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newstfionline · 3 months ago

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Monday, September 23, 2024

Fall Equinox (NYT) This Sunday, the autumnal equinox is upon us, and with it, a shift to shorter days, longer nights and the astronomical start of fall in the Northern Hemisphere. Equinoxes occur when Earth reaches a point in its orbit where the sun shines directly on the Equator. This happens twice a year, in March and in September, and is a result of Earth’s spinning on an axis that is tilted 23.5 degrees from the plane of its orbit. During an equinox, places around the globe experience nearly equal periods of day and night.

Harris and Trump Battle for Undecided Voters (NYT) Devon Howard is not feeling the joy. Mr. Howard, a 25-year-old airport technician, has no use for Vice President Kamala Harris’s displays of optimism. And he doubts whether either candidate can fix what he sees as a country headed in the wrong direction. Like other voters in Las Vegas, Mr. Howard is fed up with the costs of gas and rent, as his paycheck seems to cover less and less of his regular expenses. “I just don’t like the way they’re playing it, telling us we should all be more optimistic when things just are not looking good right now,” Mr. Howard said while warming up for a softball game in East Las Vegas. “They’re all out for themselves, not helping people like us over here. We just get the same promises, and not much is changing.” His sourness about the economy, the direction of the country and his own personal finances reflects the feelings of millions of Americans. They’re the so-called undecided or persuadable voters in the seven battleground states who will decide the outcome of the 2024 election. While the economy has stabilized, many voters have said they don’t feel it in their lives and are facing far higher prices than they once did. What they want to know from the candidates, above all else, is: What will you do for me?

Secret Service’s next challenge: Keeping scores of world leaders safe at the UN General Assembly (AP) Below United Nations headquarters, a state-of-the-art security post dubbed the “Brain Center” hums with activity on the eve of next week’s high-level meeting of the U.N. General Assembly. The annual diplomatic pilgrimage is bringing more than 140 world leaders to New York City, including the leaders of Israel, the Palestinians and Ukraine. Keeping them safe is the U.S. Secret Service’s next big challenge. The agency, under a cloud after a July assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, is confident in its multi-layer, multi-agency plan to protect the U.N. General Assembly, which is deemed a Super Bowl-level National Special Security Event. The plan—developed with New York City police and the U.N. Security and Safety Service, among other agencies—includes not just motorcades and protective details, but NYPD helicopters and patrol boats, a dozen U.N. security K-9 teams sweeping for explosives, road closures and traffic diversions. The Secret Service is bringing in agents from posts around the world for the event. The Coast Guard is restricting East River access near the U.N. and the Federal Aviation Administration is closing airspace.

Brazil’s online gambling craze (Reuters) Soccer-mad Brazilians have fallen hard for online sports betting, yielding a boom of interest from foreign gambling companies that may boost state coffers but also threatens to divert funds from consumer spending in other areas. Latin America’s largest economy has seen lower-than-expected growth in consumer spending in the country in recent months, a weakness some banks and think tanks are blaming on gambling. Such a linkage would echo data seen in some U.S. states touched by online gambling fever. Brazilians spent 68.2 billion reais ($12.2 billion) in the year ending in June on betting platforms abroad, according to an analysis by lender Itau Unibanco, based on central bank data. That would put it among the world’s top six sports betting markets. Diego, a 38-year-old factory worker in Sao Paulo who became addicted to sports bets and then online slot machines, said his losses ate up his salary and left him in permanent debt. “I made a lot of money gambling at first, but then I stopped winning. I couldn’t pay my credit card, basic household bills, my rent,” he said. “I practically stopped living.”

Belgium's drug gangs (NZZ/Switzerland) When people think about Belgium, cliches like waffles, fries and bad weather tend to spring to mind. But the country also has a dark side. And this dark side has a name: cocaine. Last year, authorities here seized a record 116 tons of the drug. This makes the port of Antwerp Europe's top cocaine hub, ahead of Rotterdam or Hamburg. Experts estimate that cartels smuggle up to 1,000 tons of the drug into the country every year. One thousand tons. That's enough to generate revenues of approximately 50 billion euros. Belgium has become Europe's center for cocaine distribution—and is consequently increasingly suffering from the violence of the drug cartels. It is today a country where the minister of justice was almost kidnapped, and where journalists, lawyers and police officers are risking their lives to do their jobs. Belgium is a country in which the population of the largest port city is being terrorized by grenade attacks, gunfire and kidnappings. Is Belgium on its way to becoming a narco-state?

How the Kremlin Spreads Its Messages (NYT) Major American social media companies sometimes describe the task of identifying disinformation or other malevolent material pushed online by state actors as an endless game of cat and mouse. This week several of them made a significant play in that game by booting RT and its related Russian state-owned media network off their platforms, a move that in the short term will sharply reduce the network’s audience numbers, media analysts said. But the Kremlin, when thwarted in the past, has quickly devised new ways to get its message out, they noted, and RT can move to other outlets for distribution. Take what happened just two years ago, when Canada and the European Union banned RT outright. Viewership in different countries for channels like RT Deutsch and RT France immediately cratered, but within days new pages appeared that exactly mirrored RT under different, unrelated names that were not blocked and popped up in internet search results, experts noted. The online pages of RT and other, related outlets like Sputnik have built a worldwide audience on Facebook of more than 88 million followers, according to data released on CrowdTangle early this year. RT’s basic message that the West remains an imperialist aggressor meshed well with widespread distrust of the United States and Europe.

Over 20 people wounded after Russia strikes apartment blocks in Ukraine’s Kharkiv (AP) Russian strikes hit high-rise apartment blocks in Ukraine’s Kharkiv, leaving dozens wounded in a second consecutive nighttime attack this week. The bombs fell Saturday night on the district of Shevchenkivsky, in Ukraine’s northeast, local Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said. The attack came after another late Friday that wounded 15 people, including a 10- and 12-year-old, as Russian airstrikes hit three Kharkiv neighborhoods, Terekhov said. According to Ukrainian officials, KAB-type aerial glide bombs were used in both attacks, a retrofitted Soviet weapon that has for months laid waste to eastern Ukraine.

Marxist Dissanayake wins Sri Lanka’s presidential election as voters reject old guard (AP) Marxist lawmaker Anura Kumara Dissanayake won Sri Lanka’s presidential election, the Election Commission announced Sunday, after voters rejected the old political guard that has been widely accused of pushing the South Asian nation toward economic ruin. Dissanayake, whose pro-working class and anti-political elite campaigning made him popular among youth, secured victory over opposition leader Sajith Premadasa and incumbent liberal President Ranil Wickremesinghe, who took over the country two years ago after its economy hit bottom. Dissanayake received 5,740,179 votes, followed by Premadasa with 4,530,902, Election Commission data showed.

The growing conflict between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah (AP) This week saw a dizzying escalation in the nearly yearlong conflict between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah. First came two days of exploding pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah—deadly attacks pinned on Israel that also maimed civilians around Lebanon. Hezbollah’s leader vowed to retaliate, and on Friday the militant group launched a wave of rockets into northern Israel. Later in the day, the commander of Hezbollah’s most elite unit was killed in a strike in Beirut that killed dozens more people. Early Sunday, the cross-border attacks ramped up. Hezbollah launched more than 100 rockets deeper into northern Israel, with some landing near the city of Haifa, and Israel launched hundreds of strikes on Lebanon. Many fear the events are the prelude to an all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Shiite group that is Lebanon’s most powerful armed force. A war threatens to bring devastation in Lebanon, heavy missile fire into Israeli cities, and further destabilize a region already shaken by the war in Gaza.

