Adapting midwinter traditions in new circumstances

I walk down the gravel road to a thick forested place with the puny afternoon sun slanting in more from the south than from the west. I whisper thanks to the fir trees as I clip sprigs to make our Yule wreathes. Then I pour my water bottle out on their roots.

I’ve been doing that for fifteen years now, since before my kids were born. It’s family tradition—the natural wreath so bushy that it gets in the way of opening the door. I used to prune the fir trees at the top of our garden in the Czech Republic to make each season’s wreath.

When I lived here as a kid, I didn’t know about thanking the trees or giving water in offering or even how to make the sprigs into a wreath, let alone the symbol of the wreath as a sunwise spinning circle of life and rebirth. But there was family tradition then too, and that tradition said we gathered bows and a tree from this woodlot each December and carried them home on foot.

Image by Arie Farnam

The Winter Solstice is always a mix of tradition and adaptation for me. When I was a kid we had a beautiful wooden nativity scene that Mama let us set up. We always went out and got a tree, we had stockings and Santa Claus and special family cookie recipes. We called it “Christmas” then, but the nativity scene was the only part Jesus had in it and there was often some discussion of the Solstice. It was a mix of my mother’s memories of childhood and her attempts to make something “more meaningful” than commercial Christmas for her children.

A perfect symbol of this was her adaptation of a Christmas pinwheel cookie recipe. The cookies were probably okay to begin with, since they did have real melted chocolate in them, but the other half of the dough was just vanilla. At some point during my childhood, Mama took that recipe and spiced it up by adding mint extract and green food coloring to the light half of the swirl. It instantly became a family favorite and I have made them myself every year since I stopped living out of a backpack.

Tradition swirled with worthwhile new things. That’s Yule.

As a young adult, I questioned a lot of the ways I was brought up, as we all do. But my questioning went a little differently than most. I didn’t have inflexible religious or even mildly conservative parents to rebel against. Instead, I had their 1960s indecisiveness to rebel against.

If it isn’t really about Jesus Christ to you and you don’t literally believe he was born on this day two thousand years ago as the literal son of God, then why do you call it Christ-mass? If trees were decorated and greenery brought in long before Christian times, then why are we still calling them Christmas trees at our house? If you believe in “the universe” and love the Greek myths as much as the one about baby Jesus, then why don’t we celebrate that?

Yup, I was a handful. But fortunately, I just grew up and decided to do my own thing. I started calling it Solstice or Yule and choosing wrapping paper that had stars and snowflakes instead of crosses or “Merry Christmas!” on it.

I taught my kids that Santa Claus is the spirit of the past year’s sun, the manifestation of abundance and having enough to share and give that the year gave us. We make sun-shaped cookies and put them out by the wood stove with a bit of salt and cornmeal (for the reindeer).

In the Catholic country of the Czech Republic, I learned to light candles in a ceramic advent wreath on the table, one on the Sunday four weeks before the solstice, two at three weeks out and so forth until all four were lit before the Solstice. There, Santa Claus was replaced in popular culture by Baby Jesus, who somehow despite never being pictured as having wings or any other transportation device, delivers gifts to all the children.

I just told my kids that’s the spirit of the newborn, baby sun. Christians call him Jesus. And then I usually got sidetracked into telling them about the historical Jesus and how he was a great teacher who believed in peace and kindness, so he is a good ancestor to focus on during Yule. My kids are understandably a little confused. I find uncertainty to be a good state to be in when it comes to spiritual matters, so I continue on merrily.

This is our first year back in America and together with my extended family for the season. And it’s got a whole different set of challenges. Mama is utterly burnt out on commercial Christmas, right when most of the grandkids are pre-adolescent and most focused on it. She has started mumbling “Christmas… Solstice… Yule… something or other…” in place of any one holiday name. And my niece and nephew who have a solid dose of Jewish culture from their grandpa pitch in with a cry of “And Hanukkah!”

My son’s school holiday concert featured several heavy-handed Christian songs, a couple of cheery general Christmas songs, a couple in Spanish and one in Hebrew, which was nice and all but not actually about Hanukkah. It was as if they were trying to look “diverse” without actually allowing for anything beyond Christmas-all-the-way-no-natter-what because that might offend the majority conservative Christians in the audience. But it was still cute and fun all the same.

