measi's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Blessed Yule Here we are on the shortest day of the year. The Wheel has turned, Father God is reborn, and another year of the sun's life begins anew. And as I seem to do on any of my high holy days that do not fall on a weekend, I sit here at my desk, pondering the Sabbat, and enjoy the silence of Yule to be quickly followed by its much younger offspring holiday, Christmas. With all that has happened in the world this year, the pangs of religious loneliness have been much more present for me. Letterboard signs with "Jesus is the Reason for the Season" have sprung up everywhere, announcing to the world that not only are the owners of said establishment Christian, but the celebrations of all other religions are meaningless to these people. So much for that holiday "goodwill towards men" thing. Can't we all just just get along from about Diwali in November until the Epiphany in January? Accept that there are so many faiths in the United States that being exclusionary is not only pretentious but also damaging to the concept that said signboard-poster is respectful of the freedom of religion? That they are just completely uneducated about where the celebrations of Christmas actually came from? And that if they read their Bible, they'd realize how inaccurate the celebrations on December 25th are, other than to celebrate the forced conversion of millions of Pagans during the Dark Ages? Eesh. Maybe it's just me. Who knows. I get a bit melancholy on Yule every year. Not because Christmas itself depresses me. I actually love Christmas for the connection to family that it brings every year. But it saddens me that I can't be completely open about my faith on Yule. Unlike Ramadan, Hanukkah, Christmas, and Kwanza, my faith kinda gets overlooked except for the weather report, commenting on how it's the winter solstice, which means it's the shortest day of the year. But Witches only exist at Halloween, you know. We disappear for the rest of the year. We don't do anything that involves light and celebrations of birth. We just do dark stuff. (insert extremely sarcastic snort here). So our traditions don't get postage stamps, or religion-specific holiday cards, or charity drives, or any of that stuff. We get to continue to do our worship in secret, afraid of those who would come hurt us for no other reason than we're not Christian. We're "Different," and therefore our celebrations during this season of light and peace are not welcomed. (rereads her last few paragraphs here)... Damn. Okay. I think a lot of my frustration this year is extremely pronounced by the situation in the world, though. Honestly, it's nowhere as bad as I'm making it sound here. I'm just going off on a rant, and it's one of those "once I get started..." floodgates that seem to open up unnecessarily. I do have a lot of happy memories from Yule celebrations, too. And perhaps I should end with one of those, rather than the downer note that I have up above. Most of my Yuletide memories come on Christmas with family. But one year, one of my friends, a non-practicing Catholic who had an interest in me (but I was too scared to act on it), helped me celebrate Yule in one of my favorite ways: we took a walk. I was a sophomore in college, and one of my college buddies, Rob, was a freshman. We both wound up having finals scheduled on the very last day, very last period possible. Most of our floor had already left for the holidays. LGM, who I didn't know as a friend back then but who I'd met since he lived on my dorm floor, was headed back to Florida. He'd wished us both a Merry Christmas and had headed out. It was basically Rob, a guy we'd nicknamed Laslow since he never seemed to come out of his single room at the end of the hall, and no one knew him, and me. Three people left out of about about 45. I was studying half-heartedly for my American History final with my door open, since no one was around to really interrupt me. Sometime in the mid-evening (9 or 10), Rob stopped by with some extra junk food he'd picked up down at the convenience store, and just wanted to say hi. We talked, and kept talking, and realized that both of us just needed to get away from the books completely for a while. So we gathered coats and gloves and headed out to the Esplanade. We spent the next three hours walking around the Charles River. It was cold, but there wasn't much snow. We crossed the river at the Mass Ave bridge, commenting as most people do about the Smoots measurements painted along the length of the bridge. (this bridge was known as the Harvard Bridge in decades past). On our way back to campus, we crossed over the BU Bridge (which, by the way, is the only place in the world where a boat can sail under a train driving under a car driving under an airplane... just for tidbit information). From the top of the bridge, the sky was surprisingly clear because dorm lights were off, the Citgo sign in Kenmore Square (visible during Red Sox broadcasts) was off, and a couple of the newer buildings that have flooded the area with more life were not yet completed. And Rob, who'd never lived anywhere but Philly, was seeing complete constellations for the first time in his life. Being from Montana and having grown up looking at the dusty stripe of the Milky Way from my backyard, this was such a strange concept to me, so I started to point out constellations to him. I've never seen someone so excited to see the Big Dipper. Really. And then, as I was pointing out the North Star, a little stripe of light crossed a sliver of the sky. On Yule night, Rob and I got to see a falling star. A faint one, but definitely there. And we made wishes, gave each other a hug, and walked back to the dorm to have a cup of hot chocolate and continue our studying... in the common room together, rather than isolated in our separate rooms. It was nothing extravagant or glamorous, but a touching Yuletide ritual that I've continued each year since. No matter where I am on the 21st, I take a walk outside and look up at the sky. I doubt I'll see a falling star, but it just kinda gives me a sense of the world for a while, and it's become an annual ritual to start the new year again. Perhaps tonight I'll go back up to that bridge and stare up for a bit and see what I can see. Blessed Yule everyone, and safe and happy holidays, Melissa (SilverCat) *~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~* [erich] and I will be heading to Pennsylvania tomorrow morning for the Christmas weekend. I won't have any access to the internet during that time, but will be back next Thursday. So best wishes all... see you in a week! 10:45 a.m. - 21 December 2001 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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