Exploding pagers leave clues to Israeli ‘red button’ plot, officials say (Washington Post) The blackened husks of pagers and handheld radios that exploded in a colossal attack on Hezbollah this week have become fragmentary clues to how Israel orchestrated what current and former Israeli and Western security officials said was part of an elaborate, decade-long effort to penetrate the militant group. Markings on the mangled electronic components have left a trail leading back through a manufacturer in Taiwan to a Hungarian shell company suspected of being set up or exploited by Israeli intelligence to disguise its alleged role in delivering the lethally rigged devices to Hezbollah. Security officials in another European capital have probed whether a second shell company there was the real seller behind the pagers deal. Current and former officials have described it as part of a multipronged effort by Israel over the past decade to develop what Israeli officials referred to as a “red button” capability—meaning a potentially devastating penetration of an adversary that can remain dormant for months if not years before being activated. An Israeli intelligence official said that the explosions marked the culmination of a multiyear investment in penetrating Hezbollah’s communications, logistics and procurement structures.

#headlines #news

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teragames · 6 months ago

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Equinox es la nueva expansión para “EVE Online”

La Seguridad nula se dispara en ‘Equinox’, la nueva expansión de CCP Games trae nuevos conflictos, reformas revolucionarias y más personalización para las naves a @EveOnline.

CCP Games ha lanzado EVE Online: Equinox, la próxima gran expansión narrativa del MMO de ciencia ficción espacial EVE Online. Centrada en las crecientes tensiones en los sistemas de Seguridad nula controlados por los jugadores, Equinox invita a los intrépidos capsulistas de EVE a dominar y rejuvenecer la frontera sin ley. Con Equinox, los jugadores pueden crear diseños de naves personalizados a…

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#Pc

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worthplaying · 8 months ago

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'EVE Online' Reveals Equinox Expansion, Coming In June - Trailer

http://dlvr.it/T5xpgZ

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sroctre · 8 months ago

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EVE Online Equinox - Colonize the dangerous corners of space in new expansion - https://devishop.gives/eve-online-equinox-colonize-the-dangerous-corners-of-space-in-new-expansion/

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mirror-lock · 1 year ago

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As promised, I'm now going to contrast this with the way I celebrate Lamptide (or as I call it, Orthodox Lamptide).

For context, the original RPG was run online. I live on the opposite coast of the US from @balioc, @cloakofshadow, and 13 out of our original 16 players. I've never been to a real-life Lamptide-as-posited-above celebration and, given that the people around me locally are neither connected to the game nor clamoring for a new holiday, I don't expect I will ever get the chance to.

So for me, drawing from the exact same themes and underlying mythology: Lamptide is a holiday of solitude, contemplation, and making time to walk into the long dark night of the soul. It is a holiday of the self, and all that the self can be.

The timing is key to this. In the RPG, Lamptide was an intercalary new year holiday for a calendar that started not with January but with spring. Observing real-life Lamptide on the spring equinox is a perfectly fine interpretation; personally I observe it on the evening of January 6th and the day of January 7th. This is the anniversary of when we ran the event in-game (thus the "Orthodox" moniker). But more importantly, this is a welcome capstone, and end-marker, for the month-long community-centered holiday whirl that is December and New Year.

On Lamptide Eve you seclude yourself away from your loved ones, light a lamp or candle, and sit with yourself. You drop all the threads you've been juggling for the past month - holiday gifts for friends, holiday sales, social media, office parties, travel plans, dealing with family - and remember who you are when you're not being pushed at by other people's desires and expectations. You're not going to like the answer, probably. It's also a night for looking honestly at your flaws, and figuring out who you want to become.

It's a night for steering your own story. Making time to drop the triage mindset of needing to deal with whichever minor emergency has come up most recently, and stepping back to take stock of where your life is going on the large scale, and making long-term plans to guide it. And, importantly, not feeling to need to tell anyone about them. Who you are is a matter between you and Father Lantern.

(In this, it's also incidentally an antidote to New Year's, and the social pressure of New Year's resolutions; Lamptide falls approximately when many people are first falling off the wagon on their New Year's resolutions, and provides an excellent opportunity to sift through the changes you want to make for their own sake and the ones you just wanted to tell other people about.)

Wearing special clothing is encouraged, especially if you have an outfit you inwardly always want to wear but always feel shy about wearing in front of other people. There should be no music, no background noise.

You don't turn on electric lights, and you let your candle or lamp burn until it burns itself out. You contemplate mortality and the briefness of your light in the world and all that.

And then you go to bed, and you wake up the next morning, and if you're in California the sun is shining, and you go forth and do as you have planned to do, as well as you can.

Holiday Engineering: Lamptide

OK, let's put my money where my mouth is.

Lamptide is the invented-from-scratch holiday that I actually celebrate. It has its roots in a roleplaying game that I ran some years ago with @cloakofshadow and @mirror-lock, but after the game finished, I decided that I wanted to import a modified version of the festival into real life.

And it's worked very well! Or so I posit. We've had well-attended Lamptide celebrations for a couple of years running, and not only do people show up and enjoy themselves, there's a distinctive holiday spirit. The weird rites and activities do in fact happen. Which is possibly just because my friends are good sports, but...I think we're reaching the point where some version of Lamptide might well take place without me pushing it along.

As a holiday-engineering project, it's a work-in-progress. I am still tinkering with the observances, and the pieces definitely aren't yet all in place. I don't personally have the expertise to create some of the holiday stuff I'd want to create. Moreover, the population that celebrates Lamptide is still very small, and in some ways homogeneous -- mostly childless urban professional-types -- so the holiday doesn't have the context that it would need to manifest in all the forms that I imagine for it.

But I'm proud of it. And, at the least, it provides an example of what it looks like for a holiday to be built from the ground up.

Vibe. This is where I started. (Both in the RPG and in real life, actually.) In the RPG, Lamptide is an intercalary day, and like many intercalary festivals it's a weird and occult time. In real life, of course, I do not control the calendar. But even so, Lamptide is meant to have that same feel, manifesting as a carnival of spooks and revelry. To some extent, it's meant to serve as a Halloween-like that works better for me than actual Halloween does.

And much like Halloween, in theory, its core rituals can be practiced in three different "modes" depending on context. For families with kids, it's a cutesy holiday of flamboyant fun. For older kids and adolescents, it's a holiday of mischief and boundary-pushing (in a way that is, I hope, less obnoxious than the adolescent version of Halloween). For independent adults, it can be contemplative and/or literary and/or Spicy and Sexy, to taste.

Theme. In a highflown theoretical sense: Lamptide is the festival of narrative conquering material reality, of ideas and illusions becoming more-real-than-real. It is the day when you leave the sunlit world behind and walk back into Plato's cave, because our art allows us to create such beautiful shadows on the walls.

(The "lamp" of Lamptide is, notionally, the lamp whose light reveals what-is-not.)

