Yule Symbols

I'm posting a lot about Yule lately.  If it starts to get boring, let me know!  I guess I'm just excited about this being the first year that we are going to have a family Ritual.  So I thought I would share my thoughts on the symbols of Yule. 

First, we have colors.  Personally, I use White, Silver, Blue, Red, Green, and Gold/Yellow.  Now, a lot of websites tell you what color is for Yule, Imbolc, Litha, etc. without explaining why the author thinks so.  This always kind of bugged me, because we are each doing this a different way.  I thought we didn't want to be told to do things a certain way!  So, my reasons are these, and keep in mind they are my personal reasons and thoughts.

White is the color of the snow, of purity and hope. 
Silver is the color of the moonlight on snow, the feminine aspect and tradition.
Blue is the color of the ice in shadow, a feeling a calm, and sincerity.
Red is the color of the Holly Berry, the life force, and strength.
Green is the color of the Evergreen, of rejuvination, luck and success.
Gold is the color of the Sun, reborn; of the male aspect and intelligence.

These to me are the colors of Yule, and to me they all have a special meaning to bring to the holiday.  They all bring something nessecary to lasting through the cold winter months, and they symbolize something about the winter months.  Then we come to physical symbols.  Things like the Yule log, fruit studded with cloves, the Yule Tree, wreathes, and fire.  Again, the reasons for these are my own. 

Yule Logs are traditionally to be burned for all the nights of Yule, I think this started because of how cold it got and no one wanted to go out for firewood!  Being that most of us no longer need to do that, what has the tradition become?  More of a "remember when we had to do these things?" tradition.  Personally, I like a Yule Log candle holder.  It still shows that we remember where we come from, but are not slaves to it.

Clove studded Fruit is another one that shows that we remember how it used to be.  When everyone was so excited to have fresh fruit to eat!  The reason for the cloves is because they actually helped the fruit to stay fresh for a longer period.  Now that we don't need to worry about our fruit going bad anymore (Thank you, supermarkets everywhere!) we still do this as a way to remember how it used to be.  I think they smell fabulous, and a clove studded apple is a great addition to a pot of Wassail for decoration and taste.

Yule Trees and Wreathes symbolize the continuation of life.  Even if we don't see it under all that snow, life is still going on.  The whole northern hemisphere doesn't die off just because it's winter!  The Yule tree also symbolizes the strength that our ancestors needed to push through the winter months, seemingly without hope of warmer weather.  It still feels like that sometimes, but we all know better.

Fire I think is pretty obvious.  Without it, we wouldn't be where we are as a society, people or spieces.  Fire keeps us warm, cooks our food, warms our drink, and keeps us alive.  At least, it did before the advent of natural gas and electric heaters.  Without it, so many of our ancestors would have died off that we wouldn't have a world population in the billions right now. 

So there it is...I'm not going to get into gemstones or incense or herbs or food right now.  I will have a post on Yule food later in the week, but not today.  Everyone has their own favorite things that symbolize the Sabbats to them, but how many of us ever think of why?  Do we just take these lists out of books, off of websites, pick them randomly out of the color scheme of the Sears Catalog?  If we are going to call ourselves truly spiritual, we need to think about the choices we make and why.  It's great to be able to have such a wealth of information about our craft at our fingertips, but unless we think about why we are using it and what for, it's a redundant effort.

A Yule Tree...do you have one?

Yule Greeting Card from Dragon Moon gifts.

