Shouting from the Hilltop: a perspective on La Lunasa/Lughnasadh



Lugh inspires the very finest quality of fan art.
Image by el-grimlock

La Lunasa/Lughnasadh

With the end of July and beginning of August rapidly approaching La Lunasa will soon be upon us and with it, well folks like me talking about it.

In terms of more mainstream "Pagan" holidays, it has been my experience that Lughnasadh often finds itself as being one that many folks are unsure of what to do with it; la fheile brigid/ Imbolc being the other. Whereas Oiche Samhana/ Samhain and lá bealtaine/Beltane remain two of the more popular feast/festival days, the others find themselves playing a sort of second fiddle.

I think it is primarily to do with the fact that each day has direct associations wih a specific deity. So, if one finds themselves not being particularly devoted to either Lugh (Tailtu, but we'll get to her later) or Brigid, then there is little impetus to celebrate, other than they are supposed to be holy days on that "wheel of the year" calendar. For GRP's, on the other hand, we've only really got the four days... so you had bloody well do something you lazy wretches!

I mean, I am certainly "closer" to Brigid, than I am to Lugh; Brigid, after all is the focus of my hearth and has the added significance of a probable functional connection to my profession. I thoroughly enjoy lá bealtaine, as it is a bright spot in an otherwise drab, freezing, somewhat miserable point in the year; February being the "heart" of winter in Toronto, such as it is. Lugh, on the other hand, I'm not remotely devoted to, strictly speaking.

Lugh was, at one point in my life a very significant deity, and in my neo-Pagan days often the centre or focus of the majority of my prayers/ meditation. Nowadays though, prayers going his way are either for specific reasons (safe travel, chief among them) or during la lunasa. Don't get me wrong, Lugh is a pretty awesome god. He has one of the most detailed and epic of all mythologies, he is all skilled, and so far as the reports from his devotee's go, a pretty nice deity all around (except, of course, if you've murdered his father). In fact the priest who married my wife and I is a devotee to him, and if the company one keeps is any indication of the quality of an individual, that he is counted among Lugh's devotees speaks volumes. I think in my youth it really was the "star power" that Lugh had which initially drew me to him, but as I progressed a bit deeper into things, I came to realize that my experiences were leading me to other, darker places.

Having said all that, La Lunasa is the one time of the year where Lugh is front and centre (other than some of the more spectacular thunderstorms which crop up around this time of year). I often find myself going over his tales a little more closely, and certainly I do enjoy my generally low key activities on the day itself.

I will generally get up early, and go to a particular local, which happens to be one on the the highest points in the region. There is a small parkette, itself a terminal portion of a trail which extends south, along the Humber River, to Lake Ontario. At this northern end, there is a very large hill, and so for the past few years I have taken it upon myself to go down into the river valley, find a nice broad stone to carry with me, and traverse up the hill to its summit. I will make a small shrine, pour out some offerings and offer prayers and song to the lord of victory. I'm going to be moving in the autumn, and so travelling distances on a daily basis are going to be much further, so this year I think a little more emphasis will be required on the safe travel aspect as well. Again, being isolated and not part of any local sporting leagues, opportunities to offer up my victories are few ad far between, but Lugh does recieve those as well.

It is also a pertinent time to reminice about our ancestors (then again, when isn't it pertinent?) and particularly their sacrifices, their struggles in which they made our coming into the world, and our lives within it, that much easier. Tailtu, the foster mother of Lugh, ought to also be given offerings and prayers. Though if you want my thoughts on her, you can find them in my La Lunasa post from last year.

Hail to the lord of Victory!
He, whose hand is far reaching
He, whose skills are many
He, whose blessings produce victory

May he continue to watch over and
guide us in our efforts to restore:

Honour to the gods!
Nobility to the ancestors!
Peace with the kindly ones!

Hail Champion!
Hail Balors bane!
Hail Lugh!

-Gorm

Merry Celtmas 2012

Joyous Yuletide!

Piggybacking off my last post, and in an attempt to write about something which isn't based in my disdain for some aspect of religion/politics/media/culture, a slightly more positive post follows.

