To those of you who celebrate the great sabbat of Yule - here's wishing you a great weekend.
I would love to be travelling to the Blue Mountains, here in NSW, to join in the massive celebrations that they have there. It is certainly a brilliant day - with Katoomba closing for a huge street fair and procession.
I love the feeling of freedom and community in the mountains.
We are approaching the shortest day and the longest night of the year - traditionally, the time to celebrate Yule.
It is in the middle of winter and, as winter for us in the northern hemisphere is NOW, this is when we celebrate this sabbat ( of course this falls in December in the Northern hemisphere ).
The sabbat celebrates the birth of the sun ( or/and son of the Goddess ) and therefore is infused with male energies.
It is especially significant as we have a full moon occurring at the same time - for those that are sensitive to these energies you may be feeling "all over the place", emotional and lacking energy.
It is important to try to meditate and centre your energy back into your body and regain your feelings of equilibrium or you may find yourself needing to lie low for a day or two and just keep out of everybody's way until you return to your normal self.
Our ancestors were living through hard winters at this time of the year - there was not much to sustain them. The days were short and tempers would flair as whole families were living in enclosed spaces for long periods and had limited functions that they could perfom to keep them occupied.
Their thoughts would run to their stores of food, to the health of family members and their animals and to what needed to be repaired and whether there was enough water and wood to see them through the winter.
Yule was a time to celebrate the fact that the Wheel of the Year was about to turn and that the days would now be growing longer and warmer and the crops were about to be sown.
It was a time of contemplation for the coming spring and the birth of new ideas and commitments that would come to fruition in the summer time.
We, today, are lucky enough to have warm, safe clean houses. We can leave our home and get into our cars and drive where we need to go without too much of a crisis occuring.
We can go to the supermarket and get fresh bread, fruits and vegetables and there is always something to eat.
We can even get on the phone and have food delivered to our homes.
Winter for most of us is something that happens outside, and can often only be a minor inconvenience if we need to put on an extra jumper.
For our ancestors it was a time of hardship and worry.
We need to remember this and honour the work and sacrifice of those that have come before so that we can have what is around us today.
May your Yule be blessed with love and warmth from family and friends.
Lift a glass to your ancestoral history and thank them for being part of your family tree.
Blessings to all.