I’m not a grinch. Really I’m not. A lot of Pagans I know are not into Santa Claus and I can see the argument. I could wish for less focus on the commercial aspects, but I also can’t help remembering the incredibly joyful excitement of being a kid on Christmas morning, tiptoeing downstairs with my brothers to get our bulging stockings with the giant candy canes, then talking and playing and waiting in happy anticipation together for our parents to get up, so we could open the presents.

There are people for whom family conflict or extreme poverty or parental indifference poisoned this holiday time. And trying to explain this to them is like trying to explain the existence of gods to an atheist. You’ve got to experience it to believe it and it even has to happen in the right stage of life for the experience to stick. But if you have it, it’s powerful, like a Salmon’s homing instinct. I’m as capable of denying my kids that as I am of not making them wear warm coats in the snow.

So many things will be different this year. My traditions will have to do extra adapting. I won’t even be “home” in my cozy little Hobbit hole of a basement apartment for the Solstice. I’ll be at my mom’s place far out in the sticks with my kids. I still plan to sing Solstice songs set to old Christmas carols, put together a feast of round foods on the eve of the Solstice and freeze bowls of ice to use as candle holders, symbolizing the sun reborn in cold and ice.

But the food will have to be a lot different for me. With new revelations about my health earlier this year came sweeping diet restrictions. The benefits to my health and energy have been so striking that I’m not much tempted to cheat for the sake of tradition. I let my mom make the pinwheel cookies and I won’t be able to have even one without paying with several days of exhaustion and inflammation. I still haven’t figured out exactly how I’m going to make my traditional star-and-moon decorated desert with only three or four grams of carbohydrates, but I’m working on it. There will still be a large platter of roast meat, baked pumpkin and a salad full of the colors of the sun.

A purist would find plenty to criticize in my Yule celebrations. I don’t follow any particular Pagan tradition very faithfully. It isn’t a senseless free-for-all of eclectic cherry picking, but it is adaptation and conscious choosing of those things that make sense given new circumstances. This I believe is the most authentic thing we can actually do with our holidays, adapt them as our ancestors have always done to keep the spirit alive no matter what life, location and circumstance throw our way.

Beginning a path of study, plus a poem

In the past year or two, I have said things like “My spiritual path is somewhere between earth-centered goddess spirituality and Druidry.”

That coyly skirts the fact that once you are doing some Druid things, there really isn’t much difference, except perhaps for one’s own awareness of being part of a heavily frayed string of traditions that have something to do with ancient Druids of the Celtic world. And yet, I didn’t feel like I could come right out and say, “I am Druid.”

I wasn’t really convinced we could know what a Druid was supposed to do or know from long ago, and what I did know told me that Druids were very scholarly. I am always learning and studying, but I don’t have multiple university degrees or anything. Most of my studies have been informal. So, I was reticent.

Now I have begun a training course with the British-based Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids (OBOD), one of the two major international traditions claiming to be carrying on the practices and knowledge of the Druids. This is the first time I have ever entered a formal religious tradition, signed up and put my money—not to mention significant amounts of time and energy—where my mouth is.

To be clear about the reference to “religious tradition,” OBOD is classified as a “religious organization,” but their materials state that they are not devoted to any one religion. Druidry, like Buddhism, can be a practice or a religion or both. As a practice, it is compatible with Pagan beliefs as well as Christianity. Since entering its online communities I have encountered quite a few people who steer away from any devotional wording and clearly see Druidry as a practice only. Still the majority of modern Druids seem to lean toward Pagan spirituality.

Creative Commons image from Flickr.com

Even so, it took a while to get here, mostly because there was no one I knew and trusted personally to point the way. I am not actually against formal traditions or set in my eclectic ways. But I have never lived where there were Pagan gatherings and those few groups I have encountered in person weren’t inspiring or accepting.

Online I found scattered good people, many interesting writers, and a wild plethora of competing viewpoints, most claiming to be a true and reliable ancient tradition. I also encountered a myriad of charlatans and countless hucksters in Pagan spaces. None of this— even the good people and interesting writers—was all that helpful in figuring out where I belonged.

But slowly over many years I sorted and winnowed through the streams of words and ideas and slowly a pattern became clear. Those things which made sense to me, mostly fell in one corner of the Pagan world and above that corner there where several banners “earth-centered spirituality,” “goddess spirituality,” “eclectics,” and “Druidry.”

