Winter Solstice (aka Yule)

Winter Solstice...(aka 'Yule') Remembering that many holiday customs are based upon older customs, we can share many common customs with our friends, albeit with a slightly different interpretation. And thus we all share in the beauty of this season as the wheel of life is set in motion again with balancing and counter-balancing polarities. The celebration of the Winter Solstice, often referred to as Yule, is common to many cultures. The word ‘Yule’ is likely derived from the Norse "iul" or the Anglo-Saxon "hweol", both meaning "Wheel". The word ‘Holidays’ is derived from the word “Whole” which means to make complete. Yule is a celebration of the rebirth of the Sun. The longest night of the year falls on Winter Solstice. Yule celebrated the coming light. It was traditionally an occasion to look on the past year's achievements and to celebrate with family and friends. This day is the first day of winter. In this, the darkest period of the year, what better way to celebrate the return of light and warmth than to feast and make merry. Therefore, like the other festivals of the year, Yule was a great social occasion, relieving for a brief moment the hardship and monotony of what was for many, subsistence living. Yule was also generally characterized as a period of rest, where only the most vital domestic chores were carried out about the house and farm. In earlier periods, December 20th through the 25th was commemorated as the Birth of the Sun, since every day has more and more light until summer solstice. January 6 (the Old Christmas date) was a Dionysian festival. In Ancient Egypt, a celebration dedicated to Osiris was held at this time. In earlier days it is inferred that the Yule festival began on the eve of December 12. Even the duration of the festivities varies depending on the account and the period of origin. One record states that although some feasted for twelve days after Yule day, it was known for others to continue right up to the 24th night. Throughout this period feasts and parties were commonplace with fiddling, dancing and merriment going on late into each night. Yule is also known as the Winter Solstice, Festival of Sol, Yuletide, Great Day of the Cauldron, and Festival of Growth. It is celebrated between December 20th and 22nd, depending on when the Sun reaches the southern most point in its yearly cycle. Yule was one of the four fire festivals of the year. At Beltane, Midsummer, Hallowmass and Yule, massive communal fires were lit to mark the occasion. Many customs have survived from Pre-Christian times that lend themselves quite nicely to rituals today. Over the years, the pagan Yule traditions were overlaid with elements of Christianity, yet ancient Yuletide customs persist such as decorating an evergreen tree, the colors red and green, gift giving, throwing parties, sending greetings, the wreath, fruitcakes, dried fruit, eggnog, wassail and gingerbread people. The plants & herbs associated with Yule are holly, mistletoe, evergreens, poinsettia, bay, pine, ginger, myrrh, valerian. The ever-popular Yule Log was another element. Traditionally, the Yule Log has been of oak, ash or beech, ritually cut (often at Dawn) and ceremonially carried into the house. Toasts were often drunk with wine, cider or brandy, in those early morning hours, giving the participants a good head-start on the festivities. A lesser known tradition is that of the Yule Clog. The Clog was a knobby block of wood, burnt in the kitchen hearth. In many parts of Scandinavia, the object burnt was a fat wax candle, instead of a log. The candle was lit at Dawn and burnt until Midnight. Wassailing is another happy survival of an old tradition. "Wassail" comes from the Anglo-Saxon "Waes Hael", which has been translated to "Be Well," "Be Whole" or "Be Healthy"…''''''''making it a shared blessing, a mutual well-wishing. Traditionally, carolers went from door to door, singing and bearing their "Wassail Cups", to be rewarded with the drink and fruited breads or other sweets. Music was a part of this festival. Many of the "Christmas" carols are just as suited to Yule, with virtually no change. In Winter, when much is brown and dead, the evergreens symbolize immortality. They are reminders of the survival of life in the plant world, a means of contact with the Spirit of Growth and Fertility, which has been threatened by the absence of Light. Especially good for this purpose are plants like Holly and Mistletoe, which actually bear fruit in Winter. Decorating with evergreens over the Yule period is an ancient custom, most commonly seen today in Christmas trees and wreaths. Such plants were considered powerful because they were evidently alive at this seemingly dead part of the year, and so are symbolic of the survival and rebirth of the sun at Yule. An evergreen Yule wreath symbolizes the survival of sun through the wheel of the year and the circling cycle of life. The roots of Christmas may be considered Pagan, with it's associations of Nordic divination, Celtic fertility rites, and Roman Mithraism. That is why it is written that both Martin Luther and John Calvin (early reformers of the church) abhorred it, why the Puritans my have refused to acknowledge it, much less celebrate it, and why it was even made ILLEGAL in Boston. The holiday was already too closely associated with the birth of older Pagan hero mythology. And many of them (like Oedipus, Theseus, Hercules, Perseus, Jason, Dionysus, Mithra, Horus and even Arthur) possessed a narrative of birth, death, and resurrection that was uncomfortably close to that of another story. Saturnalia, the Romans' seven-day festival in honor of Saturn, took place from 17-23 December each year and was a time of great merriment and gift-giving. The Roman name of the Yule festival was Sol Invictus - the Undefeated Sun, and this was designated as a Birthday for Christians years later in 336 by Pope Julius I. December 25th slowly began to catch on. By 529, it was a civic holiday, and work or public business (except that of cooks, bakers, or any that contributed to the delight of the holiday) was prohibited by the Emperor Justinian. In 563, the Council of Braga forbade fasting on Christmas Day, and four years later the Council of Tours proclaimed the twelve days from December 25 to Epiphany as a sacred, festive season. More than a thousand years later, the season of giving was widely adopted by consumer culture. Several other festivals celebrating the cycle of life coincide with other holidays such as Vernal Equinox (or Oestre) with Easter. Oestre, or the Vernal Equinox, is the midpoint in the seasons between the Winter and Summer Solstices. Oestre is a Pagan celebration of spring and fertility. The word “Easter” is derived from the word Oestre. The origin of the word "east" comes from various Austro-Hungarian and Germanic words for dawn that share the root for the word "aurora"…''''''''which means "to shine". The Vernal Equinox usually falls somewhere between March 19th and 22nd and depending upon when the first full moon on or after the Equinox occurs, Easter falls sometime between late-March and mid-April. Because the Equinox and Easter are so close, many of those who celebrate Easter often see this holiday as being synonymous with rebirth and rejuvenation: the symbolic resurrection is echoed in the awakening of the plant and animal life around us. If we look more closely at some of these customs, perhaps we may notice the origins as pagan…or perhaps pre-pagan yet not historically noted.