER, that's one of the BEST things about living in the frozen north - no rain in winter. Remind me I said that sometime, wouldja?

Best time of year for candle magic, Norda, without a doubt

Norda:
Great class, Cloud, glad I caught it this time 'round

Red Deer:
Thanks again for a great class Cloudsis... even though we disagree on the tree-thing