In a more-everyday sense: Lamptide is a festival of magic.

Timing. Lamptide is observed on the spring equinox. There are a few reasons for this, some of them rooted in stuff from the RPG, but the big one is that it's almost halfway around the calendar from Halloween. I really don't want to compete with Halloween, to the extent that I can avoid it; I would lose that competition very hard. And there are enough obvious points of similarity that it's a real danger.

Early spring is also a good time for holidays generally, in the contemporary US. There's relatively little going on then, and people feel kind of festive because the worst of winter is over.

Mythology. The personification of the holiday is Father Lantern, an ogre-like character who carries a lamp. In the (notional) tales, he shines his lamp on you, and in its light you see an otherworldly version of yourself -- a creature that you could be, if you left ordinary reality behind. More prosaically, if he shows up at your doorstep and you offer him candy, he will tell you stories (or gift you with media).

Father Lantern is mostly a funny and approachable figure. He is long-winded and pretentious, in love with the sound of his own voice. But there is meant to be an edge of menace to him; he is an ogre, which means that there's always the danger that he'll just eat you, especially if you're a child. (This is not a behavior-enforcement thing -- he's not Krampus, and Lamptide is not that kind of holiday. Father Lantern's whims are inscrutable.)

I haven't yet experimented with having someone play Father Lantern, in the way that people play Santa Claus, but it's an obvious possibility.

Decorations. You put lamps and lanterns everywhere. If you can keep your celebration space lit entirely by lantern-light, that is to be commended. Silhouettes and shadow-plays are very much in the holiday spirit.

Holiday attire. Masks -- masquerade-style masks, the kind that allow people to eat and talk comfortably -- are very strongly encouraged. (When I throw Lamptide parties, this is the only thing about which I actually nudge people.) In terms of creating distinctive atmosphere, this fires on all cylinders. A space full of masked people feels otherworldly and ritualized and, well, magic. And the symbolism is super on-the-nose.

Fancy and flamboyant clothes are also encouraged.

Ritual interactions. The Lamptide tradition is to greet people with curses and maledictions. This is done in the spirit of theater superstition; it is a topsy-turvy intercalary carnival, after all. "Die in a fire" is the standard form of cheery holiday well-wishing, although you're encouraged to be creative if you're so inclined.

(Does this mostly give little kids an excuse to be gleeful about saying stuff they'd normally never be allowed to say? Maybe.)

Activities. There are two big ones.

Divination. Lamptide is a time for fortune-telling. Tarot cards are my go-to, and offering Tarot readings at Lamptide parties has proven to be a big hit, but any form of divination at all -- ranging from Actual Fucking Haruspexy to "let's ask ChatGPT about our future husbands" -- is praiseworthy. When my son was less than a year old, I had him crawl around the floor and choose Symbolically Portentous Objects like he was the infant Dalai Lama or something, and it was great.

Bribery, especially candy bribery. One of the core dynamics of a Lamptide celebration is that you walk in carrying candy, or other things that you're happy to give away, and you offer your prizes to people in exchange for them doing stuff that you want them to do. For families with little kids, this is a chance for the parents to reward their children for showing off cool skills / desired behaviors in a concrete ritual framework, and for the children to get their parents to do silly stuff. For teens, it's a structure for something that's essentially Truth or Dare with more flexibility. The applications for Spicy Sexy grownup parties are left as an exercise for the reader.

(I have thoughts about expanding the candy bribery thing into a practice of Reverse Wassailing / Trick-or-Treating, essentially, where you walk around town offering strangers candy in exchange for singing with you or otherwise doing cute harmless stuff. I haven't yet worked out exactly the right feel, though. And, well, things being how they are, you need a pretty thick social skin to be willing to offer strangers candy without a widely-accepted social framework.)

Undeveloped aspects of the holiday, which I hope to flesh out in future years:

Traditional food. We don't really have anything other than candy, right now, and it's an obvious lacuna. Lamptide isn't really a sit-down-for-a-nice-dinner kind of holiday...although I guess it could be...but I suspect it would be useful to come up with some kind of Classic Lamptide Hors d'Ouevre or Classic Lamptide Crudité or something else appropriate for a party where people are milling around doing different things. (Not a dessert, I don't want to compete with the candy.) Sadly, I have no culinary genius, so I'm going to have to outsource for this one.

Music. @cloakofshadow has written some alternate lyrics for Christmas carols, but a thriving holiday should really have its own songs with their own distinctive melodies. Which means that I should probably find a competent composer to help me out.

Gifts. It would be very In-Theme for Lamptide to be the holiday when you give people the books / movies / video games / etc. that you want them to consume for your sake. I haven't yet done anything with that idea, but I am definitely considering it strongly.

#incidentally I think there's something to be said about the survival chances of a holiday that doesn't require other people #the thing about a community holiday is that you actually do need to get a whole community to buy in #before any single fervent proponent gets to celebrate the way they want

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conklinchevroletsalina5 · 2 years ago

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tagnoob · 25 days ago

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EVE Online Kills Easy AIR Daily Goals in Bid to Make EverMarks Relevant

With the Equinox expansion back in June CCP made some pretty big changes to their view on daily rewards. Gone were daily login rewards and the AIR daily challenges. In their place we were given AIR Opportunities. With those we got four daily tasks, the completion of two in a day would advance that character towards a monthly goal. Opportunities done The monthly goal required 12 total days,…

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#AIR Opporunities #Equinox #EverMarks #Revenant #Uprising

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kelleah-meah · 2 years ago

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(General) Plans for My Fall 2022

I have some very specific plans for my Sep-Oct-Nov, but I have seen a few lists online that offer up suggestions of things that I might be interested in doing in-between the big plans I have scheduled for the fall.

So here's a list of all the things I think I might try to squeeze in over the next few months, all in the name of my favorite season. Most are from other lists I've reviewed on social media, but a couple are new ones that popped into my head as I created the list (See #10, #15 and #40).

Just so you know, apple picking is no where on this list because I'm not a fan of doing labor for free and calling it "fun." I just want to eat the apples. I don't want to pick the apples. But otherwise, I think you might like most of the suggestions below.

Go for a walk in your local woods and enjoy the changing of the leaves

Treat yourself to some new thick wool socks

Attend a Halloween party

Donate to a local food bank

Attend a harvest festival

Toast marshmallows on an open fire ✅

Put on your most comfy pajamas and spend the evening watching retro/classic/scary films

Drink spiced apple cider

Take a short road trip to somewhere you've never been before ✅

Cook the hottest pot of chili that you can stand (be sure to have milk or bread handy to help with the heat)

Go on a guided ghost walk

Start your Christmas shopping ✅

Cook a meal in a crockpot or slow cooker ✅

Make s’mores ✅

Put together 5 Dark Academia outfits and share them on social media

Go stargazing

Bake bread from scratch

Celebrate the Autumnal Equinox or Mabon ✅

Take a long scenic drive in the countryside on a crisp, sunny day

Try hot chocolate at 3 restaurants or cafes where you've never had it before

Go for a bike ride in the park ✅

Paint your fingernails a dark color (e.g., black, dark blue, purple, dark grey) ✅

Visit a university campus and take photos of the environment at the height of the leaves changing

