Yule

was really

funny you don't always get like teenagers who are resonant with your new wave but but it was it was really fun and and it so got me thinking about like what else uh what else are like these like signs of fall you know in in the practice too um or just in the magical life it's like uh i'm curious i'm curious as i start to track like what what other things start happening in my practice Like, I know for me, like, I only really divine come Yule.

Like, I almost do no divination all year.

And then I always do a lot

divination.

Unless somebody asks.

But, like, for my own practice, it just, like, never feels right until right around Yule time.

And then I'm like, oh, you know, this is what I'm going to do now.

So it's not quite as festive a time.

The Scandinavians, obviously, with the winter solstice, by the time, you know, the sun starts to come back again, they've had a very hard winter already, and this is where you get these great rejoicings at Christmastime, Yule, you know, with all the festivals and the presents.

But you also find this celebration in places that are not that affected by, you know, closer to the equator, not that affected by winter, not quite as affected.

And you find that it is indeed in Egypt as well.

Bishops and priests from England Hakan had, preaching and baptizing what they could, but making only slow progress, much too slow for Hakan's zeal.

On the other hand, every Yule-tide, when the chief heathen were assembled in his own palace on their grand sacrificial festival, there was great pressure put upon Hakan as to sprinkling with horse-blood, drinking Yule-beer, eating horse-flesh, and the other distressing rites, the whole of which Hakan abhorred, and with all his steadfastness strove to reject utterly.

Sigurd, Jarl of Lad, Trondheim, a liberal heathen, not openly a Christian, was ever a wise counsellor and conciliator in such affairs, and proved a great help to Hakan.

Once, for example, there having risen at a Yule-feast loud, almost stormful demand that Hakan, like a true man and brother, should drink Yule-beer with them in their sacred high tide.

Libra season and the fall equinox mark the beginning of shadow work season, which deepens and intensifies with Scorpio season, then undergoes a spiritual alchemical process during Sagittarius season.

Shadow work season then ends with Yule or the winter solstice, which begins Capricorn season and marks the darkest and therefore most inward days of the year.

As the days begin to lengthen then once again, earthy Capricorn helps us to integrate the spiritual lessons from shadow work season into our physical reality.

This Aries full moon starts the shadow work season off with a bang, you guys, and the cosmos is handing us an urgent invitation to rebalance, reclaim, and release.

So the leftover five or six additional days in each year were invested into a pair of festivals, one at each solstice.

The two days of Yule fell around the winter solstice between December and January.

The first day of Yule was the last day of one year.

The second day of Yule was the New Year's Day of the next.

Six months later, the Festival of Leith ornamented the summer solstice and lasted either three or four days.

The first day of Leith began the festival, followed by Mid-Year's Day itself, followed in leap years by an over-leith, and then the festival ended on the second day of Leith.

Sometimes it's a Monday, sometimes a Tuesday, sometimes another day.

The hobbits prevented this disorder by considering neither mid-year's day nor in leap years the over-leaf to be a day of the week.

And also, if you have a large group that you want to bring with, we can hook you into a group tour and then your group can have a private tour.

Once we get to November on into December, the holiday tours continue Christmas traditions by candlelight at the William Pega House starting late November, as well as a special Yuletide in Revolutionary Annapolis.

That's a one day, multiple times, December 5th on a Saturday as well.

Yeah, a tour by candlelight is offered from the day after Thanksgiving till just shortly after Christmas Day.

In that one, we talk about the origins of Christmas and then how families like the Pecos would have prepared for the season with different parties and food offerings and entertainment.

The Yuletide program, December 5th, is our guided house tours with costumed interpreters.

We also have Santa Claus out in our summer house, so you can visit Santa and you can do pictures.

There's a craft.

Eight seasonal turning points moving through the solar year.

Yule, Imbolc, Ostara, Beltane, Litha, Lunasa, Mabon, Samhain.

Not every one of those festivals come from the same historical culture or period.

The eightfold wheel in its familiar modern form developed within 20th century pagan practice.