Blake Octavian Blair
Many people often see the winter holidays as something that highlights our religious differences. While it is true that there are theological differences among various faiths, there is common ground in our shared humanity and community. We need not think exactly alike to celebrate the joys of the season together. Yuletide is a wonderful season for weaving the magick of unity.
While Yule could be looked at as the Pagan and religious celebration that takes place at the winter solstice, the solstice itself is a glorious shared event. It’s a natural wonder … owned by no particular faith and common domain for all. Actually, it’s hard to find anything opposable with the occasion, although that doesn’t mean some scrooges won’t. (Seems there is always at least one!) However, I feel we should all, Pagan and non-Pagan alike, embrace the winter solstice and its accompanying Yuletide cheer and promote and claim it as the unifier it is and can be.
At its most basic, winter solstice is the shortest day and longest night of the year, but the time of year that the Yuletide season saddles includes not only this wonderful astronomical event but a myriad of other spiritual holidays. These holidays, while too numerous to expand upon here, often possess shared themes such as hope, goodwill, charitable giving, time with family and loved ones, and community events, parties, concerts, and pageants.
Spiritual Light and Wisdom
While for many people it is easy to turn entirely inward this time of year, I ask you not to resist the urge totally but to channel it in another direction. Yule is often heralded as a celebration of returning light. After all, once the winter solstice passes, the days begin to lengthen. The Sun, being the great spiritual being and spirit that it is to us magickal folks, is a good reminder of divine spiritual light and wisdom. Spiritual light and wisdom, just like the natural wonders of winter solstice, are shared among us all, tradition regardless. This is a wonderful time to use that spirit to shine light not only onto the Pagan faith for others (in a nonintrusive way) but also to learn about other faiths that we may not know or understand well. If you have friends or community members who have a faith differing from yours but are friendly, respectful, and understanding of your beliefs as well, don’t be afraid to accept an invitation to join their seasonal and holiday celebrations. Don’t be afraid to attend a Christmas Eve service with a friend or family member, or a Hanukkah dinner for example. Notice I was careful to caveat that they are respectful of your beliefs too; I’m not encouraging anyone to embark on what they know is a mission to convert them against their will to another religion. We all avoid that! I’m aware that as members of what is often termed a “minority religion,” we often feel a bit ignored or persecuted, especially since only one dominant religion gets a majority of the public attention on TV and in advertising and public events. However, while I feel the “War on Christmas” truly does not exist, it’s no call for us to feed into the trope that it does. In fact, agreeing to attend an event of a loved one of a differing faith can often lead to them accepting an invitation to respectfully share in your more Pagan celebration. Often times all parties involved gain great value and wisdom from the experience of attending the other faiths’ event. It can often serve to, alongside the differences, highlight the common themes. Hope and joy really are the underlying essence of most of the winter holidays, whether it be the birth of the Son, the return of the Sun, the miracle represented by the Hanukkah lights, or the lessons to be learned from Ganesha during Pancha Ganapati.
When my husband and I lived in the Triangle area of North Carolina, we attended a Unitarian Universalist church. My husband was part of the audio-visual team, and although we are happily Pagan, we volunteered to run the sound system for Christmas Eve services. Now, the flavor of a Christmas Eve service at a UU church, even if it mentions the classic Nativity story at times, is not what you would call traditionally Christian flavored … solstice references are interjected whenever convenient! Still, this was a way to support a community with the more Christian oriented members of the congregation. Wouldn’t you know it, we enjoyed the service ourselves as well. Other churches may more strongly draw biblical references, but if you attend with loved ones, I encourage you to dig to the essence of the message rather than names or places used in the stories. Most messages at this time of the year are more compassionate than not. In fact, when you change some of the names in many of the stories, it begins to sound a lot like many of our own Pagan mythologies. All of a sudden we are really starting to celebrate much the same things.