An associate of mine, indeed probably the most eloquent individual I have had the pleasure of engaging in discussion with, always has interesting things to say. Being an Asatruar, and so fully living and embodying his beliefs, the man is an inspiration. In a recent post of his, he wrote at some length about the "spirit" of Yule (or Christmas), in a way that was the inverse of what passes for writings about the "true meaning of..." While the spiritual aspect is of course necessary (but of course for those who practice a lifeway, spiritual aspects are as necessary as anything else), the "secular" aspects were just as (if not) more meaningful. The feasting, the merry making, the tree lighting and gift giving are all sourced to the idea of clinging together during the darkest day of the year, and shining a little light in the face of such darkness. Truly, the secular aspects of Christmas are sacred rites in the most literal sense.

Being someone who does not celebrate Yule or Christmas as a holy day proper, but one who none the less celebrates the secular traditions as familial ones, this argument has an immense appeal to me. The idea of making offerings to the gods, ancestors and spirits of place, is rooted in the concept of reciprocity. "A gift for a gift" so to speak. Not to reduce the practice of giving offerings to some crass calculation, to curry divine favour with a bribe; such a perspective belies ignorance of what a reciprocal relationship is. No, the act of giving a gift in generosity, in receiving a gift in thankfulness and in ensuring hospitality abounds; all contain an element of the sacred in them.

Commercialism may be rampant, and may have long ago devoured the "true meaning of the season", but there remains a trace of the deeper practice. Many, non-Christians and Christians alike, shun the rampant commercialism, and often attempt to do so by extirpating the gifting element of their celebrations. Ironically though they have the best of intentions, they unknowingly remove a deeply spiritual component, long ago established by our ancestors. Prestige goods can hardly be said to have been shunned. Through such exchanges as were arranged, familiar bonds were made stronger and social order was maintained. Material culture may be paradoxically ephemeral in modern societies where planned obsolescence and mass production are the norm, but the concept of reciprocity still informs many of our most basic relationships. Gifting during milestones such as births, subsequent birthdays, coming of age ceremony's, graduations, marriages, retirement, etc., tend to not be looked at with the same critical eye which is all too often turned towards this particular seasonal festival.

I would posit that the anti-gifting is less rooted in an overall rejection or fatigue with commercialism (as so many claim), as it is in an attempt to ensure the religious component of Christmas is pushed back into prominence in the face of secularization. I certainly have my own biases in this particular perspective, but I believe the trail leads back to those who want "us" to remember the "reason for the season". So give gifts to Jesus, but not to each other.

Fortunately, I'm (and I am sure many reading this) are coming at the issue from a considerably different religious or cultural perspective. Celebrating Christmas as a time for family, feasting (but then what celebration doesn't include a feast, or decent meal, of some kind?) and gifting as a means of creating, reestablishing, and reaffirming the bonds which hold both kin and kith together makes perfect sense to me. Sure, it may not involve the gods in the same sense as the other, more traditional calendar feast days, but their spirit is there. The act of gift giving and receiving extends and imbues, what for me is a secular celebration, with a key element of the sacral relationship I have with my gods, to one shared with my family, regardless of religious affiliation or belief.

Regardless,

Enjoy a cup of Yuletide cheer with family and friends. Light a roaring fire if you can (or sit with the "yule log" channel on and a space heater pointing at your toes). Curl up in a blanket, pour yourself a nice cuppa, tell tales, watch cheesy specials or saccharine films masquerading as morality tales or if all else fails, read a book.

Feast and be merry!

-Gorm


Image Design: Kristen Fox

Merry Christmas... or invisible entitlement

Every year around the start of December you can be assured of two things, people railing about "keeping Christ in Christmas" and people harping about folks who say "Happy Holiday's", or "Seasons Greeting's" in lieu of "Merry Christmas". The former has been gone over with a fine toothed comb, while the later seems to be becoming more pronounced. They are certainly linked phenomena, and can trace their origins to the same sort of paranoid, god fearing types I write about around October 31st. The problem, as I see it anyway, is that one tends more to the overt and the other, the tacit. What's more, "non-Christians", or white Americans/Canadians who do not see themselves as Christians, are more often than not the ones who are now complaining about "Happy Holidays". It is this issue I would like to address, as I believe it is a very good, and topical, example of invisible privilege, specifically the pervasiveness of cultural Christianity.

A friend of mine posted this photo on her facebook, and the comments below were precisely what you would expect.

At work are two different but ultimately related perspectives; Christian as default setting and xenophobia. In this case, being this specific car decal, I tend to see the xenophobia more so than the Christian as default, but they play into each other so well that it can be difficult to separate them out.

