Normally it is around this time of year, that I begin noticing again how much I am out of touch with popular culture. Just as everyone else starts gearing up for shopping, parties and decorating, I instead start shedding, nesting and turning inwards.
Indigenous Europeans celebrated the Winter solstice for centuries as a festival of lights. Christmas lights and trees share this pagan heritage. The Oak King is victorious over the Holly King during the longest night and the Sun begins to slowly to take back its domain over the night. Light is reborn, and the wheel of the year turns toward spring.
But until the solstice, the Holly King rules. The Holly King symbolizes withdrawal, reflection and rest. Mammals especially begin their hibernation in northern latitudes and nature herself slows down and falls into a deep sleep. The birds that remain fight over scraps, while the squirrels become even more hectic in their hoarding. Any frantic activity in nature is toward picking the bones of the final harvest.
The harvest festivals are now only distant memories, and what is consumed are the bounty that cannot keep over the long winter. Windows, doorways, and all openings into home and hearth are girded to withstand winter’s storms. And the heavy blankets and clothing are brought down for inspection and repair. The work moves inward, and supplies are set aside for winter’s projects such as knitting, weaving, spinning and tool repair.
Our entire human history, our mammalian ancestry and nature itself pushes us to slow down, turn inward and reflect. And what do we do? We go mad with shopping, eating, drinking, and parties. We travel long distances to be with families yes, but we drive ourselves doggedly to buy, buy and buy as if there is no tomorrow. We consume what serves us better to be save. We buy ready made what would serve us better to create. And we put up lights all over our homes sending heat and light out, instead of conserving the energy for warming and illuminating our homes internally.
We do not turn inward until New Years, after the Oak King has reawakened. The Oak King symbolizes expansion and growth. And maybe it is appropriate to examine areas in need of growth, i.e. New Years resolutions. But the Oak King does not reach his zenith till Beltane, May 1st. So although the Oak King is victorious, we are still within the domain of the receding Holly King.
Christmas is notable for another cultural theme as well, holiday depression. More people attempt suicide during the Christmas holidays, than at any other time of year. There are many theories as to why this is so including Seasonal Affective Disorder or SAD. The diminishing light of winter causes many sensitive folks to begin a descent cycle energetically just as everyone else around them begins to rev up.
What would happen if we celebrated the season in tune with the signs of nature all around us? What if we all slowed down, turned inward and fortified home and hearth? What if we as a culture moved the shopping and decorating back toward harvest time where it fits the hoarding and exhilaration of autumn, and let winter become a time of rest and reflection. Maybe folks with SAD and others who begin descending into the underworld would not feel so out of step. Maybe we all could begin to satisfy our very human needs for withdrawal. All hail the Holly King!
The legend of The Oak King and the Holly King
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This reminded me of something I wrote a few months ago: http://eoma-p.livejournal.com/36134.html
Could be the start of a fun adventure - whatever words you find that fit you best, may you be blessed for it!
Wish I could be there. Very well spoken.
Katrina,
I wish you all the blessings and power you need on your journey. Thank you for these words. It is good to remember that returning to work (and thus returning to grace) bring a chance for us all to rest and have joy.
Wishing you joy in the Work.
David
Dear Katrina- Thorn reposted your blog and happy am I. Your passion, always so immense, comes blowing out in these words. So akin to my own heart and soul that it makes me have a bittersweet smile.
The Storm is only now coming to the edges of our universe and yet it will sweep and consume all that is. In the end, our beautiful universe will be so much...more? Different? Complete? Who knows?
All I do know is my soul came here to witness and be part in this period. I cannot shrink from the work. I am here with you, fae sister!
Thought-provoking piece, Katrina. Thanks.
I don't know what to call myself either. In Pagandom, I've taken to referring to myself as a Witch at Large. In the interfaith world where I'm active, I call myself a Pagan. Sometimes I call myself an uppity woman or a Second Wave Feminist. I've never really thought to publicly identify myself by my sexuality, het woman, which is very "white bread" and old-fashioned. Not only het, but serially monogamous for the most part. It seems almost a liability these days to say you're het, but I am proudly and happily so. I tend towards intellectualism but only have a BA, which doesn't carry much weight, at least in public and professional worlds, no matter how much you've studied, trained, and can articulate, even teach.
My biological heritage is Irish, Dutch, French Huguenot, Euro-mongrel. My social heritage is Roman Catholic on one side and conservative Methodist, temperance-crusading, women's rights and education on the other, with distinct East Coast sensibilities, now mellowed by more than half a century living on the Left Coast. My maternal political heritage is conservative Republican (altho what my relatives might think of current trends in the GOP I cannot imagine, since they did have brains and they did think and they did have a social conscience), yet I am much farther left in my outlook than any elected official I know. My paternal political heritage is blue collar Democratic, except that my dad broke with his family on politics and allied with my mother's family's conservatism.
I'm a former hippie, a home-birth advocate, a home death and green burial advocate, an opponent of capital punishment and resorting to warfare to resolve humankind's differences. I support the right to conscious self-deliverance. I rejoice in any and all consensual expressions of love and eros. I'm a lover and a mom.
I have never missed voting in an election and I disrespect those who don't avail themselves of this hard-won right. (I have ancestors who fought the Brits in the American Revolution.) I support workers' rights. I recognize our interdependence on this planet, so could be called a greenie. I'm a committed environmentalist in my day-to-day life (in terms of eating locally grown food, expanding public transit, recycling, preserving open space and wildlife, opposing exploitation of natural resources [strip mining, oil-drilling, nuclear facilities, agribusiness, monocultures, clear-cutting timber, overuse of pesticides, genetic modification, etc.]) I want to make the city streets "safe for dancing," as my old friend Tony Serra said when he ran for mayor of SF on the Platypus Party ticket.
Well, you got me going there, my friend. Thought-provoking read, as I said. ;-)
xo,
Macha