So the Wheel of the Year turns, the nights draw in and our thoughts turn towards the long dark winter ahead. In these modern times it seems that our Western society has already begun to prepare for Christmas long before Halloween and Guy Fawkes Night. The festivals that once helped us through the dark and cold have been replaced by conspicuous consumption, Hallmark moments and the latest plastic thing that inevitably disappoints and is discarded and forgotten.

For our ancestors, the Winter Solstice was a celebration of life emerging from darkness and was honoured with the exchange of gifts. Evergreens - holly, ivy and mistletoe - were used as symbols of the Gods, living and green in the cold dead of winter. This time is also known as Yule, Christmas and Saturnalia and occurs in mid December; it celebrates the birth of the new solar year and the beginning of winter. Yule is the time of greatest darkness, the longest night of the year and a time of hope for the year to come.

Yule is one of the most anticipated holidays of the year; we celebrate the rebirth of the sun, marking it as a time of hope and beauty. This holiday is about life and light, an occasion where our hopes and desires shine like the sun. We use this time to rejoice in the things that bring light to our lives, we share these things with our loved ones, meeting with people who make us happy, sharing with them the joy of the season. The love and support that we receive from family and friends brighten our lives in so many ways; this is the perfect time of year to bring those closest to us into our homes, and share the light and joy of the season.

We struggle to find that perfect instant when family and friends are gathered in our homes, a glass of something cheerful in our hands and voices raised in joy; when we can express our love with small gifts that are gestures of glad offering that can swell our hearts and deepen our friendships. We exist for perfect timeless moments.

Even the best-intentioned of us fail reach this perfect picture postcard time. Our society has created a need in us that only conspicuous consumption can fill. We are encouraged to overindulge: more drink, another chocolate, more food, and then we lose our sense of why and what it's all about. The pace and pressure overwhelms us, and by Yule, we're so immersed in the ‘season' that all we desire is for it to all be over and done with. We celebrate with such intensity that we lose sight of the joy that this time of year can bring.

My personal celebration is now a time of quiet. Yule is the longest night of the year; there is peace available to us during this long night of calm. There is rest after the long year that lies behind us, and the joy in knowing that dawn comes even after the longest night.

The Winter Solstice is a solar holiday where the sun is reborn after its long decline; the sun has set earlier each evening since the Summer Solstice until all we see is a diluted winter sun. Midwinter is the time of dark, yet it is also the time of joy, for on this day the sun begins to renew and the days to lengthen. The Earth needs the sun to bring life, and at Yule, the sun is new born. This is my celebration.

Blessed Be

Badger

top photo (c) Jilly Graham 2008

photos 2 and 3 (c) Sabrina Willekens 2008