The "Welcome To Canada" line, implies that it is a message to those who have not been in this country for very long, and so the logical conclusion is that the message is directed to recent immigrants. Recent immigrants who are more often than not (at least in the eyes of the car owner) non-Christian. Recent immigrants who in the eyes of the car owner are the reason that people say "Happy Holidays" or "Seasons Greetings", because of their desire to overthrow the established traditions and force their own religious/cultural traditions on the "rest of us", or you know have the audacity to have their Charter rights respected. After all, it isn't a conscious decision on others to acknowledge that there are a bevy of holidays celebrated over a wide swath of a given month, and that not everyone celebrates for the same reason you do. Nope, it is PC thugism run amok, and poor persecuted Christmas.

The last refuge of an outlawed holiday

Poor persecuted Christmas which is still an official government holiday, which does not allow retail business to be open unless in specific tourist areas, which used to be a single day of December, but has now devoured the entire month, and in some areas noticeable swaths of November as well. Christmas, whose symbolism and cultural accoutrement's are unavoidable, whose music is played non stop for a month on dedicated radio channels, whose related films and specials permeate the teevee. Whose more commercial deity can be found in ads, on street corners, and in malls of every size. This holiday, truly, is on its last legs and this unrelenting PC assault upon it will destroy one of the last, great north American traditions. This is afterall "their" country, and so people should be adopting "their" culture and beliefs. If they don't like it, they can leave; the Charter be damned.

There is something else, though, something which folks who whine don't know about, but really ought to. The origins of "Happy Holidays" and "Seasons Greetings", have nothing to do with any attempt to down play Christmas, or even in the spirit of inclusiveness. They are rooted in streamlining the mouthful, "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year", into something a little more wieldly, and easily printable. Yeah, so it turns out that New Years is something like 6 days after Christmas, or so I am told, and so for the sake of convenience (and having NOTHING to do with taking Christ out of Christmas), these phrases started popping up in cards and print around the 1920's. And everyone knows what a tolerant and inclusive time that was...

So I've covered the misinformation and stupidity of the xenophobic angle, how about the religious one? What is often surprising about this, as I mentioned before, is that people who do not consider themselves Christian, are still the ones getting their stockings in a bunch over the "rampant accommodation and erosion of our traditions". "I'm not a Christian, but I still say Merry Christmas", "So what if you aren't a Christian and someone wishes you a Merry Christmas? Why would that offend you?", "How dare you be offended if I say Merry Christmas to you"", and so on.  Well, for one, I think the entire "offended at Merry Christmas" is just a tad overblown, and people are seeing offence where there really is none; or where a single anecdote transforms into every encounter, forever. The "why?" though, the puzzlement which accompanies these sentiments is at the heart of the matter. Privilege, entitlement, hegemony, default, are all words which explain the why. Why people who have adopted this attitude do not understand why or how someone could be less than happy about being wished a Merry Christmas. They have never been the outsider, have never been the minority, have never had someone else's traditions and beliefs assailing them, unendingly, for months, if not forever. Or if they have been, they consider themselves exceptions to the rule.

As someone who has a perhaps higher than average interest in things religious, it never ceases to amaze me just how Christian "not really a Christian"'s are, and how much of their beliefs, customs and language is never the less deeply rooted in Christianity. It is not necessarily their fault, being the default religious setting for a thousand or so years can have that effect on a culture, let alone one where the population remains 70% Christian. Nor do they understand how people who do not, either through different cultural traditions, different religious instruction, different upbringings or a penchant for inclucivity, could want to have some validation or at least tolerance thrown their way.

Don't get me wrong either, I do celebrate Christmas, despite not being a Christian, nor being raised a Christian. I wrote about it the last two years running, here (which is a tad sentimental), and here (which is a tad jaded). I just understand the issue of seeking to be more inclusive, of knowing the origins of the phrasing, and the ability to see the invisible privilege so many are simply blind to. Frankly, I tend to say Joyous Yuletide more than anything else, and that tends to be greeted with more blank stares and puzzled looks than anything else, despite (or perhaps due to) its antiquity. I say Merry Christmas when appropriate, I say Happy Holidays or Seasons Greetings when in doubt.

I've never gotten offended by someone telling me "Merry Christmas", but I do get irritated when people complain that they "aren't allowed to say it anymmore", aside from the blatant display of entitlement, it simply isn't true.

