Yule Comes ...

The When of Yule

It is the darkest time and so should it be done. Full Moons are fine for the well meaning and those intent on specific work, but Yule – the night occurs when the Moon is taken from the sky. It is THEN that the death walks, it is THEN that other works occur, it is THEN that the time is three times right for the moment that it should be. Perhaps it is better that many stay home and lock their doors on this night – better it be simply for those with no other option. To foist such upon any other is – cruelty or intent.

Dark Moon Rite

Brothers and sisters – the time is come.
The nothing closes and all belongs to us!
Life and death are again one and we stand in rulership over all!

Endings and beginnings, the ebb and the flow it hath ever been thus.
The tides of life and the tides of all – seamless.
Scarcely a journey is done so another begins.
We honour Those Who Gather unto death - they who are the darkness divine.
On this night we give of our strength that we may be gathered and reborn.

Behold ye the Mothers and the Fathers of Darkness - They Who Dieth not!

Hear and honour us now and forever.
See our Wheel spin and know thy birth, death and rebirth.
Know ye that every end is my beginning and every stop is where ye shall begin to honour me.
I am all this and more that ye may not comprehend.
Whenever ye, my chosen, have need, call upon me for thou art inseparable from my power.
Even at thy darkest hour, when it seems that there be not even a spark to guide thy way,
know that I am near for it is there that I am at my most watchful.
I am darkness and the darkness is ever attentive.
Bring forward now all your legers of sin thine and apart - I shall judge.

They are in the Darkness and the Darkness is ever hungry - herein is truth.
They are in the Darkness and the Darkness sees all – herein is truth.
We are in their Darkness and herein are we truth.
We have heard many lamentable sins - a catalogue of transgressions.
Against us which is understandable.
Against others which is regrettable.
Against each other which is foolish.
Upon each shall we strike before the dawn!
My children all ye have reason to be joyous –
through our judgements you will be purified of your error.
Remember that which you have been told and each take heed.
Now all - bask in the joy that is my wisdom and gift.

We hear.


Winterdeep

Blessings to the King and Queen who stand by the Wheel.
Welcome, three times welcome, to Winterdeep.
‘Tis time to turn the Wheel.
Tis time to welcome the end and trust the new.
Tonight we dance into the great darkness to be renewed.

Brothers and Sisters, Family all - tonight we celebrate.
The Wheel is turning and tonight - the feast is ours.
Remember always that their words are as mine - to break with them is to break with me.
With this thought I leave you - soon will I rest.

Ring a ring a rosy; a pocket full of posy - a tissue, a tissue we all fall down.
Ring a ring a rosy; a pocket full of posy - a tissue, a tissue we all fall down.
Ring a ring a rosy; a pocket full of posy - a tissue, a tissue we all fall down.

Round and round the mulberry bush - the monkey chased the weasel.
That's the way the money goes pop goes the weasel.
Round and round the mulberry bush - the monkey chased the weasel.
That's the way the money goes pop goes the weasel.
Round and round the mulberry bush - the monkey chased the weasel.
That's the way the money goes pop goes the weasel.

Ring a ring a rosy; a pocket full of posy - a tissue, a tissue we all fall down.
Ring a ring a rosy; a pocket full of posy - a tissue, a tissue we all fall down.
Ring a ring a rosy; a pocket full of posy - a tissue, a tissue we all fall down.

HERE I bring Fire.
Fire is Light, Fire is warmth, Fire is security.
Better than these though, Fire is knowledge.
I have remembered how the Fire and the Meat go together!

We have come for this knowledge.
Your fire lights my own - your fire is my fire and together we shall warm the blood.

Children all we AWAKE.
All about me we see devotion mixed with deceit.
We have slept long and we have dreamed.
We have dreamt the thoughts of my beloved people.
All we have seen and heard as we have slept is known to us.
Soon will all debts be settled.
But tonight, the time is not right for recrimination - tonight is ripe for the revel!

Long have we slept - as close as death.
But we are no ordinary men and women.
We know who we are and the fire that burns in our very soul.
And it was this fire that returned me.
As an exploding star I return fill'd to the brim with splendour and hunger.
As it was written.
So it is.
Hungry Gods awake.
Soon my children we will all EAT!!

The Fire and the Meat go well together - but there never seems enough.
Tonight however there will be more!

In the spirit of Winterdeep I grant this wisdom.

A Yule Bedtime Story

Once upon a time ago, a man held back the ocean.

He feared that the tide that came in so quickly during the night would drown the children of his village.
The children he loved above so much else.
He had none of his own – his nights were cold and dark.
So when he saw the dawns light and the laughter of the young he rejoiced.

But like all gifts given to the foolish
– and few are they who earn not the title sooner or later!
It worked upon him a strange magic.
For gifts are magical things and they change the future with the giving.

This gift made him happy but also made him fear.
Smiling at the dawn, rejoicing at noon but cowardly before the dusk.
They say “home is where the heart is” but it is therefore also where the private terrors live.
What would tomorrow bring?
Would the tide sweep them away crying and lost as it had so much else he had cherished?

And so he feared night after night.
Learned to fear his home.
Every day his joy grew and so would his fear as the shadows came.
He knew what they wanted, knew what they needed, wanted his brothers and sisters fed
But must it always be at his expense?

One day he noted that his joy had been poisoned by the fear of loss and so he held back the ocean.
He made a seal which turned the tide back out to the briny deep.
He forced the tide and stood always with the children of his joy.

He did not think that they were one thing and he another.
He did not think that they would too soon grow irritated at his rules and his caution.
He did not think that he would not understand them.
He did not think that they may starve without the ocean coming in at night.

He did not understand when they treated him as an outsider.
He did not understand when they thought him strange and unlike them.
He did not understand when they teased him for his fears and difference.
As children do.
He did not see his pain being inflicted upon then – nor how eagerly they would repay such a gift.