Enjoy Halloween candy without guilt ✅

Spend a rainy day inside reading a book

Wear something orange

Donate clothes to a local charity, homeless shelter or refugee centre

Cook homemade soup ✅

Buy an autumn-themed scented candle ✅

Attend or host a murder mystery party

Celebrate departed loved ones, friends and family during Allhallowtide (Halloween or All Hallows' Eve, All Saints' Day, and the Day of the Dead or All Souls' Day) ✅

Go on a group hike

Bake an apple-themed dessert (e.g., apple crumble, apple pie, apple brown betty) ✅

Volunteer for a cause or community event

Cook a hearty stew and experiment with the ingredients ✅

Attend a board game night

Go see a play (most theaters start their new season in the fall) ✅

If you feel sick or under the weather, enjoy a hot toddy

Read the poem "October" by Robert Frost

Make Rice Krispie treats (Don't know why, but these always feel very autumn-y to me. I think it's the marshmallows.) ✅

Solve a jigsaw puzzle

Attend a local football game

Binge-watch a dark-themed series like Hannibal, Penny Dreadful, or The Sandman

Do a Samhain-themed and Mabon-themed tarot reading ✅

Visit a new coffee shop and hang out there while reading or writing

#fall season #fall plans #fall 2022 #automne #autumn #i love fall #hygge #best laid plans #halloween #all hallows eve #all souls day #i love autumn #autumn lover #fall vibes

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ofcloudsandstars · 7 years ago

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✧ *.🎄Yule Solitary Rituals🎄*✧

As the days grow darker to the shortest day of the year and the frost creeps on the skeletons of dead leaves and flurries seep into the streams of howling winds, we know we are reaching Winter Solstice. Though this is the darkest point of the year filled with frost and shadows, it is the time to fill the night with thousands of lights and celebrate unity, blessings and rebirth since the days will extend slowly as we enter the new year. To celebrate life and longevity in a moment of darkness we decorate the home with plants that keep its prosperous green and red colors. Pine, cedar, holy, mistletoe, rose hips, cinnamon, chestnuts, pine cones and winter fruits. (Interestingly enough plants like pine and rose hips are packed with vitamin C and can be used in healing teas!) This is also a time to gather together with loved ones and share what you have in a time of rest and stagnancy. Though it would be ideal to gather with a circle of intimate people this post shall focus on solitary practices of course!

A lot of us witches practice alone and have our own solitary rituals for each sabbat that we observe (or the ones we’ve created just for ourselves that we observe alone!) Like any solitary eclectic witch I do things my own different way but some of these things might line up with others practices. I do refer to some of the equinoxes/solstices/crossquarters by their celtic sabbat names but I celebrate them in a secular animist way and I treat the wheel of the year as a an argrarian cycle celebrating nature. I use sabbat names as a point of reference and also people that do celebrate these witches sabbats more traditionally might find value in my personal practice! Here is my personal correspondences post and my personal Yule tag!

When I am alone and casting spells a lot of it is visualization/intent so my solitary rituals are more like activities I like to do then specifically casting a spell. If I am doing a spell with an activity based on it a lot would be listening to music to get in the mood and focusing on a candle while visualizing for a period of time! Eves are also important to my celebration as I like to stay up until midnight and cast a spell then!

Winter Solstice's Eve

Wednesday December 20th 2017

Make a Pot Pourri ESPECIALLY if you have a cauldron, fill it up with all kinds of winter magic! Pot Pourris could make a great base for a spell! You can add all sorts of ingredients and maybe slip a paper with written wishes to be manifested inside. If you are very sneaky and a closeted witch it would be a great activity to do in the home! Add orange zest and rose petals for vitality and energy in winter! Put Rosemary and Rose hips for health. Add Pine or Cedar for prosperity! Put in mint and cloves for purity and keeping the space cleansed. Maybe don't add all the pairings I've mentioned in this bullet point, yet consider that each ingredient has it's own magical correspondence! There are great pot pourri recipes online. I like this article for some simple ideas!

Decorate your Altar This is a great activity especially if you live in a house hold where you can't express your spirituality throughout the home and have to confine it to your space. Decorate your altar with the plants of the season! It will smell incredible if you add cedar, pine or cinnamon and look beautiful with holy, rose hips, mistletoe and pine cones. Add peppermint for joy and luck and buy a little string of LED lights to wrap around it or make yule tea lights if you want something non electric. Burn peppermint, cedar, cinnamon or sandalwood incense and make your space jolly and merry!

Grow (borax) Crystals Borax is super fun and non toxic and you can grow crystals overnight! What you will need is a box of borax, a pot you can use for crafts and some white pipe cleaners. You can make a pipe cleaner 'skeleton' for a tea light holder or make snowflake pipe cleaners for the borax solution. Here is a great tutorial on borax crystals. If you add food coloring you can change the color (it will nearly always come out as light pastel unless you add a lot but I like the white color for this sabbat anyway).

Make Sigil Snowflakes Design spell snowflakes by drawing a thin sigil, then folding a paper up into triangles and drawing your sigil on the final triangle. You will have beautiful snowflake designs with amplified energy to hang in your windowsill! (I like this quick tutorial for ideas).

Bake! Winter is the ultimate baking season and it makes the home smell great and you can indulge for the winter! Create delicious treats like ginger bread cookies, cinnamon rolls, red velvet cupcakes or even a mini yule log! You can also make poppets in the form of cookies or spell cookies in shapes of Yule trees (prosperity), ginger bread men or animals (if animals to maybe acquire some kind of quality that animal has to help you in your journey), or stars for joy!

Offerings to Nature In this dark part of the year when you give back it can make an impact. Make pinecone bird feeders (of pine cones you've collected in nature please don't use the craft store scented ones), Orange bird feeder, or treats for the fae. You can make beautiful sun catcher ice sculptures to decorate your balcony or garden with (1 , 2 ). Leave meringue mushrooms or holiday sweets for the spirits!

Spell Baubles Make some spell baubles! Like the way there are spell jars, you can fill these baubles with certain desires and decorate your altar with them. Also as a tip, if you buy the large baubles, keep the ingredients dry so you can add an electric tea light inside and make them spell bauble lanterns! It will be a wonderful decoration in your space when the night is so long.

Smoke Bundles for Cleansing Many of the seasonal fir plants can help cleanse the air! I'd suggest cedar, cinnamon, rosemary, sage and pine. Yew is toxic though I have absolutely NO IDEA who would even decorate their home with yew?? Why? But I could see the confusion occuring only if someone was harvesting pine in the wild and confused it with Yew. It's good to be able to tell apart the difference between Yew and other pines and make sure to avoid it!

Make Scented Candles I made this post years ago and I believe some links are broken (but also my instructions are sketchy cause this was when I was just learning how to make candles so don’t pay attention to my instructions anyway haha the ingredients are what matters), but you can be creative with scented candles! Winter solstice is a great time to make the home smell jolly and be creative plus you can add spells in it! Here are some of my favorite candles that you can find inspiration from! 1- spell pillar with things ontop 2- frosty pillars 3-Pillar with things around it (also my own when they are lit).

