Hello Dear Friends and Pagani,

So the Solsticetide weather has had a mix of overcast and foggy and colder than usual.  Oddly enough its been quite enjoyable for me in spite of an unexpected  $2,300 car repair…  Never a dull moment here folks!

Here is a fun Winter Solstice video making the rounds…

I am looking forward to the Winter Solstice Service at the U.U. Church and the Solstice Vigil afterwards, both sponsored this year my the Mystic Grove a U.U. Pagan group affiliated with my new church.  Yesterday at the Sunday Services at the U.U. the older children of the Sunday School performed a lovely play they wrote about the Different Spirits of the Holidays … Solstice and Hanukkah, and Christmas, and New Years, and the spirits of Night and Light having a meeting to discuss the nature of light in peoples lives… it was cool.  Our interim Minister Rev. Roberta’s sermon discussed how we as U.U.’s whether Christian or not can embrace Christmas…

She discussed how EVERY night a child is born is a holy night, and that child and its potential is sacred.   Her sermon was quite lovely… as part of her reading she shared part of an essay from an op-ed piece (which of course I cannot remember the name of the author of… I will have to ask her tonight…)

This gentleman was remebering the Dominican Nun who had been his 2nd grade teacher, and how that year for the 2nd grad Christmas mural she encouraged the children to protray the birth of Jesus taking place in Japan, with Jesus and Mary and Joseph and the Angel with Asian features… the author really didn’t think about the deeper meaning of that act until years later as he did the math and realized that his 2nd grade Christmas holiday would have been in December of 1941…

The sermon also discussed how we as U.U.’s can carry our principles and ideals with us as we celebrate with our larger family’s who may not understand our religion, and how we can carry the spirit of this holiday with us as we engage our families and friends about discussions of issues like hunger and homelessness and charitable giving.  Growing up in a fairly secular family, and then coming home to Paganism I always felt a little left out in some respects this time of year, but at the end of Services yesterday I thanked Rev. Roberta for giving me Christmas as a Religious Holiday.

My thoughts are dancing with the many thoughts of Solstice.  I bought some ready-made cookie dough and will be taking a variety of cookies with me tonight to the coffee hour after Services, and to hopefully nibble on during the vigil, or at least as long as I last.

My Solstice-tide thoughts are of the many ways that hearth and home, joy and hospitality and charity, and a certain raucous decadence, all intermingle from the many Ancient Paganisms ways of honoring this time of year.   The urge to celebrate something this time of year has actually spurred the creation of new festivals amongst those Pagans whose ancient forms did not HAVE a specific festival for the Solstice… Helieogenna (two day and nine day versions) the Hellenic Polytheist Solstice observance…

We want to celebrate things this time of year.  I am unsure if this is a result of the current immersion Contemporary Paganism has within a larger Christian influenced monotheistic culture.  Sometimes I think so, but sometimes I also wonder if maybe as the nights grow long and the temperatures cool if we don’t have some deep instinct to gather around our families and dear ones and share our love somehow.

Blessed Solstice to All,

Pax

Here are a few more fun Solstice things…

Winter Sostice as Viewed from Stonehenge.. (sadly embedding disabled…)