Yule/Alban Arthuan
Dec. 13th, 2006 01:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lizwilliamsRecently, in the context of a kerfuffle over Xmas trees/menorahs at Seatac airport, someone elsewhere on LJ asked me about Yule/Solstice, and what we do for it. Getting united opinions out of pagans is like the legendary herding of cats, but this is what our household does:
- Christmas Tree: I've loved real trees in the house ever since I was a child, and some of my parents' decorations go back to before the War. We put up our own tree last night, which has Austrian wooden pine cones, brocade ribbon, small glass hanging birds and some cat angels. I don't think of it as a Solstice tree, but as a Christmas tree. We also have bunches of holly, ivy and mistletoe along the mantelpieces, and a decoration which my mother always made out of a couple of lampshades welded together: a round cage covered in fir and ivy, with apples hanging in the middle of it. I think these were originally Medieval.
- I also send Christmas cards, although not usually with a Christian theme, it must be said. However, I did crack last year and send out some Russian cards with an angel and a cat sitting in a tree.
- around Solstice itself, Alban Arthuan ('the light of Arthur'), my Druidic group does a ritual, which is a fairly standard Druidic/Wiccan event: call quarters, and have some kind of role-played thing within it, usually around the theme of the sun's return, or the traditional battle between the Oak and the Holly King (Holly hands power over to Oak until the Summer Solstice). There are two rituals: one public, at Stanton Drew stone circle, and one private. They do not greatly differ apart from the number of people.
- we usually do a household ritual on the evening of the Solstice itself, and these days I also light a candle somewhere (either in the local church or the local goddess temple) for my late partner, who died on Xmas Eve.
Some years ago, I did an evening Solstice Ceremony at Stonehenge, which was impressive: there was snow and a very clear sky, with a red sun in the west and a full moon rising in the east. Just before sunset, the whole plain turned pink. Druids meet up at the dawn of the Solstice, which I will not be doing this year due to being lazy.
- we sometimes also go to the carol service at Gloucester Cathedral. I'm not very partisan about what I do, really: for me, all these fire festivals around this time of year merge into one, whatever their origins are supposed to be. Comes from the same place and goes to it, IMO.
It does not make me at all happy that the last group to celebrate the Solstice in any great depth or number was the Nazi party. There was an interesting but repellent article about this in the Fortean Times this month: it was intended to replace Christmas as the new main holiday of the German state. My own Druidic group is run by an Anglo-Russian and an Anglo-Malaysian, neither of whom put any store in the notion of racial purity. At our celebrations, everyone is welcome, no matter what their nationality, race, or religion.
If anyone wants to ask any questions, feel free!
- Christmas Tree: I've loved real trees in the house ever since I was a child, and some of my parents' decorations go back to before the War. We put up our own tree last night, which has Austrian wooden pine cones, brocade ribbon, small glass hanging birds and some cat angels. I don't think of it as a Solstice tree, but as a Christmas tree. We also have bunches of holly, ivy and mistletoe along the mantelpieces, and a decoration which my mother always made out of a couple of lampshades welded together: a round cage covered in fir and ivy, with apples hanging in the middle of it. I think these were originally Medieval.
- I also send Christmas cards, although not usually with a Christian theme, it must be said. However, I did crack last year and send out some Russian cards with an angel and a cat sitting in a tree.
- around Solstice itself, Alban Arthuan ('the light of Arthur'), my Druidic group does a ritual, which is a fairly standard Druidic/Wiccan event: call quarters, and have some kind of role-played thing within it, usually around the theme of the sun's return, or the traditional battle between the Oak and the Holly King (Holly hands power over to Oak until the Summer Solstice). There are two rituals: one public, at Stanton Drew stone circle, and one private. They do not greatly differ apart from the number of people.
- we usually do a household ritual on the evening of the Solstice itself, and these days I also light a candle somewhere (either in the local church or the local goddess temple) for my late partner, who died on Xmas Eve.
Some years ago, I did an evening Solstice Ceremony at Stonehenge, which was impressive: there was snow and a very clear sky, with a red sun in the west and a full moon rising in the east. Just before sunset, the whole plain turned pink. Druids meet up at the dawn of the Solstice, which I will not be doing this year due to being lazy.
- we sometimes also go to the carol service at Gloucester Cathedral. I'm not very partisan about what I do, really: for me, all these fire festivals around this time of year merge into one, whatever their origins are supposed to be. Comes from the same place and goes to it, IMO.
It does not make me at all happy that the last group to celebrate the Solstice in any great depth or number was the Nazi party. There was an interesting but repellent article about this in the Fortean Times this month: it was intended to replace Christmas as the new main holiday of the German state. My own Druidic group is run by an Anglo-Russian and an Anglo-Malaysian, neither of whom put any store in the notion of racial purity. At our celebrations, everyone is welcome, no matter what their nationality, race, or religion.
If anyone wants to ask any questions, feel free!