Joyous Yuletide Folks!
-Gorm





photographic credit: "Lowes Christmas Market" http://samomatic.com/2011/12/15/lowes-christmas-market-toronto/

Happy Holidays

Merry... Celtmas?

I suppose it just gets to be that time of year, and once again the Pagan blogosphere is rife with opinions, essays and critiques of all things Christmas. Star Foster has written a wonderful rebuttal to the Christmas time triumphalism espoused by another contributor on Patheos. Helio Pires, of the Golden Trail blog, responds to the same article with, you know, those pesky "facts". As someone who spends an inordinate amount of time inside Catholic Churches, I must admit that I do get a little pleasure (albeit, perhaps a bit perverse), that around this time of year boughs of evergreens, or advent wreaths, are featured prominently, usually in very close proximity to the altar...

Seren, on the other-hand, has made a post about the significance of Christmas in her past, present and (hopefully) future. I had posted some similar thoughts (if perhaps a tad more saccharine, last year) about the significance of Christmas within my own family. Of course, my post did not feature a thought provoking examination of the (often times problematic) nature of ancestor worship.

I highly recommend having a gander at all three blogs; I think, however, that I'm going to stay out of the "War on Solstice" this year. After all I did my part for the "War on Halloween". I'll let other people who actually care about the religious significance of the day, fight the good fight; I shall be cheering from the sidelines.

Lately I find myself to have less and less of that innocuous "Christmas spirit"; which in earlier years was in abundance. It may have been the years spent working in retail; terrible, horrible, soul destroying retail. It may be that for the first time in my life I will not actually be seeing my family on the 25th. Perhaps the teenaged "jadedness" which has lain dormant for the past decade or so has finally decided to end its hibernation and in its ravenous hunger, devoured my defenseless nostalgic sentiments. It could also be that, as significant the day is for me as a holiday to celebrate family, more significant days, actual holy days, have become more important. I find myself less and less excited about Christmas, but when it comes to days like Lá Fhéile Bríde or Oíche Shamhna, my youthful exuberance seems to be in ready supply. I suppose it is possible that I've undergone some sort of "Christmas spirit transference"; and so now the days I get really excited for are ones which actually have religious significance. I admit, now I've gotten myself all curious to see if anyone else has had similar experiences.

An now, insipid Paganizations of beloved Christmas carols:

 "Gods Rest Ye Merry Pagan Folk"

"Dancin'In A Wiccan Wonderland"

"Sun God Rise"

-Gorm

Christmas, etc.

I have to admit that this post is in large part due to the conversations abounding in the polytheistic blogosphere; let it never be said that I will not jump on a band wagon when it is playing a tune I like!

So Christmas, Yuletide, the Holiday Season. Christian v Pagan, Religious v Secular, and all that hullabaloo. It`s been done, and likely better than I could surmise here. So I will take a different tack, and simply talk about why Christmas is important to me.

I suppose it bears a brief discussion of the religious aspects ( I know, I know, I said I wouldn't but what kind of polytheist blog woudl this be without a little religious content?). Christmas, for me, has never really been a religious holiday. My parents would probably both label themselves some kind of Christian, though I was raised in a rather agnostic household. Christmas in my home was not about creches, wise-men or infant demigods, but rather evergreens, decorations and family. Oddly enough, any sort of religious context would have been gleaned from the Christmas carols we sung at school, in the Christmas pageant, or in conversations I did not quite understand at the time, with school mates. No, Christmas has always been secular for me, and perhaps I am better able to continue the celebration of it, despite not adhering to the religious significance most others associate it with.

