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Religion
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Title: Yule celebrates winter solstice
Source: Sentinel
URL Source: http://obsentinel.womacknewspapers. ... 6/12/20/features/feats0121.txt
Published: Dec 21, 2006
Author: Victoria Bragunier
Post Date: 2006-12-21 01:53:12 by Morgana le Fay
Keywords: None
Views: 222
Comments: 3

Once again the holiday season is here. Though the most well-known and familiar holiday is that of Christmas, it is not the only holiday celebrated at this time of year. Another holiday not as well-known, but still celebrated, is that of the winter solstice. The winter solstice is the shortest day of the year, and its occurrence marks the beginning of the winter season.

The celebration of the winter solstice has taken numerous forms for different cultures. One of those forms has been the holiday of Yule.

"The traditions of Yule encompass the celebration of the winter solstice and originate from the ancient Scandinavian Norse and Germanic peoples. Yule celebrations predate Christianity and there are numerous references to the holiday in ancient Norse sagas," said Heather Demarest, co-founder of Eldhrimnir Kindred, a Norse Asatru group located here on the Outer Banks.

Demarest goes on to explain the intricacies of the Norse Yule tradition. "For the ancient Norse people, winter was a very difficult time,the growing season had ended and the shortened days meant that the life-giving sun was disappearing, leaving them in darkness and extreme cold. The winter solstice marked their triumph over darkness and the return of the warmth and a new year. The Yule season is twelve days long, beginning the night before the winter solstice. The most important aspect of those twelve days is that our world and the world of the Gods and Goddesses are together, and it is a blessing to be close to them and have a connection -- it is at this time that we look back over the old year and make oaths for the new year."

Pat Guthmann Haresch, minister for the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the Outer Banks explains that there is a deep connection between ancient winter solstice celebrations and Christmas. "Much of the symbolism used in Christmas has its origin in older religious traditions. The use of greenery, holly berries, candle light, even the symbols of a mother and her child are related to older spiritual practices before the arrival of Christianity."

For Haresch, the connection is an important one. "We live in such a divided world and it would be wonderful if people of different faiths could understand the underlying connections of the holiday and that all of these celebrations are based on many of the same things, one of the most important ones being that of hope."

This year the winter solstice takes place at 7:22 on Dec. 21 eastern standard time.

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#1. To: Morgana le Fay (#0) (Edited)

Few appreciate the global harmony of Solstice. Like other polarities of living things, life and death, plants and animals - one breathing oxygen and emitting CO2, and the other doing quite the opposite, that of life and death, male and female, the solstice is the returning of the light here, and the starting of the leaving of the light in the Summer Solstice concurrently happening in the Southern Hemisphere.

It is a great time to be a passenger on our beautiful blue bubble of a planet; may the new year see the end of the gruesome horror of problems that have plagues us all with the malignant cancer of an administration in power.

I hope and dream of the powers so charged and flowing this time of our journey around the sun at this point of the Earth's wobble which gives us our seasons will flow into the existence of change meaning the end of much of what is bad, and hope and promise for the many in this world who are good and decent, and get so little to build their lives with.

May what Bush has give return to him three fold. and to all other followers of the principle of if one does no harm to another in their lives but I still don't like it stick it to them.

Let us dream of a return of the light in more ways then merely in terms of the four seasons. Let the blessings be.

"diversity czar - executioner - nazi !" -- byeltsin

Ferret Mike  posted on  2006-12-21   2:47:35 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#2. To: Morgana le Fay (#0)

This year the winter solstice takes place at 7:22 on Dec. 21 eastern standard time.

AM or PM?

Pinguinite.com

Neil McIver  posted on  2006-12-21   2:56:32 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#3. To: Neil McIver (#2) (Edited)

The precise moment of the 2006 solstice will be December 21, 2006 at 7:22 P.M. EST (Dec. 22, 00:22 UT).

http://www.infoplease .com/spot/wintersolstice1.html

"diversity czar - executioner - nazi !" -- byeltsin

Ferret Mike  posted on  2006-12-21   3:02:05 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


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