Shared Teachings
Sometimes you don’t have to stray far from home to find interfaith opportunities for building unity at the holidays. The parents of our godchildren claim membership to different faiths. The mother is a modern witch and shamanic Pagan, and the father is a Buddhist. Naturally these two faiths are actually quite compatible with each other. Still, a conscious effort is made in holidays and celebrations to include traditions from both faiths, which is easy with the shared theological ground. Both their faiths teach compassion for all living beings, respect for others, and to strive to understand those different from yourself. Coincidentally, those teachings are much of the motivation for this article and themes to explore this season.
Mixed faith families are actually not all that uncommon, and they unfairly get a bad rap. Many say they are doomed to failure and yet many are met with wild success. Frankly, I think the successes are due to the fact that, as we’ve been discussing, we may clothe our faiths in different trappings, stories, and rituals, but we have fundamentally shared values and goals. These successful blended faith families not only find but celebrate the common ground. Many of them also participate in the religion of the others. Mixed-faith couples often raise their children in both faiths, allowing them to choose their beliefs for themselves when they are old enough. I’ve met several such grown children who in fact decided not to choose one over the other but still maintain ties to both faiths. When I discuss it further with them, the similarities are so strong that they have resolved any conflicts for themselves. I’ve been to many Pagan open sabbat circles where a non-Pagan spouse has attended with their partner and joyfully participated.
Many of the events of the season aren’t attached to any specific faith and can really help bolster the spirit of community and the season. Charity events and drives are a popular mainstay. Charities need help to assist those they care for all year long, but they get a lot of special attention during this season of giving. Most of these groups are happy to receive either time or money, so there is a way for everyone to give. There are many causes, but common examples are assisting the homeless and helping animals both wild and domestic through shelter and rescue organizations or wildlife preservation and defense groups. Educating the public about the unmerited killing of wild animal populations or helping to serve in a soup kitchen for the homeless are both activities quite fitting for this season. Through these acts of service, you will surely find yourself working with people who have different faith backgrounds but hold much the same beliefs, morals, and values as you!
Public light displays are another example. I currently live in the Boston area. Every year Quincy Market in Boston decorates with decadent evergreen garlands, lights wrapped around all the trees, and a central, grand holiday tree. Every evening near sunset there are light shows accompanied by music. The official holiday tree for the city of Boston is in Boston Common. The tree itself is a wonderful example of community and unity, as every year since 1971 the official tree has been a gift to Boston from Nova Scotia. The tree is a gift of thanks for Boston’s assistance to the people of Nova Scotia after the tragedy of the Halifax Explosion, in which a French cargo ship carrying explosives exploded in an accidental collision. For those who know the history behind the tree, it serves as a symbol of goodwill and compassion to our neighbors in a time of need. Leading up to New Years, still in the domain of the Yuletide season in my opinion, Boston also has what they call the First Night and First Day celebrations. Among the numerous activities associated with these events are musical performances as well as a citywide display of ice sculptures. Some of them are quite grand in scale. All these events draw people from multiple religious traditions together to celebrate, both consciously and unconsciously, the wonders of winter, community, growing light (literal, spiritual, and metaphorical), hope, goodwill, and new beginnings. You can see people wearing pentacles, crucifixes, nun’s habits, Indian saris, hijabs, yarmulkes, and just plain cozy winter knitted goods. One begins to realize, despite our differences, we are not all that different after all.
These seemingly nonreligious events bring people together to celebrate the themes that I have repeatedly mentioned, such as community, joy, hope, and the natural wonders of the season. They of course may not actively think of it that way; however, when we step back, it’s easy to see that is partly what is happening. There is a spark within all of us that, regardless of faith, feels the wonder and magick in the first snowfall, the beauty of icicles hanging off the ledge, the comfort of being around a beloved family member you may not have seen all year, or the building of a snowman and warming up afterward in cozy hand-knit socks with a cup of cocoa. There is magick in seeing friends and family sing in seasonal concerts or in receiving a plate of homemade baked goods from a neighbor; these are the acts of a web of unity being weaved. Common experiences and shared connections—these are the fibers that grow the magick of the season strong.
Solstice belongs to us all and we’re all on this big blue planet together. It is my hope you can be inspired by the returning light to make it a theme of your celebrations to use your light to shine bright and weave a magickal web of Yuletide unity!