From the other aspect, as a Gaelic polytheist, the solstice is not something which tends to be marked. I understand this may strike some people as odd, as the vast majority of Pagans mark the solstices and equinoxes in some way or another. Heck, even a lot of Druids will mark the solar markers are important, and point to structures like New Grange and some other passage tombs, which do seem to have some correlation with the solar events, as proof that the pre-Christian Gaels did acknowledge them. My argument, would simply be that while the neolithic structures do (likely) correspond, they are neolithic, not Iron age. As such, there is nothing in any of the extant texts which show that the pre-Christian Gaels had any kind of celebrations or festivals pertaining to the solstices and equinoxes. This is often a major point of contention between a lot of modern Druids, Celtic polytheists and Reconstructionists, and gets back to the debate about whether or not sun worship or solar deities were a part of pre-Christian Celtic religion. Other than a few epithets, pertaining to shinning ones (which have a number of interpretations) and the earnest, but now highly doubted, Celticists of the late 19th century, there simply are no reliable sources which support the idea that the Celts were sun worshipers. Further, there is nothing in the existing folklore or festivals which bear any mention of celebrations of the solstices and equinoxes. The consensus is that the pre-Christian Gaelic calendar probably revolved around the cycle of the harvest and livestock, and this is reflected in the texts and folklore, via the so called "cross quarter days". As such, there is little religious content from my current beliefs either, and so I will wish people a Blessesed or Joyous Yuletide, but do not celebrate Yule either, though I can appreciate that what I have always associated Christmas with, is decidedly pre-Christian in origin.

But I digress. Christmas to me, has always been about decorations, music, feasting and family. However task of decorating our Christmas tree has always stood out in my mind as the quintessential Christmas memory. For almost all the years until I was in my late teens, we would harvest our own tree. This would involve getting up early, dressing myself and my two younger brothers in full snow regalia, piling into my father's pickup, and driving to a smallish town north of Toronto. We would arrive, pile out, and traipse through the parking lot, past the pre-cut trees lined up near a barn, and line up to hitch a ride on the wagon. Now the wagon was pulled either by two rather large Clydesdale's, or less enchantingly, a tractor. Needless to say we preferred getting the horses. We would then ride out, along with other families, through the tree farm, until we reached the section we wanted. Most of the time we would get spruce, the needles were fairly sharp, but they were a lot more manageable than pine, and held ornaments better than fir. We would systematically walk up and down the rows, seeking out that particular tree. Generally it was my father and mother doing the searching; my brothers and I would be running around, trying to pelt each other with snowballs. Eventually one tree would be chosen, and cut down using a bow-saw (my father owned a remarkably large assortment of tools). We would then carry it out to the wagon trail and await an empty cart. I should mention that b this point, what was pulling the wagon was secondary to what would get us back to the entrance, which had a bonfire, hot chocolate and a Santa walking around handing out candy canes. The tree would be wrapped, and we would truck it out to the pickup. The drive back was more subdued, due to the fact that we had spent the afternoon running about in foot deep snow. We would carry the tree in through the sliding glass doors we had, and stand it up in a large bucket, filled with sand. My father had worked out long ago that a sand filled bucket was far better than a plastic or metal tree stand; our tree would remain green well into the new year. The tree would then be untied, and left to stand over night.

Some time the following day, my mother would haul out the box of decorations and we would begin trimming the tree. We would pop one of several Christmas cassettes into the player, which would belt out standards; to this day, as much as some people revile the song, "simply having a wonderful Christmas time" complete with synthesized chorus, is still my favourite Christmas song.  We had a variety of ornaments, many of which we still have today, tucked away in boxes somewhere. The lights would be the first to go on, and we had a couple of different styles of strings; some which were flower shaped, with small foil petals which would reflect the light, others of a more traditional variety where if one bulb failed, they all would. One year we bought a little timer, which would allow the lights to come on in patterns, and the that was very cool. Our tree topper was always a star, and when I think of it now, the thing was awfully gaudy. Five individual lights, with small reflective foil, and ornamented with blue tinsel fringes, but it was OUR star, and I have yet to see another like it. Our ornaments ranged from the traditional glass balls, or various sizes and colours, a growing number of ornaments made by myself or my brothers, those which commemorated each of our first Christmases, these sort of ridiculous stuffed men who had hockey jerseys on, and my mothers favourites, small glass birds which had fiber-optic wings and attached to the tree on these little clips. They were ancient, and very fragile and we couldn't touch them, but there were something to behold. We would then add either strings of metallic garland, or metallic beads. Finally a liberal draping of tinsel "icicles" would complete the trimming. We would then spend the rest of the day decorating the rest of the house.

To me, that was (and is) what Christmas was about; spending time with my family, expending hours of time in an effort to deck our home in Christmas cheer. I may be overly sentimental, and frankly there is little that I am really sentimental about, but at the end of the day it wasn't about the gifts, or the food, or the jingles or spirituality, it was about spending time together as a family. And really, that is why I continue to celebrate the holiday, and hope to pass on my family's traditions.