This year, the longest night of the year—Winter Solstice, or Yule—takes place on Thursday, December 21st. On the night of the Winter Solstice, an old tradition that we have adapted for Atheopagan purposes is the burning of the Yule log. Yule marks the moment in the year when the sun’s steady…
May all of you enjoy a warm and nourishing Yule. May we all get through this darkest night feeling loved and safe. Wolcum Yule!…
It’s a very dark one this year. And, as for our ancestors, it promises to become darker and colder still in January, after the celebrating is long over. Our Sabbaths are rich with meaning. And sometimes that meaning persists beyond a season. We are about to go through a very,…
It begins where the smoke hits your eyes: smouldering peat, Mutton stew on a broad iron hook, Deep snow. How can it ever have been summer? Apples wrinkling and mice in the barley— With so much to fear, thank fortune for company! We’ll tell our…
It’s a gunmetal grey day, portending welcome rain. The last of the autumn foliage is still evident, this being Northern California, and somehow it is calm and silent in our neighborhood despite the proximity to shopping districts. Today is the day I declare it: the season of Yule has begun.
O cold, inexorable darkness Draw back now beyond these circling walls. Should fear, and want, and danger walk It shall not be, it is not here. Let this place of warming light Bulwark against freezing night: a promise Holding through the day that we, come nightfall…