Of those banners, Druidry was the only one offering a clear way to enter and become part of a community and a tradition. The others were either so open that there was no community to speak of or you had to know the right people. When I took a goddess spirituality class and signed up to a formal course of study some years ago, my instructor stopped communicating with me after a few months, then disappeared, then reappeared but continued silence toward me.

Druidry on the other hand, offered a highly structured and fairly expensive training course. I thought about it, met a few people who were members and found them to be among the more inclusive and level-headed in the Pagan community. I read things about the two main Druid traditions on offer. Then I had to see if I could gather the money, which I eventually did. And two months ago, I took the plunge.

Ironically, now I definitely feel that I cannot say, “I am druid.”

That is because the training course takes at least three years and often much longer to complete. Technically, everyone involved is part of “druidry” and can claim that as their spiritual path, even the newest initiate. But there are three grades and the Druid level is the most advanced. I am officially studying as a bard. A lot of people in the bardic grade call themselves bards before graduating, but many of the new initiates, myself included, are shy about it.

I always played at being a bard, when I was a kid playing fantasy games. I am already a writer, storyteller, poet and songwriter, though not much of a singer or musician. Today bards use artistic expression in everything from basket weaving to cooking though, so I should manage to pass those standards.

I am thoroughly enjoying my course of study and practice, which lifts the gloom of a northern winter amid the extra intense third Covid lockdown.

There are a great many other things that are not so great or hopeful in my life and in the world at the moment. Just about everything else feels like failure and disaster. And it is possible that I am still just playing in a fantasy. And yet, the course is surprisingly hard work, harder than I imagined, and there is a thriving community engaged in ongoing practice and study. There are also many Bards, Ovates and Druids with knowledge and skills that make me feel very much like a novice.

I don’t know if I am deluded. But I know that I have been entirely without hope for myself or humanity in general for months. I have felt like a dandelion that got covered with asphalt. Like dandelions, I don’t give in easily. I struggled and fought for a crack to the light for months. And I don’t know if this channel leads anywhere but delusion, but I know there is room for some growth here. And for me and for dandelions under asphalt, that will have to be enough.

One of the first things to come from my studies is this poem I wrote about my inner sanctuary.

The Grove

“Branches black against dark sky
Needles sharp, stiff bristles, arms surrounding.
Stars cast like corn.
Silver orb in cold dry space.
The trees stand in a rough circle,
Pine, fir, thorn and elder,
Hardy mountain trees, swift and straight.
Planted by wind and squirrel
Snow gleams, fresh sparkling sugary drifts
Graceful lines, silent, slow waves
In and out of moon shadow.
I step inside, snow creaking the audible cold.
An owl calls. Too whoo! Too whoo!
Another answers. Lo loo! We too!
The smell is cold.
Evergreen and snow, sap like stone.
And then my nose catches the warm steam.
Rising from the rocks ahead.
A pool sheltered below
Candles lit in the niches.
And black water, rippled.
Steam rising, ghostly in the moonlight.
I know then that there is magic in this.
A dream, yes, or more than a dream.
I touch the water, the stinging heat.
Flat stones, leading down to the edge.
Water black, opaque and ruffled.
I hang my coat on a branch, shirt and leggings too.
My feet sink into the burning crystals of snow.
Shoes tucked under a pine.
I step to the stones, carefully toward the pool.
Hard bumps rise across my skin,
But I take a moment to gaze at the moon.
Then step into the shocking heat,
Scalding the soles of my feet.
The shivering burn rises over my tired muscles,
Warmth closing over my shoulders, around my face.
A stone ledge makes a seat and I lie back,
The trees whisper,
Standing guard around this place of the elements.
I listen to the west wind, needle song, snow sifting.
Coyotes yip on the northeastern horizon.
Let me understand, my sisters.
Let me know the words in the song of the mountain grove.
The moon is beginning to sink to the west,
Candles puddle in their cubbies.
I must stand bare in the night frost,
To dress and make my way homeward.
The cold makes it hard to return.
And the aching, stark beauty of sky, snow and trees.
Who am I to have this joy known by so few?
The warm embrace from deep within the earth,
Earth fire water.
The breath of trees and the song of the moon.
When finally I come from this place.
I will be restored.”