Make blessed crafts for friends! If you have witchy friends or friends that respect your practice you can make them cute charms for gifts in the winter! This can be a combination of things above like a scented votive candle, a smoke bundle or a crystal tea light or:

Make a Magical Ugly Winter Witch Sweater: We all need sweaters this time of year but also simple stitching, beading and embroidery is much easier than I thought and I ended up having an idea to embroider some cute tacky witch things on sweaters and make some enchanted sweaters! Michaels and other bead shops in the city sell crystal beads and you can sow stitch magic into it! I am making some for some witchy friends with flourite, amethyst and rose quartz beads as a gift for the winter solstice. If you have some sweaters you'd like to magic-afy but not ruin with kitschy-ness, you can still sew some crystal beads on the inside or in a place that it will not scratch you.

Fill the home with Music! This is definitely the time of year we need cheer within the home! Some music I love for the winter solstice is the Nut Cracker. I also love ambient winter sound tracks like this one that’s very meditative or more mysterious like this one. There’s a lot of winter fairy music on youtube. Look up any Gothic Winter instrumental music and you will find a lot of tracks. There is also Katrina Skye who is super cheesy but she is so cheesy it's charming. Her music tends to be very wiccan though.

Midnight Spell: Winter Solstice is wonderful to do a spell focusing on reviving something for the new year. If there is something you want to bring to life again, an old hobby, an old connection, an old project or goal or dream, you can focus your spell on that!

An activity could be lighting a sparkler envisioning it to ignite the spirit of life and revive you. Pass it around your head, around your body and between each leg (like how you would cleanse yourself with sage or palo santo). Pass it over your magical items and crystals to charge (make sure it's not near anything that's very flammable though). Sparklers can give off a lot of smoke so I would not recommend this if you live in a smoke free environment.

Put to rest As we descend into the slower restful part of the year it would be wise to use this time to focus on goals we want to accomplish for the next year and slow down or halt other issues we want to put to rest in order to focus on ourselves, whether it be bad habits, people that won’t allow us to grow, or locations we keep finding ourselves that are unhealthy. Write down these obstacles on a piece of paper or cardboard, put it in a container full of water and place it in the freezer in order to 'freeze' these things.

Yule Day

Thursday, December 21st 2017

Ice skating Even if you are alone, ice skating on the first day of winter is pretty magical! Set up your favorite magical winter playlist on your ipod or invite a friend and glide away on the ice! The best is if it's an outdoor rink!

Setting up lights It is the shortest day of the year therefore being the darkest. To elevate your space, set up many colorful lights for a magical experience! If you have a space you can have open flame then:

Burn Scented Candles Either the magical ones you've made on the eve or some that you've bought! Winter scented candles really add charm to the space!

Sing! Song worship is a wonderful form of magic. You can sing spells or devote a song to your guides. Even if you don't have a song to sing then intoning is a great way to elevate the space. Intoning would be wonderful to warm up your vocal chords and energy with then you could pick a devotional song or even a carol to sing!

Offerings Your guides have been with you all year and the year (or sun) is going through it's period of rebirth. You can set aside offerings in gratitude for them. If you want to make it in theme with the holidays you can set aside something like milk and cookies! If your guides like something specific then of course offer that to them.

Winter Grounding Do some energy work on the first day of winter to center yourself and go within. Stand in the snow or on the cold hard ground and feel the cold electrify your senses as you ground with the earth. If cold is very much not your thing you can do energy work in your room with a sound bath using white noise tracks or meditative winter music. Put tumbled crystals like quartz, blue lace agate or angel aura quartz in the freezer until they're cold and make a grid on your body by placing one on your third eye, throat, chest, navel etc and meditate. Focus on taking in as much energy to reserve for the season.

Make a Merry Potion! As it's the darkest time of the year the mood can plummet. A personal potion of mine is a wonderful potpourri-like tea that can help boost your mood. It has dried rose hips , hibiscus petals and anise and Rhodiola rosea or rhodiola tincture. I would suggest getting a rhodiola tincture (you can purchase from wholefoods or online) and putting it in there. I swear by this plant and tincture, rhodiola has been a great plant ally to me especially to help cope with depression (it helps increase serotonin) but since I don’t know all the medical specifics you should consult it with your doctor if you are on something like antidepressants. It’s a semi known thing so your doctor would probably have good advice whether its safe for you to take it or not. Otherwise I have literally been spreading this tincture at work and have been seeing changes with my coworkers and my own mental health like it has helped me survive this far so I will be using it to survive winter.

TREAT YOSELF Winter is the season of resting. Make a potpourri-like hot bath with clementine slices, rose petals, epsom salt and anise stars. Be careful to not add something like cinnamon cause the oil can burn the nether regions. Also be careful with peppermint oil cause that can leave icy burns in the nether regions. If diluted properly the two could work but if you are not familiar with working with those oils I'd suggest leaving them out!

Evening

Celebratory Feast If you are alone you can make yourself a delicious winter stew! It will be fun to slow cook something meaty or rich and make the whole home smell great and bring anticipation for dinner! If you are looking for more elaborate dishes I love to use seasonal ingredients for every sabbat. Pine is an excellent flavor that pairs well with fish like salmon. Chestnut is divine either sweet or savory. Roots like potatoes, turnips and ginger are a must!

Blessings Since Yule to me is about generosity and unity I like to use the day to do helpful spells and send blessings to loved ones. Tip when you do a spell for someone: make sure it's something they ask for and truly need. For example if you know your friend has been struggling to find a job or money you can do a money spell for them. If your friend has wished in front of you to be able to move out into a safer place, you can put energy out towards that. However a bad example would be if you think your friend is miserable cause they are single and you do a love spell. That can end up in a disaster! Only do a spell on something you know they need. Otherwise just send a blessing of good energy towards your loved ones!

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thesilverwitch · 7 years ago

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THE YULE MASTERPOST

❄ HISTORY | TRADITIONS | RITUALS ❄

A Compilation of Original Articles by: ☽Patti Wigington at About Paganism + LadySpringWolf at The Pagan’s Path + The Huffington Post + Crystal Links + ZME SCIENCE☾

For people of nearly any religious background, the time of the winter solstice is a time when we gather with family and loved ones. For Pagans it's often celebrated as Yule!

HISTORY

Every year the Sun traces out a circular path in a west-to-east direction relative to the stars (this is in addition to the apparent daily east-to-west rotation of the celestial sphere around the Earth). The two points at which the ecliptic and the equatorial plane intersect, known as the vernal and autumnal equinoxes, and the two points of the ecliptic farthest north and south from the equatorial plane, known as the summer and winter solstices, divide the ecliptic into four equal parts. These cycles were familiar to Greek astronomers, but it wasn't until Hipparchus that a method of using the observed dates of two equinoxes and a solstice to calculate the size and direction of the displacement of the Sun’s orbit was established. Hipparchus (190BC – 120BC) was a Greek Astronomer and Mathematician. His writings on this subject tell us that the Solstice was a known event not just in his time, but before his time as well.

The winter solstice occurs on December 21st and marks the beginning of winter (this is the shortest day of the year). The Winter Solstice has been recognized and celebrated for eons by ancient people around the globe.

The Newgrange burial mound in Ireland's County Meath is surrounded by megalithic stones set in what archeologists believe to be astronomical position to the Winter Solstice. The Stone Age monument dates to around 3200 B.C., making it 500 years older than the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt and a thousand years older than England's Stonehenge.