I grew up in a typical house.  Not that my parents were overly Christian, in fact they were more the opposite.  We still called our tree a Christmas Tree.  No matter how long I've been following this path I'm on, I STILL find myself calling it a Christmas Tree, instead of a Yule Tree.  I decorate a little differently, more organically.  No matter how many people say the Christmas Tree was a pagan symbol originally, etc. etc., it's just beating a dead horse.  It will be a point of contention for as long as I'm alive, I'm sure.  So I started thinking, do most pagans have a Yule Tree?  Or do they just string around holly that they put ornaments on?  We usually decorate our tree with solar symbols and fruit shapes, as well as other natural(ish) things.  Having little experience (actually, make that none)  celebrating Yule with other Wiccans, I really have no clue.  All I know is that it's all I can do to get Sean to bring ours in from the shed.  I've mentioned it 4 times this week.  Where is it?  Still in the shed.  You know, I don't think he realizes that this means it will be up longer after Yule because I won't have had my fill of it yet. But I digress.


The first thing that comes up on Google when you search "Yule Tree" a Wikipedia link about Christmas Trees.  The second is a link about the Icelandic Yule Tree, which seems to be much the same as a Christmas tree.  Then, fourth link on the page, is from Earth Witchery.  Finally!  A pagan link.  It's a great one too.  It covers the Yule/Solstice Tree, decorations, a blessing for it.  Check it out.  It's really a nice site.


So now I feel a little more normal.  At least I'm not to only one.  That's the problem with being a solitary practitioner for so many years, I've sort of lost touch with what other pagans are doing.  It's easy enough to find stuff on the internet about what the colors, symbols, foods, etc. are of Yule.  It's hard to find things that people are personally doing.  There are dozens of pages of Magickal Correspondences, but not so many of anyone's experience. 


So let me know!  Do you have a Yule Tree?  How do you decorate it?  If you don't have one, what do you do/decorate for Yule?

Goddess Bless,

S.

Random Thursday

Well, Happy Thanksgiving all you Americans out there!  This week is one of the big travel weeks of the year, and with the the new scans and pat downs, I'm curious as to how many will forgo the flying.  Although, we may not have to!  A Colorado man has invented a type of underwear to protect your dignity as you go through the scans.  It uses powdered metal, and I don't think it lowers your risk of cancer, but nothing is a fix all, right?  Check out that link here.  The men's underwear has a fig leaf, and the women's has clasped hands.

As I understand it, tomorrow is the big shopping day down there.  Black Friday?  I'd never even heard of this until a couple years ago.  Being that we are where we are in the month though, I thought I'd look it up.  There are a whole bunch of theories as to why it's called Black Friday.  Accounting terms, and Gold market crashes, among other things, are among them.  Check them out here, it's pretty interesting!  Being that we are on the topic of shopping, something we all have to be aware of are the toys we buy our kids.  A consumer group has come out with a list of toys that they consider dangerous, citing some cases where children died of choking, and on died of lead poisoning by swallowing a bracelet charm that contained (wait for it) 99% lead.  There are also concerns this year about certain chemicals, which the article says are used to keep plastic supple. 

"The chemicals are known to cause reproductive problems, such as abnormal genital development in boys, and disruption in sexual development. They're also linked to premature birth, early onset puberty and lower sperm counts. "  Among the toys that contains these chemicals?  A Dora the Explorer Backpack.  The full article is here.  Just so you don't lose all faith in the toy makers of the world, here is the list of top toys for the season! 

Considering the prices associated with Black Friday sales, a lot of people are probably going to be buying new internet toys.  PCs, iPads, Blackberrys.  We all have so many devices that each has their own IP (internet protocol) address.  I'd tell you to wait, considering this article from CBC, What happens when the internet runs out of IPs?  If you don't have the time to read the article, they do have a system that can be put into place.  One that has room for "340 undecillion addresses - That's a real word - which is 340 followed by 36 zeros.  According to the article, the last IP from the current system will be handed out sometime in 2011.  Then a lot of us will have to upgrade hardware and software, because it will no longer be compatable.  Given all of this, I'd wait until next year to buy a new piece of hardware.  

If you ever see an article that sounds like something I'd like to mention on my Random Thursdays, send me the link!

Hope you all have a great day, and all the Americans a Happy Thanksgiving!!

Goddess Bless, 

S.