Some people do not like surprises when they feel at a loss for explanation.
Some people in fear are sensitive to words like “ingratitude”
For that is misunderstanding of gifts – and sorrow at self-sufficience.

When they railed at him he did not think that they did not know what they were asking for.
When they railed at him he did not care to ask so many questions.
Anger is not inquisitive and it brooks no response.
It understands little save that in it’s own language.
Desperation is impertinence, fear is exciting and resistance only punishable.

Soon he did not care for the ocean to be held back anymore.
Soon he allowed the children to taste what they wished for.
Soon he relearns grief.
Grief is often discovered on the far side of hasty action.
Or anger. Or ignorance. Or a lack of prescience.
But grief can be a spur of sorts too – it can call back wolves before the feller falls.
The walls were patched, amidst the bodies of joy.

A desire to not be so foolish, or so ignorant, or so hasty rises.
A desire that they should not again be given such weapons – until they are ready.
So the ways and means were hidden in secret places.
Of place, of emotion, of spirit and mind – places alarmed and trapped for the unwary.
Or the unready.

And the places are left, solace found in the self.
After years of rest and sleep.
Happiness again nurtured in the self – enough to buy off the pain.
To feed the furies into sleep.

What things awaken when alarms are tripped by the unready?
What half forgotten ways reactivate when the lessons of the past are publicly flouted?
Patience sees much that hasty action disregards.
And perhaps it is time that children face their own consequences.

Perhaps only in this way will they learn.
Lessons should never be softened – even for those who are loved.
They are to be endured, they are to be learnt from.
Even lessons need to eat.

In the spirit of Winterdeep I grant this wisdom.

A Word on Yule

Well here we are all but at the moment when it all goes down.

And Yule eh? What a sledgehammer it has been this year.

Let me tell you about Yule in a way that you probably have not heard it before …

I guess you have heard all this Rebirth of the God palaver that goes about these days thanks to the emphasis on particular mythologies, how it is now that the dead God is reborn in the New Born God to the undying Goddess. Hmmm ….

Well I suppose that is fine if that is a myth of your particular God – but what if you look closely?

What if you don’t worship a God that dies? After all, those God stories are all terrestrial based fertility God myths. They talk about how in less than temperate zones there is a definite transition through the seasons. What if this simply doesn’t happen where you are from … or as we see in Brisbane in the recent years that the seasons don’t neatly line up with that myth cycle?

I say again … what then?

What if you don’t follow a God that dies once a year simply so his followers can come to terms with the rotation of the Earth? What if you remember a time when the words were: “Oh ye He before birth … ye unborn who dies not?” Hmmm ….

Let me give you another view of Yule – one that doesn’t need to pander to the new age and the political niceties of making us all “acceptable” to everyone else.

From that point of view, welcome to Winterdeep.

Winterdeep is when the death comes. Winter is when everything dies off – and yes hibernation is a form of little death. Winter is when the most book work comes because we all die a little bit and it is in this that we are granted boons of wisdom to make use of when the Summer comes again.

Yes the Summer. There is really only two facets – Summer and Winter. Life and Death. Summer-life is led up to by the birth and youth of Spring – when hormones force us to continue ourselves. Winter-death is led to by way of Autumn, when age and wisdom forces our caution and reminds us to cherish our memories – while we still have them. These are simply shades of Grey.

But here in Winterdeep, the death stalks the land and takes those who simply can’t make another round.

Oh yes I’ve heard it all before – all about the REBIRTH of the Sun. And always by those who couldn’t face the reality of death and grief in the first place – so instead focus on REBIRTH. Like the death of the old is somehow too icky, or too brutal to be given credence and it’s rightful place in the scheme of things. “Let’s skip over that too serious part and stroll with our eyes shut straight on to the REBIRTH part.

Let’s not. Let’s be honest. Hell right now I am too raw to be anything else – and that is how it should be.

I have noted with some amusement recently that some people are squawking loudly in some alarm at being forced to finally face the music of truth ….

“Oh no! There are things happening!” they cry.
“Things that I do not understand, things that I fear, things that I do not agree with – so I am distressed!”
Apparently to many these days this is not simply interpreted as the way life is – it now needs to be some mystical conspiracy against them. Hell as it is all about them .. and this seems unpleasant well … that would only make sense …… wouldn’t it?

The fact is that all progresses as it should. Some of it is what simply is and some of it is that which was set in motion many years ago. The deep secret machines keep on working irrelevant of who, (if any) set at the helms. They require greasing and they select the choicest cuts for themselves. That is also for those with eyes – simply the way things are. Some is the effect of those who are older stirring in their rest. Many with specialised diets and views that would seem alien to many who are new have woken for a brief time to do as they have always done. Heroes stalk in search of opposition, leaders talk in search of followers and all these and more view the sudden actions of the young for that which they are – being wet because one was splashed with water from another’s bucket.

With many older practitioners, their intentions and emotions easily spill out and leach through the air. Their thoughts are screams which are often easily misinterpreted as one’s own voice and drive by those who are young and easily swayed.

Yes there is unrest – and there should be. Yes there will be all forms of strange signs – and there should be.
Yes the herd will be thinned – and they should be. Yes some will see this as the cycle out of synch – and they should do. Those that fall outside their allotted times are those who are the reasons for the synch out of step. Those that find themselves instrumental in the correction of such are simply that – fulfilling their roles. The same can be said for the roilings, sound and fury of ancient desires being fed towards their apotheosis.

THIS is why of old people did NOT seek out magic – they simply locked their doors and viewed with suspicion any stranger out in the wilds. It is called common sense.

In the spirit of Winterdeep I grant this wisdom.