Y: Yule

What else could Y be on a pagan blog? There are plenty of places online to learn about Yule in general terms: what it means et cetera, so I thought I'd simply explain how we celebrate Yule and Christmas in tandem.

As I've discussed elsewhere, I'm the only pagan in the house really (no-one else has a faith as such), so I don't impose too much on everyone else. Also, my extended family is really quite Christian and I have no desire to upset or offend anyone (or cause them to weep for my poor hellbound soul). One of the benefits to us in the way Christianity simply co-opted existing celebrations is that there is very little I could do to celebrate Yule that would look out of place to any of our relatives.

So, these are the dual purpose things that we do in December:

• The tree - always a real one (love the smell)
• Candles and fairy lights
• Other greenery - mistletoe when we can get it, holly wreath etc
• Spicy baking, lots of cinnamon and clove
• Mulled wine (or, more often, red grape juice - tasty and good for the driving or teetotal visitors)
• Thankfulness and looking backwards and forwards for New Year

Obviously, my celebrations should be earlier than everyone else's, but it's just easier if we keep to Christmas day for the feast and the gifts. It's all symbolic anyway.

R: Rhythm

The pagan year has a clear rhythm, with a solar festival roughly every six weeks, and of course the thirteen moon cycles of the year.

Although I recognise that these are not truly ancient festivals (the Wheel of the Year as we now know it was conceptualised in the 1950s when Wicca was constructed), this is not a particular concern for me. My paganism is not about trying to recreate ancient practice exactly as it was centuries (or millenia) ago; it's about celebrating and connecting to the universe in a way that makes sense to me.

I appreciate the festivals, both solar and lunar, because they remind us of the natural cycles around us, which it's all too easy to be disconnected from these days, living as distantly from nature as we do. This, for me, is a key reason that paganism enriches my life. It enables me to feel connected and part of the universe, in a way that I never had previously. It's particularly interesting to me as a woman to see how my own natural hormonal cycles relate to those in nature, and I don't think that this is something I would have been aware of otherwise.

How rhythmic is your life?

H: Holy Days and Holidays

The Wheel of the Year

So, how do we celebrate holidays as a family? It's nothing like as straightforward a question as it should be, for several reasons, including:

• My immediate family includes practising Christians who aren't aware of my paganism
• Christianity was forced on me as a child and I don't want to do the same to my children
• The culture I live in (the UK) is very much organised around Christian festivals

So, we celebrate Christmas with gifts and a tree, Easter with eggs (or other gifts) and I mark the Wheel of the Year festivals by myself. I keep an altar in the living room on the hearth, and do change it according to the season and any particular intent I'm working with. My family know about the festivals and sometimes have wanted to celebrate with me, but it's not an expectation. There are aspects of my practice that impact our family life (mostly natural living things rather than specific spiritual practices), but I generally keep the seasons in a solitary manner.

Image credit: By Midnightblueowl [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons