Twelfth Night...

Orange yellow tounges climb licking
tinder dried limbs wood eating
pine bough'd circle yearned-for grasping
explode in blazing new Sun crackling

White wisp'd winter ghosts rise gently
carried north on cold winds darkly
sacrificed spirits pyre'd burn brightly
light for a New Year to shine sublimely

Red runes round ring enchanted
holy words spoke oft-repeated
flowed wine o'er horn filled sacred
Gods' graced gifts for wishes granted

Discontent...

That was, beyond all doubt, the absolute worst christmas I have ever experienced in my entire life.  I never, ever want to go through anything like that, ever again.

And that's all I have to say about that.

Ironically, however, that might've been the best Boxing Day I've ever had.  You just never know what to expect.

So, it's probably best not to expect anything at all.

'Tis The Night Before...

It snowed today.

Our first snowfall of the year.  On Christmas Eve.  A good omen. 

A very good omen.  A White Christmas.

It's so beautiful.  It feels magickal.  This night always does, but tonight is even more so than usual.  It's almost dreamlike; like something out of a story book.

Merry Christmas, everyone.  And a Good Yule.

"May all your sacrifices and offerings this joyous season continue to hold the gods in their eternal slumber."

Diaspora...

We're going to spend tonight with my family.  My little brother and his girlfriend are in town, staying with my dad and stepmom, and so we're going over there in an hour or so to exchange presents, and have an early xmas dinner.

I'm looking forward to seeing my little brother, again.  I enjoyed spending the day with him at Thanksgiving, and regretted that I didn't get to see him more.  But seeing him twice in one month brings to the fore how much I miss my baby brother.  I've only seen him once in the last two years.  This is the second year in a row that I have to send his gifts to him; that I won't get to see his face when he opens them.

It'll feel really good to be with my family again tonight.  I'm really looking forward to it, and have been all week.  But I can't help but look forward even more to a time when all of us will be together again.

And I'm worried that it might not happen again.

What if the last time was really the last time?  And I didn't even know it.  I don't even remember it now.

It all just goes by so quickly.

Don't let it get away.


Merry Xmas, and Good Yule.

I'll Stand Before The Lord Of Song...

I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah

Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah

Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty in the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you to a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah

Baby I have been here before
I know this room, I've walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you.
I've seen your flag on the marble arch
Love is not a victory march
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah

Maybe there’s a God above
But all I’ve ever learned from love
Was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you
It’s not a cry you can hear at night
It’s not someone who has seen the light
It’s a cold and it’s a lonely Hallelujah

Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah

There was a time when you let me know
What's really going on below
But now you never show it to me, do you?
Remember when I moved in you
The holy dove was moving too
And every breath we drew was Hallelujah

Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah

I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though it all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

          -"Hallelujah"
            Leonard Cohen, Various Positions

Yule...

Tonight is Yule.  The Winter Solstice.  The darkest, coldest night of the year.

Traditionally, the entire clan would gather together in one place tonight.  And the biggest log that could be found would be placed in the hearth to heat the entire building, and keep everyone warm and safe from the dark, cold night outside; to ward off the Wild Hunt.  This was the Yule Log, and it needed to burn all night.  And someone needed to stay up all night to tend the fire, and make sure it didn't go out (or burn the place down).

I don't have a hearth, or even a fireplace.  So, I light a candle.  But I still stay up all night, and make sure the flame doesn't go out (or burn the place down).  Tonight is the night I usually wrap all my presents; everyone else is asleep, and it's a great way to kill a few hours and keep myself awake.  I listen to xmas music, and I put on a fireplace dvd, and I drink a lot of coffee.  Sometimes, when I'm finished with my wrapping, I'll go for a walk around town in the middle of the night, and look at all the lights.

I'll perform ceremonies at sundown, at midnight, and at sunrise tomorrow.  The same words and gestures and sacrifices every year.  Honoring the gods, and the ancestors, and the family.  Sincerely thanking the Sun for rising in the morning, knowing that it means we've lived through another night, another Winter, another year.

I Love this night more than any other.

Good Yule to all.  May you wake tomorrow, warm, and Loved.



        Sunna sinks down    into the dark sea;
        wolf and wind howl    outside the walls.
        Now Holda shakes    out her snowy bed;
        now are life-fires    hid in yew-night.
        From Thrymheim Skadhi,    shadow-black, skis.
        Odhinn’s gray steed    leads ghosts on the wind.
        Trolls fare from cliff-halls,    harry from rock-caves;
        the etins arising    from ice and stone.
        Ye who would watch    this night, ward ye well!

        Sunna sinks down    into the dark sea.
        But Gullinbursti    gleams bright in the hall.
        Well are we warded    who watch this night;
        by boar tusk’s thrusting,    by Thor’s strength.
        In this high hall    stand all holy kin,
        from sib-roots to branches    runs hidden fire.
        Thor’s stark hammer    this hall has hallowed,
        Alfs and idises    the dark and light kin,
        Fro Ing and Freyja    share now frith and might!

        We kindle the yew-flame to year’s Yule-night!
       
        Now feast in highest    and hallowed frith.
        Our joy to Gods    we give this night,
        that while worlds sleep    they wax in main
        from midnight growing    ever greater towards dawn.


        *     *    *        *     *    *        *     *    *

        Now Odhinn rides    in the Wild Hunt,
        leading the ghosts,    gray, down the wind.
        Our oldest hold    in howe-mounds high,
        from Bairn-Stock’s roots    rise kin this night.
        Well do we know    the Wanderer old;
        eldest, the father    of Ase and man,
        wisest of kin        Odhinn, we hail thee!

        Wisdom rising    from Well’s deep roots,
        Runes of might    roar in the mead,
        up from the Bairn-Stock’s    eldest roots.
        Our kin who have fared    forth, come to us!
        We drink with you, hallowing    draught to the Gods!

        Hail to Odhinn    wisdom’s drighten!
        Sig in our strifes    send this year.

        Hail to Thor        Thurses’ Bane!
        In your might     and main we trust.

        Hail Fro Ing        frith’s mighty God!
        High be the     harvest this year!

        Hail to Njordhr    with holy drink!
        Winds blow well    to us this year!

        Hail to the alfs    all ringed around us,
            the fathers of our folk.

        Hail the Disir        all ringed around us,
            the mothers of our might.

        Hail our kin        in hidden lands.
            Hail the Yule-wights high!


        *     *    *        *     *    *        *     *    *

        Our Yule-glow    that gleamed all night,
            now kindles the keen fire.
        Sunna’s flame    flares bright again,
            upon the heavens’ hearth.

        Sunna’s fire    flares bright again,
            the darkest night is done,
            the holy gifts are given.

        Hail the Gods and the Goddesses!  Hail the Yule morn!

Mother's Night...

Tonight is Mother's Night.  The first night of Yule.

As I ranted yesterday, I celebrate the secular, American holiday of Xmas, rather than the Christian holiday of Christmas.  However, I do also celebrate a religious or spiritual version of the Winter holiday, as well.

For the last twelve years, I have celebrated the pre-Christian Winter holy days of Yule, which begin tonight at sundown, and last until sunrise on January 1st.

As a child, Christmas never felt like just the 24th and 25th to me.  I always felt like it lasted much longer than that.  It felt like it started sometime the week before (both of my parents' birthdays are the week before Christmas, which probably had a little something to do with that - more on that later), and it felt like it ended with New Year's.  It felt like a multi-day event, with the 24th and 25th as the central climax of the whole thing.  It always felt that way, as far back as I can remember, and I celebrated it that way.  I could feel the magick of the holiday begin sometime the week before, and I would always make my parents keep the lights up and lit until New Year's; it didn't feel right to turn them off on the 26th.  That just felt like too abrupt and sudden of an ending to everything.  It didn't feel right.

As a young adult, as part of my exploration of various magickal disciplines, I discovered the pre-Christian pagan traditions of the Northern European cultures.  The gods of the Vikings - Odin, Loki, and Thor, among many others.  I found myself drawn to these traditions; something about them resonated with me, and I began to adopt them as the first religion I had ever chosen to practice.  And no part of this tradition resonated with me more than their Winter holy days of Yule.

I spent many years working within this tradition as one of my primary spiritual practices.  Over the years, I've let go of all of it, as I've grown and moved on.  All except for Yule.  As with Taoism, when I discovered Yule, I realized that I had been celebrating it my entire life, and simply never knew it.  Instantly, it felt right to me.  No matter what other spiritual paths may come and go in my life, I know that I will always celebrate Yule.

In the pagan calendar, Yule is a very magickal time.  In fact, it is a period out of time.  The darkest, coldest time of the year.  A time to gather the entire family together under one roof, and keep safe and warm by a huge fire, to hold back the cold and the dark.  They believed that time stopped at sundown tonight, and started again on sunrise of January 1st (though they didn't call it "January," obviously).  In the interim, was Yule, when the material world and the spiritual world are one and the same, and the spirits of our ancestors and family who have passed on return to us, and we are free to enter their world, as well.  Other spirits, malevolent spirits, are also free to roam our world during this time-out-of-time.  The height of Winter was the most deadly time for the ancient pagans of the North, and they heard frost-giants and dreadful monsters in the howling winds of snowstorms.  Someone who ventured out of the hall, away from the group, away from the hearth-fire, may not come back.  Did they succumb to the cold and the dark and the storms?  Or was it something else?

Most of our "Christmas" traditions come from the celebration of Yule.  When the Christians converted the Northern Europeans, they couldn't get them to stop celebrating Yule, even under penalty of death.  And so instead, they moved the celebration of the birth of their god Jesus from mid- to late-Autumn, up to December 25th - right in the middle of Yule.  And they adopted the traditional Yuletide celebrations into the celebration of their Mass of Christ.

The christmas tree is a pagan tradition.  The yule log.  The wreath.  Mistletoe.  The New Year beginning one week after December 25th.  Leaving gifts in socks that are drying by the fire.  All originally pagan traditions.  Yule, from December 20th through December 31st, is where we get the idea of the "12 days of christmas."

All the parts of xmas that I liked the most - all the non-Jesus parts - turned out to be from this pre-cursor holiday of Yule.  And it covers the entire period of the calendar, from beginning to end, that always felt like the "real" Christmas holiday to me.  It leads up to the climax of the season with Xmas right in the middle, and then winds down to Twelfth Night (New Year's) at the end.  It is perfectly balanced.

Christmas was, by far, my mother's favorite holiday.  And I get my sincere love and appreciation of this season from her.  She was born on December 20th, which turns out to be the first night of Yule, and is traditionally celebrated as "Mother's Night."  It is the night to celebrate all the Mothers in our life, both living and dead, and all the good they've done us, and all they've sacrificed in order for us to be here, right now.

My mother died on December 31st.  She took her own life, in part, to spare us, her family, from having to suffer through her slow and inevitable decline into madness and agonizing death.  She sacrificed herself for us.  She was born on the first night of Yule, Mother's Night, and she died on the last night of Yule, Twelfth Night, the very year that I first came to know about this tradition.  I never got to tell her about Yule, or Mother's Night.

Yule, her favorite holiday, though she never knew it, is a time when our homes are open to the spirits of all those dead that we have loved.  And so every December 20th, I invite her into my home, and I pour her a drink, and I thank her for the life she gave me.

It just feels right.

It always has.



        Disir, I call,        ur-mothers dear,
            Come to our kindred’s hold.

            We give thee Welcome.

        Frigga, I call,         frith-weaver wise,
            Come to our kindred’s hold.

            We give thee Welcome.

        Freyja, I call,        holy and bright,
            Come to our kindred’s hold.

        We give thee Welcome this Mother’s Night.


        Hallowed women of the home,
            I raise this horn to you.

            We give thee Welcome.

        Freyja, riding forth this night,
            Look kindly on our home.

            We give thee Welcome.

        Disir, wights of the wheel,
            Spin us good wyrds to come.

            We give thee Welcome.

        Frigga, who winds the distaff full,
            Fill our house with joy.

        We give thee Welcome this Mother’s Night.

Xmas...

I've been listening to christmas music at work all week now, and I'm done with my shopping for the season, and it's the day before Yule begins, and I'm all in the spirit of the holy-days, so it's probably time I got this explanation down and out.  And if the news media is to be believed (and they aren't), then consider this my volley in the fabled War on Christmas.

I am not a Christian, and so I don't celebrate Christmas, as in "The Mass of Jesus Christ."  I don't celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ anymore than I celebrate the birth of Siddhartha Buddha.  (Although I find it a truly beautiful story.  Honest-to-Sol, I am moved to tears every single year by the song "The Little Drummer Boy.")

But even though I am no longer a Christian, I was raised as an orthodox Christian, and so have a resonant familiarity with the customs, and am also not part of a competing Judeo-Christian culture; so, Christmas is certainly an option for me.

But, more importantly, I am an American.  And, as an American, I choose to celebrate the capitalist American Winter holiday of Xmas.

Like it or not (and I see no reason to not like it, unless you somehow have your ego wrapped up in making sure everybody holds the same religious beliefs that you do), the Christian holy day of Christmas has, over the generations of cultural domination by Christians, created another, entirely separate, and entirely secular holiday in this country, that has absolutely nothing to do with the birth of Jesus.  This holiday, that I refer to as "Xmas" just to differentiate between the two, is about Santa and Rudolph and Frosty the Snowman and Black Friday and strings of lights hanging everywhere and chopping down an evergreen and sticking it in your living room.  And I throw myself into this holiday whole-heartedly.  It is, hands-down, my absolute favorite time of the year.  I Love it.  And I wish we could all just accept that this holiday exists, and that it doesn't all have to be about Jesus, and thereby give all Americans the opportunity to enjoy it, regardless of their religion, or lack thereof.

And if you want to celebrate a traditional Christian Christmas, and make it all about the birth of baby Jesus, then please, by all means, go right ahead.  No one is stopping you.  But you need to accept that you gave this holiday away a long time ago, and that it doesn't belong solely to you anymore.  There is a world economy running off of this holiday now, and it has fuck-all to do with Jesus.  The engine of the capitalist world runs on the secular holiday of Xmas, and the sooner we all admit that, and accept it, and stop whining about it as though it were the greatest crime since the crucifixion, and as though we could do anything about it, the better off we'll all be.

Here endeth the rant.

Merry Xmas, everyone.

The Pile...

Every year, my family "complains" that I buy them too many gifts for xmas.  That I spend too much money on them.

I've never really understood this, and always assumed that it came from some humble sense of insecurity they felt toward their own gifts-to-give that year.  (Which is ridiculous, of course; I have never felt anything other than overwhelmed by the volume of what we receive from them every year.)

Today, my father emailed me, and asked me, again, as he does every year, to be "modest" in my gift giving this year.  Then he said, "we know your heart is in the right place..."  Which, to me, implies that, however well-intentioned, he thinks I am doing something wrong.  When I confronted him about this, he replied:

Your heart is in the right place – you give…give…then give some more.  That’s what I mean…not wrong, just not necessary for those of us that love you and feel loved by you.  You are the most generous of us all.  Not just with your treasure Michael.  Please don’t be defensive…I love you dearly.

Dad...

I am not generous.  And this is not a sacrifice.

Every Christmas morning as a child, I remember I would come downstairs to find a pile of presents waiting for me, stacked up higher than I was tall.  That pile literally dwarfed me.  Year after year after year.