Stonehenge itself has long been associated with the solstice and equinox cycles. Once again, there is evidence of ancient people recognizing these times of the year not just from an astronomical perspective, but in terms of spiritual reverence as well.

No one is really sure when the first festival or ritual celebration for this time of the year occurred. But we do know that it has long been recognized and honored in some of the worlds most reverent monuments. It would be silly to think that a point in time so important to ancient people would not have been celebrated or honored until the 7th century AD. But we're jumping ahead in our tale.

ETYMOLOGY OF YULE

You can tell a lot about a word by reviewing it's origins and usage at the time it was created and established in language and literature. So we should start the discussion with the history of the word "Yule".

Etymology Online describes Yule as:

Old English, coming from geol (Christmas Day) or geola (Christmastide). A heathen feast, later taken over by Christianity and from unknown origin. The O.E. (Anglian) cognate giuli was the Anglo-Saxons' name for a two-month midwinter season corresponding to Roman December and January, a time of important feasts but not itself a festival.

Wikipedea describes the etymology as:

The modern English word Yule likely derives from the word yoole, from 1450, which developed from the Old English term geo-l and geo-la before 899. The term has been linked to and may originate from the Old Norse Jo. The etymology of the name of the feast of Yule (Old Norse jól, Anglo-Saxon geohol and gehol) and the winter month (Anglo-Saxon giuli, geóla, Gothic fruma jiuleis, Old Norse ýlir) has not yet been completely explained, but the term may have originally meant something similar to "magic" or "feast of entreaty". This word is also the root of the English word "jolly."

But the more significant perspective that seems to hold a stronger connection to the historical evolution of Yule comes from Old Norse. According to The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology,

Yule is derived into modern English from Jól deriving from Old Norse hjól, wheel, referring to the moment when the wheel of the year is at its low point, ready to rise again (compare to the Slavic karachun).

Connecting the word to earlier language tells us where the words came from, but not where the holidays began. We can find some clues, such as the connection between Yule to hjól in it's use as the wheel of life. The wheel or cycle of life was something the early Norse pagans were very big on. So at the very least we can the concept of Yule is much older than the word itself.

EARLY INFLUENCES OF YULE

For the moment let's put aside the archeological evidence of burial mounts, and 'henge' structures that were built in correspondence to solstice astronomical observances.

The Romans:

Most scholars suggest that the first influence of this winter festival began with Saturnalia in Rome. Saturnalia is the feast with which the Romans commemorated the dedication of the temple of the god Saturn. Saturn was a major Roman God and designated as the God of agriculture and harvest. Another link to the "wheel" concept.

In early astrology, Saturn represents our limitations, our restrictions,yet it is also our inner mentor and teacher. His lessons are manifested only over time, after which we go through inner rebirth and enjoy spiritual growth. Some suggest this is the connection between the idea of the "rebirth" of the God during the winter festival.

Saturnalia was introduced around 217 BC and was originally celebrated for a day, on December 17, it's popularity grew and so did it's length of celebration from one day to a full week ending on December 23rd. Caesar Augustus tried to shorten the holiday to 3 days, and Caligula to five days, but both efforts failed.

Seneca the Younger wrote about Rome during Saturnalia around AD 50 (Sen. epist. 18,1-2):

It is now the month of December, when the greatest part of the city is in a bustle. Loose reins are given to public dissipation; everywhere you may hear the sound of great preparations, as if there were some real difference between the days devoted to Saturn and those for transacting business....Were you here, I would willingly confer with you as to the plan of our conduct; whether we should eve in our usual way, or, to avoid singularity, both take a better supper and throw off the toga.

Gaius Valerius Catullus (ca. 84 BC – ca. 54 BC) was a Roman poet of the 1st century BC. He describes Saturnalia as:

..the best of days (Cat. 14.15). It was a time of celebration, visits to friends, and gift-giving, particularly of wax candles (cerei), and earthenware figurines (sigillaria).

Also around the time of the winter solstice, Romans observed Juvenalia, a feast honoring the children of Rome. In addition, members of the upper classes often celebrated the birthday of Mithra, the god of the unconquerable sun, on December 25. It was believed that Mithra, an infant god, was born of a rock. For some Romans, Mithra's birthday was the most sacred day of the year.

In 354 AD, A Roman scholar wrote:

"It was customary for pagans to celebrate the birth of the sun...when the doctors of the Church perceived that the Christians had a leaning to this festival, they took counsel and resolved that the true Nativity should be solemnized on that day [December 25th]."

These two early Roman holidays were certainly celebrated by the soldiers of Ceaser as they traveled the world to conquer other lands. And it could be from these early origins that the first influences on pagan Europe began. But they're not the only influence.

The Norse:

The pagan Celtic lands also saw invasions of the Norse. Some would say the Norse had much more influence over early Celtic pagans than the Romans did. Or at the very least a longer lasting influence.

Norse literature has many references to Yule or a Winter Solstice celebration. Ynglinga saga, the first book of Heimskringla, first mentions a Yule feast in 840.The Norse Prose Edda book Skáldskaparmál, mentions Yule

"Again we have produced Yule-being's feast [mead of poetry], our rulers' eulogy, like a bridge of masonry."

In Scandinavia, the Norse celebrated Yule from December 21, the winter solstice, through January. In recognition of the return of the sun. It is this influence that we can see most in European Paganism. The Wheel of the Year divided into 4 parts was not that far of a leap for early European Pagans. They were already familiar with honoring the solstice periods as evidenced in The Stone Age Newgrange tomb and Stonehenge.

They recognized the Suns return and knew it meant fields would once again be ready for tilling and planting. Warmth would return to the world and darkness would fade. To the rural folk who worked hard during the year, the end of a lean winter was something to celebrate and the God of the Sun was something to be honored. It bothers me that such significance it put on Germanic celebrations from the 7th Century AD, when so much historical evidence points to a much older acknowledgement and reverent connection to the Wheel of The Year in early pagan Europe and Norse history and mythology.

YULE TODAY

For all it's inputs and influences, Yule is still an important time of the year to pagans around the world. In the most direct terms it is still a festival that honors the cycle of nature and the Wheel of the Year. It is not just about the rebirth of a God figure in pagan lore.

Yule is a 12 day holiday, it begins on "Mothers Night" (December 21st) and ends 12 days later on "Yule Night" (January 1st). It's the origin for the Christian "12 Days of Christmas".

For Celtic pagans, Yule is the time when the Sun God Lugh is reborn in human form to rejoin his beloved wife Eriu. She is described as a hag, who transformed into a beautiful Goddess by the marriage and personifies the land of Ireland in her every feature and character. She becomes known in legend as the "Sovereignty of Ireland". Yule is also the celebration of the cycle of life through Eriu and all her incarnations as the Maiden, Mother and Crone Goddess.

In these legends, Lugh takes his bride in the form of the Maiden Goddess, to look out upon their land and in seeing the suffering of their people they grow worried and concerned. The summer High Holy Day Lughnasadh is celebrated by many traditions as the moment when Lugh, as the Sacred King, sacrifices his own life to save his suffering people. In doing so his blood is spread across the fields to ensure the fertility of the fields and a bountiful harvest of crop and herd.

