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The great Wheel turns full circle to the longest night of the year. Imagine the sense of darkness long, long ago, as the people gathered, waiting for the sunrise, hoping and praying for the return of light. Visualize a circle of stones and the anticipation of waiting within and looking beyond toward the horizon where finally, at long last, a glow of light begins to form…and grow…until suddenly the light is there. Reborn! Shining with brilliance atop the marker stone, heralding to all that the dark time has passed. The waxing light has returned! The Sun, Divine Child of hope and promise is reborn! A new year has begun! The people sing with joy, and so it has been throughout the ages…
Winter Solstice 2002, also called Yule, occurs on Saturday, December 21
at 5:15 pm PST and at 8:15 pm EST. Astrologers also call this date and
time the Capricorn Ingress, for the Sun is at 0
Capricorn. A chart for the zero degree of any of the four cardinal signs
(Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn) cast for the location of capitol of
a nation is an important tool for looking at what may lie ahead for the
nation and its people. The cardinal cross, itself, is a symbol relating
to the world in general, so planets at 0 of any cardinal sign represent
significant themes for what can be called a world axis. Also highly
significant for their connection to this world axis are any planets at
the 15th degree of a fixed sign (Taurus, Leo, Scorpio or Aquarius), for
these degrees are the cross-quarters. The cardinal cross and the
cross-quarters form the 
Celebrations and ritual based on the return of the Light, often depicted as the birth of a Divine Child after the longest night, derive from many cultures and ancient times. Many pre-Christian cultures had tales of Gods and heroes whose births to a Mother Goddess bear striking similarities to the later story of the birth of Jesus. Pagan celebrations in this season of the return of the Light were so popular and pervasive that the growing Catholic hierarchy of Rome, in the 4th century AD finally decided on December 25 as the birthday of Jesus, in the attempt to Christianize the Roman rites of Mithra, the Saturnalia and the Yule celebrations of the Celts and Saxons. (Saturnalia was a festival to Saturn, ruler of Capricorn. Saturn is the Roman name for the earlier Greek Kronos, God of Time.) Because the Pagan origins of Christmas were so well known, acceptance throughout the world took many centuries. Even in the 17th century New England Puritans tried unsuccessful to get this "Pagan" holiday banned! Unless the gospels are wrong, it is highly unlikely that Jesus actually was born in December. For one thing, shepherds and their flocks would not have been out in the fields at midwinter. But no matter, the symbolism of Winter Solstice is so completely fitting, that the December 25 "birthday" prevailed. Whether one celebrates the birth of the Son of Mary, or the birth of the newborn Sun to the Mother Goddess, or the return of new Light in any other tradition, the core meaning is much the same. With the passing away of the longest day of darkness followed by the birth of the Child of Light come joy, hope and the promise of new life, a new beginning
Holly is a favorite of mine for decorating my Yule Log,
along with a sprig or two of fir tree, and a bright red ribbon. A lot of white birch grows near my home, and the holly makes a wonderful contrast. The photo shows this year's log, with a gold candle on top for the newborn Sun King. We burn the Yule Log during the evening Winter Solstice ritual each year, kindled with a piece of last year's log that we saved for the purpose. The tradition of burning a Yule Log symbolizes the blazing forth of new light as the old year dies. To save a piece to kindle the next shows the continuity of the endless cycle. Save the ash from your Yule fire, too, for it can be used for protective magick. The custom of the Yule Log is very old, perhaps the oldest of all. Some say it can be traced all the way back to the Roman Saturnalia, or even back to ancient Egypt.
The evergreen tree has also been central to this season
since ancient times, considered sacred because it is immortal -- evergreen.
Though references to this can be found in the lore of various ancient
cultures, the custom as we know it today probably had its beginnings in
Germany, whose name for it, Tannenbaum, is still sung in a
popular carol. My Danish born mother remembered burning candles
decorating the trees of her childhood, a practice that obviously needed
very close watching, fortunately no longer needed! During the middle
ages it was a popular custom to decorate the tree with apples,
and another old Pagan carol still sung today preserves the association
of apples with evergreen in another custom of the season: "Here we go a
wassailing among the leaves of green…" The "wassail"
was apple cider, shared with good wishes for health and abundance. The
word relates to the Anglo-Saxon wes hal, which means "Be Whole"
and may also relate to the Viking phrase ves heill which was
used to toast to one's health.
The wreath of evergreen symbolizes the ever-turning
wheel, the endless circle, and the unending nature of life. Each year we
make a new wreath of from various fir trees and holly on a form big
enough that an adult can easily step through it. The wreath hangs on the
side of the house until Solstice night, when it becomes part of our 