You held down two to three jobs at a time and went to school in order to provide me with that enormous pile of beautiful junk.  (Because, of course, the contents of the pile didn't matter half so much as the experience of the pile itself.)  You took out loans and lines of credit every year to afford it.  You worked hard, and you sacrificed, and you went into debt in order to give me that humungous mound of christmas treasure.

THAT is generous.  THAT is sacrifice.

I can't give anyone else that experience.  I can't even come close.  But I can try, at least.  I can do my best to give them just a fraction of that feeling of excitement and amazement that I got to grow up with.  Because that's what Christmas is to me.

Every year, I hold back, and only get half of what I want to get, or less.  I have never hurt myself financially, or gone into debt of any kind to buy gifts for my family or my friends.  I always have money left over to put away after I'm done my xmas shopping for the year.  I have never sacrificed to do this.  At least, nothing more than my time.

So, please don't think I'm being generous.  I'm only a pale mimicry of the generosity you raised me with.


ps - And I know it isn't necessary.  "Necessary" isn't the point.  If it was necessary, it wouldn't mean anything.  It is by the very fact of its un-neccesity that it is transubstantiated from a consumerist product, into a treasure that reads, "This is what you mean to me.  I Love you."

'Tis A Mean One...

I started my xmas shopping today.  Feels good to finally get started, even if I am ridiculously late.

Last year, I had most of my shopping done by Dec. 1st, and all of it done well before Yule (the Winter solstice).  It was wonderful.  The best Yule season I've had in my adult life, I think.  I got to just sit back and enjoy it.  I could spend all of my energy on making the holiday more pleasant and fun and enjoyable, because I didn't have to spend it all on the work.  All of the work was done.  I actually got to just relax and enjoy it, for once.

Knowing that I wasn't going to have that experience again this year was actually one of the things that got me down a couple of weeks ago.  I'd been so busy through the late fall that xmas just sorta snuck up on me, and I didn't see it coming until it was already here, and I was already behind in my work.  "What?  It's xmas already?  Wait!  I haven't started yet.  I'm already late?!  Crap!  Last year was so wonderful, and this year is gonna suck now, and I never even had a chance!"  It was just instantly depressing.

But there's some hope left.  (Which seems appropriate, given the spirit of the season.)  It's only December 4th, so I'm still getting a fairly early start, all things considered; just not quite as early as last year.  But I've got some time left, is the point.  And, I don't have as much shopping to do this year, which is going to help.  With Snowflake being unemployed and underemployed for most of this year, we just can't afford to do the amount of shopping that we normally would.  (Just one of the many unexpected brightsides to her unemployment.  Blessing in disguise, that.)

So, I've got less work to do overall, and still a respectable amount of time left to do it.

Looks like this xmas might not be totally grinch'd just yet.

What Is Going On Here?...

I.

NEED.

THIS.



This is not a revelation.  I knew this to be true.  Still, knowing something to be true and experiencing the truth of it firsthand remain two entirely separate things.

I knew on some intellectual level that I needed to write.  I knew it was good for me, and I knew it made me happy.  But I was quite unprepared for exactly how it would affect me when I stopped.

At first, I just didn't have the time or the energy.  I was overwhelmed with work, both in the office and at home, and just simply could not make time to write; what little time I spent not working I needed to rest.  I just didn't have any energy left to spend on creative expressions.

But then things finally calmed down.  And I did have time to write again.  But I still didn't do it.  I was just so tired.  And I just didn't feel like it.  It still just felt like more work.  And I was so tired.  I just wanted to sleep for a week.

I still feel that way, actually.

I can't get to sleep at night.  And then I can't get up in the morning.  I can never get enough sleep, and I'm always tired.  I can barely even try to make it to the gym anymore, much less actually work out.  Everything feels like it takes ten times more energy than I have available to spend.  It takes all of my strength every morning just to force myself to get up and go into the office.  And now Yule is approaching, and I haven't even started thinking about it yet.  I'm so behind, and I have so much work to do, and I don't feel that I could ever possibly get it all done because I'm just so fucking tired.