As the harvests are brought in, and winters covers the land, the Great Mother (the Mother Goddess) resurrects Lugh from the ground, rising him up into the dark sky and returns him (as the Sun) to the universe. The effort to raise Lugh into the sky causes Eriu to grow old as she shared her knowledge with the God to teach him all he needed to know to govern over his people once more. Bestowing her Old Crone wisdom upon Lugh brings the cycle back to the beginning of the legend.

To the Welsh pagans, Yule is seen as the time when the young Oak King and the Old Holly King battle for supremacy just as they do at the Midsummer festival. At the Midsummer festival the Holly King battles the Oak King and wins their campaign. The Holly King reigns until the start of Winter (the beginning of Yule) when the Oak King is reborn and prepares to battle the Holly King for rule over the land once more.

Both of these celebrations show how the Ancient pagans had a strong tie with honoring the solstices through out the year. The winter solstice bringing about the return of the sun and longer days and a celebration of the survival of cold winter months.

Over the evolution of paganism, these legends have developed into various rituals and observations. One of the more detailed or organized observations is closely related to the Celtic legend of Lugh, Eriu and the 12 Days of Yule.

The festivals are observed from sunset to sunset .

Dec. 20 to Dec. 23. During the 1st 3 days - The virgin Maiden Goddess is honored as your guide for moving forward into the new year, to set you on the right and positive path.

Dec. 23 to Dec. 26. The 2nd set of 3 days - The Mother Goddess is honored for fertility and all your coming endeavors.

Dec. 26 to Dec 29. The 3rd set of 3 days - These 3 days are set aside for the rebirth of the God, and honoring his guidance through the physical world.

Dec. 29 to Jan. 1. - The last 3 days are set aside for the Old Crone Goddess who is honored for wisdom and as your teacher into the cosmic lessons of life and spirit. In modern times, under the solar calendar, she might also be honored as the waning year giving way to the new year.

YULE SYMBOLOGY

There is much to the symbology of Yule. Revolving around harvest and livestock, this was a time of honoring the sun and thankfulness for the bounty that is sustaining the family through the cold.

The first direct reference to the Yule log can be found around the 17th century. The Old Norse 'jol' seems to have been borrowed in Old French as 'olif', which gave way to the Modern French 'joli'; "pretty, nice," originally "festive". In Scandanavia, Old Norse pagan fathers and sons would bring home large logs, which they would set on fire in the center of their village. The people would feast until the log burned out, which could take as many as 12 days. Some suggest this is the significance or origination of the 12 Days of Yule.

The colors of Yule, red, white and green come from the Holly Tree and honoring the Old King.

“The tradition of wassailing (alt sp: wasselling) falls into two distinct categories: The house-visiting wassail and the orchard-visiting wassail. The house-visiting wassail is the practice of people going door-to-door, singing and offering a drink from the wassail bowl in exchange for gifts. This practice still exists, but has largely been displaced by caroling.The orchard-visiting wassail refers to the ancient custom of visiting orchards in cider-producing regions of England, reciting incantations and singing to the trees to promote a good harvest for the coming year.”

Wassailing is or to "wassail," is a word derived from the Old Norse 'ves heil'. In Old English 'hál' meaning "be in good health" or "be fortunate." "Wassail" first appears in English literature as a salute as early as the eighth-century in the poem Beowulf. It is used in references such as "warriors' wassail and words of power".

Wassail also denoted the drink used for a toast. Rowena's spiced wine resembled the ancient Roman hypocras, which survived into the early Middle Ages as a libation for the wealthy. When fine ales replaced the wine, more people could afford it and recipes varied according to the means of each family. Though usually prepared for immediate consumption, wassail sometimes was bottled and allowed to ferment. By about the 1600s, the practice of taking a wassail bowl about the streets had taken root. Instead of consuming the punch-like concoction at home, wassailers went house to house offering a warm drink and going Wassailing was born.

In Europe, Pagans did not cut down evergreen trees, bring them into their homes and decorate them. That would have been far too destructive of nature. Instead, they would cut boughs of evergreen trees, mistletoe and holly branches and bring them into their home or temple. These cuttings would be decorated and displayed as symbols of the season. They were also thought to hold great magik as they remained green through the winter months while other plants and trees turned brown and "died".

Other pagans had similar traditions:

Not having evergreen trees, the ancient Egyptians considered the palm tree to symbolize resurrection. They decorated their homes with its branches during the winter solstice.

"The first decorating of an evergreen tree began with the heathen Greeks and their worship of their god Adonia, who allegedly was brought back to life by the serpent Aessulapius after having been slain."

The ancient Pagan Romans decorated their "trees with bits of metal and replicas of their god, Bacchus [a fertility god]. They also placed 12 candles on the tree in honor of their sun god". Their mid-winter festival of Saturnalia started on December 17th and often lasted until a few days after the Solstice.

In Northern Europe, the ancient Germanic people tied fruit and attached candles to evergreen tree branches, in honor of their god Woden. Trees were viewed as symbolizing eternal life. This is the deity after which Wednesday was named. The trees joined holly, mistletoe, the wassail bowl and the Yule log as symbols of the season. All predated Christianity.

THE EVOLUTION OF THE CHRISTMAS TREE

The history of the Christmas tree is a controversial topic, with scholars of different backgrounds giving different information. An individual's definition of what the Christmas tree actually is may also affect this information. Is a Christmas tree a tree brought into the home and decorated (the modern christmas tree), or can it be represented by evergreen branches hung on one’s door? Or was it that the act of using evergreen branches evolved into using an entire tree? Whatever you believe, here’s one viewpoint.

Long before Christianity appeared, people in the Northern Hemisphere used evergreen plants to decorate their homes, particularly the doors, to celebrate the Winter Solstice. The solstice was celebrated by the Egyptians who filled their homes with green palm rushes in honor of the god Ra, who had the head of a hawk and wore the sun as a crown. In Northern Europe, the Celts decorated their druid temples with evergreen boughs which signified everlasting life. Further up north, the Vikings thought evergreens were the plants of Balder, the god of light and peace. The ancient Romans marked the Winter Solstice with a feast called Saturnalia thrown in honor of Saturn, the god of agriculture, and, like the Celts, decorated their homes and temples with evergreen boughs.

While a lot of ancient cultures used evergreens around Christmas time, historical records suggest that the Christmas tree tradition was started in the 16th century by Germans who decorated fir trees inside their homes. In some Christian cults, Adam and Eve were considered saints, and people celebrated them during Christmas Eve.

During the 16th century, the late Middle Ages, it was not rare to see huge plays being performed in open-air during Adam and Eve day, which told the story of creation. As part of the performance, the Garden of Eden was symbolized by a “paradise tree” hung with fruit. The clergy banned these practices from the public life, considering them acts of heathenry. So, some collected evergreen branches or trees and brought them to their homes, in secret.

These evergreens were initially called ‘paradise trees’ and were often accompanied by wooden pyramids made of branches held together by rope. On these pyramids, some families would fasten and light candles, one for each family member. These were the precursors of modern Christmas tree lights and ornaments, along with edibles such as gingerbread and gold covered apples.

