December 21, 2020

Saturday, December 12, Our Lady of Guadalupe Feast Day

The Christmas/ Solstice season is the most mystical time of the year. December 21, Winter Solstice, is the shortest day of the year with the longest hours of darkness before the light begins to return to the Wheel of the Year.

Diana Ferguson, in her book ” The Magickal Year”, cites Winter Solstice as “the year’s midnight.” 2020 has been the midnight of the 21st century, nine months of darkness without any let up. In this vein, I would like to present some of the ideas that Diana explores in “The Magickal Year” a pre-Christian, Shamanic presentation of themes that were blended into Christianity. They seem to uniquely apply to 2020.

“Solstice is the time for great hope and rejoicing because the Sun/Son is about to be reborn.” (1) Ferguson,”The Magickal Year”,1996

1. The Star of Wonder

“Stella Mores”, Latin for the Star of the Sea. This was another name for the Goddess in several manifestations while the Evening Star is identified with the Goddess of Venus.” (2, ibid) Christians know it as the star that led the 3 Kings to Bethlehem.

On December 21, 2020, for the first time in 800 years, the alignment of Jupiter and Saturn will be most prominent and closest to each other in the sky since Medieval times. Some are calling this alignment “the Christmas Star” or “Star of Bethlehem.” What a great symbol of hope to end a year of Covid-19 plague, chaos in the streets, toppling of monuments, wildfires, and what many would call a populace movement election that revealed voter corruption at the deepest level of our government. Let’s trust that the Stella Mores will lead us all to the light as we view this solstice phenomenon from our windows, decks, yards, and streets. It is heralded as the full manifestation of the Age of Aquarius.

2. The Sacred Flame

“Fire becomes one of the most potent agents of magic and a mystical medium of worship. The burning of the Yule Log in the Christmas fire was an important ritual to ensure good luck in the New Year and a purifying agent to destroy evil forces.”(3, Ibid)

A second tradition from shamanic times is incorporating the element of fire.

The California wildfires have been especially proliferant this year. Intentional fire-setting was a healing source of purification that the Native Americans used for centuries to control this periodic devastation. Purposeful burns were set to rid the forests of dry undergrowth that, if left unchecked, led to wildfires. The return of this practice in our present day would prevent loss of lives and homes that have been occurring at an alarming rate over the last few years. Meanwhile, put a log in the fireplace on the 21st, to burn away the impurities of 2020, while you give witness to the Star of Wonder in the solstice sky.

3. VISITORS FROM THE OTHERWORLD

“Whenever the normal laws of existence collapse, as they do at the Winter Solstice and other hinges in the Wheel of time, supernatural beings take the opportunity to enter the world of man.” (4. Ibid)

A third pre-Christian theme are otherworldly visitors.

Santa is the most famous of these visitors. “Flying is an activity that Santa shares with Woden, a Teutonic deity, but also the real flesh and blood shamans of Siberia and Lapland who use magic and mushrooms to transform them into flight.” (5, ibid.) The image of Santa flying off into the night sky calling, “Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night” has become a modern icon.

“Santa’s feminine counterpart in pre-Christian Italy was “La Strega” or the Witch. Her hag like appearance reveals the kinship with the Goddess in her third aspect as Dante Death, the Dark Moon, presiding over the Winter. Sometimes, she was benign, sometimes punitive, depending on the behaviors of mortals.” (6, Ibid) Today, we interpret this as being “naughty or nice” to predict whether Santa will deliver us gifts at Christmas.

This can be also interpreted as an invitation “to go within” at the end of the year, as we review our actions, and set a new course for the coming year. Never before have we so needed this introspection. Hopefully, this is what we have been doing during these months of darkness and Covid- isolation, to prepare for the light of the New Year.

4. THE TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS: THE FATEFUL TIME

The beloved Christmas Carol begins: “On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me…………….”

“This period heralds “the fateful time”, as the old year retains its hold and the supernatural forces break free, so the whole period of the 12 days lasting into the New Year is a time for looking into the future and visiting others.”(7, Ibid)

A fourth pre-Christian practice is visiting friends and relatives during the 12 days of Christmas, and divining the future.

Wassailing, a visiting ritual, has characterized this period of time over the years. In this practice, “carolers” bring a drink of hot spiced ale to homes of loved one to symbolize good health in the New Year. (Dec. 21-Jan 1).

As a child, I grew up in Western Pennsylvania in a Polish American household, we celebrated the 12 days by visiting relatives during this period. We would join another family or two, pile into our cars without seat belts and sit on laps, to visit aunts, uncles, cousins, etc, to bring good cheer and fortune to their homes. This was always my favorite part of the Christmas season. In pre-Christian times, this “visiting” also included yuletide practices of divination of the future.

Southern California has not been conducive to this custom. However, the Graves family celebrates this fateful time each year with my home-made yearly ritual.

Each participating person lights a candle and writes his/her wish for the New Year on a piece of paper and places it into the Christmas gourd, not to be opened until the following year. We then remove the wishes from the previous year and comment whether our wish was realized during the year. Each person then draws a tarot card for the coming year to symbolize their wish for the coming year and lists their tarot card on a piece of paper to be placed in the gourd. The cards remain on the “altar” until January 6, the feast of the Epiphany. We then exchange small token/gifts to end the ritual.

We look forward to this ritual on New Year’s Eve or early in the Year soon after. It is surprising how many times the tarot cards matched the wish for the previous year.

5. THE TREE OF LIFE

My favorite symbol of Solstice is the Christmas Tree.

A fifth and favorite tradition from shamanic times is choosing a tree.

This tradition was adopted from the pre-Christian practice of bringing a celebratory tree indoors at Solstice. In Ancient Rome, a pine was chosen, cut down, and brought back to the Goddess Temple to receive the effigy of the Sacrificial God” (8, Ibid)

Today, we go to Home Depot, choose a tree from the lot, and place a manger scene of the Holy Family at the base of the tree.

I love placing my ornaments from every year since childhood on the tree. It remains standing from Dec. 6, St. Nickolas Day, to the Epiphany, Jan 6. for a nightly meditation on the myriad of ornaments. I think it is important that everyone has a “Tree of Life”, real or not, as a symbol of meditation for the Solstice Season. It doesn’t matter if anyone but YOU sees it. It is a meditative symbol of life meant for you especially, or, inclusively.

6. MISTLETOE, THE HEALER

I want to end this post with an ancient symbol of healing to banish the Covid epidemic. It is the 6th and final pre-Christian theme. Six is the number for “celebration and culmination”. There are many others but these have been my favorites.

“The Evergreen Mistletoe was used to bless the midwinter celebrations of life-giving power. The practice of kissing under the mistletoe derives from the Oak God of the ancient Celts.” (9, Ibid)

Let’s set our intention that in Christmas 2021, we can remove our masks and embrace our loved ones with whom we don’t reside, again, in a celebration of ending this plague. I hear many pronouncements of gloom and doom like, “things will never be the same”, and “we will have to live between glass or plastic barriers.” I don’t foresee this. Hopefully, circumstances will be changed for the better, with all of our efforts. We will embrace community living again versus global, megalithic enterprises that always result in squashing “the little guy.” We are communal beings, best suited to regular interaction with tribes of 25 people whom we know intimately. We no longer have tribes, but we can become active members of our local government again, caring neighbors who visit each other in times of need, and seniors who interact with other seniors at local centers to take our places at the fire as Elders, not bingo-players. Let us hold this vision for 2021 and beyond!