Sometime last week, I finally admitted that I'm depressed.

Admitting that scared me.  Because I didn't know why I'm depressed.  And if I don't know why, then I can't do anything about it.  I just have to suffer through it.  I've been depressed for Christmas before, and it's been some of the most miserable times of my life.  My whole life, this has been my very favorite time of year, hands-down, no question.  And to not be able to feel any of the joy of that is just a terrible experience for me.  And then further, to be surrounded everywhere by all these bright, flashing, blinking, shiny reminders of How I'm Supposed To Be Feeling only accentuates the depression, and makes it worse, almost every minute of every day.  And then still having to do all of that work, but without the excitement of the season to motivate me?  Ugh, it's just a downward-spiral of Yuletide hellishness.  Those times, it's been easy for me to understand why the suicide rate supposedly skyrockets during the holidays.

So, I didn't want to be depressed.  I didn't want to have to go through all of that.  I wanted it to go away.  I wanted to feel better without having to face the prospect of another miserable Yule.  But eventually I couldn't ignore it anymore, and I had to accept the fact that I was clearly depressed.

But why??  Every other time I've experienced this, it's been the result of a relapse of some sort.  But I haven't relapsed this time.  Not even an accidental one (like the sleeping pills at Dover).  So what is it?  Too much coffee?  My occasional Winter pipe smoking?

With some help, I've figured out that it's most likely stress-related.  But if it's stress-related, then why can't I ever seem to relax or feel rested?  And what do I do about it??

This is the answer to both.

Writing is a coping mechanism for me.  It's pretty much my main coping mechanism at this point.  Meaning, the most effective one; it's not necessarily the most-oft used.  And I abandoned that coping mechanism right when I needed it most.  So not only did I take on a lot of extra stress during that period of heavy work, but then I also stopped doing anything to relieve that stress.  And it all started backing up, and backing up, until I was a complete mess and could barely bring myself to get out of bed in the morning, and had no idea why.

I've said it before:  it doesn't matter what I write.  This post is incredibly boring.  Who the fuck is going to be in any way interested about the boring minutiae of my middle-class existence?  But that isn't the point.  I just need to get it out.  I just need to open up, and let go, and empty myself into this machine, and get it the fuck out of me, whatever it is.  It doesn't matter what "it" is.  It is the process of reaching inside, scooping something up, crafting it into some shape or another, and exorcising it into the aether-net that is important.

Because that is how I cope now.  That is how I deal.  And without it, I'm not coping.  I'm not dealing.  I'm stagnating, and wasting, and weighing myself down with all the tons of shit I've left unsaid.

I used to turn to drugs and alcohol in these moments.  And they provided some temporary relief.  Absolutely they did.  But they didn't do anything to help the underlying problem; they didn't help me cope.  Often, they actually made coping more difficult to accomplish, and/or made the underlying problem worse.  This time, I found myself turning to video games in the same way.  An escape from the pain I can't deal with.  An escape from the problem I can't understand, or solve, or control.  I can control my character.  I can solve his problems.  And every time I do, there's that familiar little rush of dopamine; a sense of having accomplished something, however ephemeral.  And yes, that's certainly better for me than getting drunk or high, but just the same, it doesn't do anything to help the underlying problem, or help me cope.  It's just a brief respite from the stress; some temporary relief from the pain.  But as soon as I shut down the console, it's all right there, still waiting for me, unchanged, un-dealt with.  Only getting bigger, and worse, leading me to spend more and more time escaping.  Another downward spiral.

So, I need this.  I need this process.  It helps me.  It's not just a creative exercise.  It's catharsis.  It's therapy.  It's not just some fun little hobby that I enjoy indulging from time-to-time.  I know that now, more than ever, because I've experienced firsthand what happens to me when I don't do this.

And believe me, it ain't pretty.