WW – Yule aka Winter Solstice

I had such high hopes for Yule this year. Even though I’m still recovering from surgery, I thought I’d be far enough along at this point to plan a family meal, set up a simple ritual, and sit back to enjoy celebrating the return of the sun. However, my body had other plans – no setback on my recovery, but I’ve spent the better part of a week taking naps to recover from the exhaustion of sleeping. So instead, I plan to do some celebrating with my online friends over at The Smart Witch community, specifically by attending a group event set up by one of our founding members. It’s called, “Winter Solstice: Love and Light Event” and this is part of the description –

Feel free to participate in this event in any way that calls you: lighting a candle to dispel darkness, celebrating the turn of the Wheel of the Year, raising energy for our Mother Earth, telling the story of the Oak King and the Holly King, giving, feasting, enjoying the company of those you love, or offering prayers and blessings for peace and love.

Also, since I quoted from an article by Starhawk for my Summer Solstice (especially fitting because it was also her birthday) post, I thought I’d use a couple more quotes for this one. Granted, the article is three years old, but I think it’s just as relevant today, if not more so.

May Winter Solstice mark a shift in consciousness, a change in worldview by Starhawk on December 12, 2012

Winter solstice is the longest night and shortest day of the year. A time of ending and new beginnings as now the days will slowly begin to lengthen again. For Pagans, Solstice is symbolically the night when the Sun Child is reborn out of the womb of Mother Night. For the Mayans, this year marks the end of a 30,000-year calendar cycle. For pop culture, somehow this has become the end of the world.

No longer can we maintain the myth that we control nature. We must learn again to respect her balance and constraints, to live with humility—a word whose root is ‘humus’. We need to get back to the garden, get down and get close to the earth! Only then can we effectively make the big changes that we need—in our technology, our energy systems, our food growing systems, our economies, our communities.

And yet underneath all these shifts lies ultimately a change in consciousness, a shift in our world view. May this Solstice mark an end to the era when we saw the world as a bunch of dead, separate stuff and ourselves as isolated actors, and the beginning of a new day when we understand the world as a web of relationships. We are all Grandmother’s children, all interconnected in the dance of sun and moon and soil, of birthing and growing and reaping, of death decaying into fertility and new life.

Here is my contribution to this Sabbat. Bright Yule blessings to all!

Yule. December 21st, 2015 at 11:48pm EST. Yule (aka Winter Solstice) is the shortest day of the year, and represents the rebirth of the Sun God. This is the time the Holly King (dark) defeats his twin the Oak King (light), and rules the world for the next six months. Colors – silver, gold, red, green. Symbols – Yule log, fire, the sun, mistletoe, holly, stone circles, candles. Ritual work – Protection, cleansing, rebirth, family, reflecting on the dark and celebrating the light.