Some say the first to light a candle atop a Christmas tree was Martin Luther. Legend has it, late one evening around Christmas time, Luther was walking home through the woods when he was struck by the innocent beauty of starlight shining through fir trees. Wanting to share this experience with his family, Martin Luther cut down a fir tree and took it home. He placed a small candle on the branches to symbolize the Christmas sky.

What’s certain is that by 1605, Christmas trees were a thing as, in that year, historical records suggest the inhabitants of Strasburg ‘set up fir trees in the parlours and hang thereon roses cut out of many-coloured paper, apples, wafers, gold-foil, sweets, etc.’

During these early days of the Christmas tree, many statesmen and members of the clergy condemned their use as a celebration of Christ. Lutheran minister Johann von Dannhauer, for instance, complained that the symbol distracted people from the true evergreen tree, Jesus Christ. The English Puritans condemned a number of customs associated with Christmas, such as the use of the Yule log, holly and mistletoe. Oliver Cromwell, the influential 17th-century British politician, preached against the “the heathen traditions” of Christmas carols, decorated trees, and any joyful expression that desecrated “that sacred event.”

THE MODERN CHRISTMAS TREE

It wasn’t until the time of Queen Victoria that celebrating Christmas by bearing gifts around a fir tree became a worldwide custom. In 1846, Queen Victoria and her German husband Albert were sketched in the Illustrated London News standing with their children around a Christmas tree at Windsor Castle. German immigrants had brought the custom of Christmas trees to Britain with them in the early 1800s but the practice didn’t catch on with the locals. After Queen Victoria, an extremely popular monarch, started celebrating Christmas with fir trees and presents hung on the branches as a favor to her husband, the layfolk immediately followed suit.

Across the ocean, in the 19th century, Christmas trees weren’t at all popular, though Dutch and German settlers introduced them. Americans were less susceptible to the Queen’s influence. However, it was American civic leaders, artists, and authors who played on the image of a happy middle-class family exchanging gifts around a tree in an effort to replace Christmas customs that were seen as decadent, like wassailing. This family-centered image was further amplified by a very popular poem written by Clement Moore in 1822 known as the “Twas the Night Before Christmas”. The same poem conjured the modern picture of Santa Claus.

It took a long time before the Christmas tree became an integral part of American life during this faithful night. President Franklin Pierce (1804-1869) arranged to have the first Christmas tree in the White House, during the mid-1850s. President Calvin Coolidge (1885-1933) started the National Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony on the White House lawn in 1923.

Though traditionally not all Christian cultures adorned their homes with evergreens and presents, the influence exerted by the West and rising consumerism has turned the Christmas tree into a ubiquitous symbol. In fact, many people of other faiths have adopted the Christmas tree (See Japan for instance).

The Christmas tree has gone a long way from its humble, pagan origins, to the point that it’s become too popular for its own good. In the U.S. alone, 35 million Christmas trees are sold annually, joined by 10 million artificial trees, which are surprisingly worse from an environmental perspective. Annually, 300 million Christmas trees are grown in farms around the world to sustain a two-billion-dollar industry, but because these are often not enough, many firs are cut down from forests. This is why we recommend opting for more creative and sustainable alternatives to Christmas trees.

WHO CARES!

Despite the history, many pagans still enjoy bringing their Christmas trees inside. If the christmas tree means something special to you, or if you would like to give it its own pagan meanings for your personal Yule celebrations, then have at it! It’s your tree, in your house, and it can represent whatever you like.

RITUALS AND CEREMONIES

Depending on your particular tradition, there are many different ways you can celebrate the Solstice season. Here are a few rituals you may want to think about trying—and remember, any of them can be altered for your particular tradition/belief system!

Setting Up the Yule Altar

Prayers for Yule

Welcome Back the Sun for Yule

Goddess Rite for Solitaries

Goddess Rite for Groups

Hold a Yule Log Ceremony

Yule Cleansing Ritual

Holiday Tree Blessing Ceremony

Elemental Blessings of Donations Ritual

YULE MAGIC

The Yule season is full of magic, much of it focusing on rebirth and renewal, as the sun makes its way back to the earth. Focus on this time of new beginnings with your magical workings!

The Magical Colors of Yule

7 Sacred Plants for Yule, the Winter Solstice

Snow Magic

Yule Pomanders

The Magical Scents of Frankincense

Magical, Mystical Myrrh

TRADITIONS AND TRENDS

Interested in learning about some of the traditions behind contemporary holiday celebrations? Find out why mistletoe is so special, and which ancient revelers went caroling naked in the streets!

Ten Christmas Traditions With Pagan Roots

Deities of the Winter Solstice

Mistletoe: Myths, Mysteries and Medicine

Winter Customs Around the World

Celebrating the Solstice in Spain: Las Hogueras

10 Reasons to Enjoy the Winter Solstice Season

Io, Saturnalia!

The Holly King and the Oak King

Go Wassailing for Yule

The Origins of Santa Claus

Krampusnacht, December 5

The Legend of Frau Holle

The Legend of Mithras

The Legend of La Befana

Who is the Lord of Misrule?

Hogmanay, Scotland's Winter Celebration

The Standing Stones of Orkney

Festivus: Not a Pagan Celebration at All

YULE WITH FAMILY AND FRIENDS

Nothing says holiday celebration quite like getting together with the people you love. Learn about gifts, decorating, money-saving, and why it's perfectly okay for Pagans to have a big green tree full of lights —and remember, any of this can be altered for your particular tradition/belief system!

Have a Budget-Friendly Yule

Host a Winter Solstice Party

Service Project: Make a Bag to Help the Homeless

19 Random Acts of Kindness for Yule

Ten Magical Gifts to Share for Yule

Great Gift Ideas for Pagans and Wiccans

Great Books for Wiccan and Pagan Kids

Ten Great Books for Yule

Celebrating Yule with Kids

I'm Pagan - Can I Still Have a Holiday Tree?

How to Have a Low-stress Yule

Surviving the Holidays with Your Non-Pagan Family

What Yule Songs Should I Sing?

Music for Your Yule Playlist

CRAFTS AND CREATIONS

There are so many great ways you can decorate your home for the Yule season. Adapt store-bought Christmas decorations, or make your own Pagan-themed home decor for the season.—and remember, any of this can be altered for your particular tradition/belief system!

5 Easy Yule Decorations

Simple Yule Crafts to Make

Decorate a Yule Log

Yule Ornaments

Magical Gingerbread Poppets

Yule Smoke Cleansing Sticks (Please forgive the use of the term “smudge sticks” in the article itself, this is the only example I could find. My apologies!)

Winter Nights Incense

Yule Herbal Sachet

Make Your Own Yule Greeting Cards

Cinnamon Stick Yule Candleholders

Ten Things to Hang on a Pagan Holiday Tree

FEASTING AND FOOD

Most Pagans will have a potluck at the drop of a pointy hat, so Yule is as good a time as any to plan a big feast. Spread the table out with your favorite holiday dishes, lots and lots of candles, and some of these delicious seasonal recipes. Remember, the blessings below can be altered for your particular tradition/belief system!

Meal Blessings for Pagans and Wiccans

Make a Pot of Wassail

Yule Plum Pudding

[PLEASE NOTE: If you believe you’ve discovered an error in any of this information, please respectfully contact me directly @thesilverwitch and after confirming the error I will edit accordingly. Thank you.]

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