“First Snowfall”…..

 

 

(Not quite Winter Solstice, Tomorrow, Thursday, 11:28am)  Hard to see, but on the coffee table, there are Red, White and Green Candles, the Colors of the Hungarian Flag.

First Snowfall

 

There is such beauty in the still-night.

A sudden snowfall has pushed back

The boundaries of the mundane

And fantasy flows like outrageous mythology.

–

Chrystalized snow challenges the moon

Lights up a trampled ground

Gives a purity to all it touches.

 

Shadows form where before there were none

A supple mystery to something once familiar.

Now a strange and alluring world

Transformed, made anew,

Even forbidding as  huge trees

Groan with an icy burden

And bushes are split in two

With the weight of an alien gift.

 

–

The silence is complete.

No modern disturbance intrudes.

It is Winter’s gag on our fretfulness,

Our restlessness, our noise.

 

We are commanded to stay inside

By the fire, to read a book,

To look outside and admire

A miracle that we, with all our intelligence

Can not remake.

–

This is Winter’s true gift.

We are to obey the season,

This enforced solitude,

To wrap ourselves in this quilt of quiet,

Cast off our endless activity,

To finally be still,

To heal with the balm of serenity,

Silence.

–

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2017

“A Reason for the Season”….

Clach Mhullinn….home

 

 

A REASON FOR THE SEASON 

   I saw the Cooper’s hawk this morning. She landed on the chimney pot, probably looking for my miniature hen, Grayson.  Four years ago she was a starved fledging who mantled over while I fed her cold chicken.  She’s back this holiday, my spirits lifting. A good Christmas present.

   In the middle of the commercialization of the season, Nature closes the gap.  I have noticed squirrels with pecans in mouths leaping the trees, hawks hunting low over now-bare woods, unknown song birds sitting on fences, heard the migration of Sandhill cranes as they honk in formation. You hear their cacophony well before they appear.  

   There is brightness to the holly, washed by our early winter rains and the orange of the nandina berries has turned crimson. Smell of wood smoke in the air and the crispness of mornings means much of nature is going to sleep. We humans should reclaim our past and join the slumber party of our brother bears.

   Jingle Bells will fade and our tension with it. Looking towards deep winter when the Earth is again silent will restore our balance and calm nerves with a blanket of peace.

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2009-2013

‘Samhain’ a Celtic Winter poem, and some thoughts on the season.

This season, the start of Winter, has always held a lot of emotion.  I love Winter, and  heating with a wood burning stove hasn’t yet dulled my enthusiasm for the season.  Perhaps it’s the quiet that falls at dusk, that thin, pale veil of mystery just before the black of night when the huge live oaks and pecans are the only ‘structures’ between you and the rest of the world.

For me it is the beauty and wonder of a season that slides from the crisp Autumn to the unearthy beauty of Winter.  Nature holds the key for me, and especially the deep silence and stillness of Winter.  

There is a deeper reason of this season for me. It calls to contemplation, to slowing down the daily routines, to read, to walk amongst the brittle leaves and especially to the silence that surrounds  like a blanket of peace. This is a spiritual season, without the trappings of religion.

Christmas is the last hurrah of noise and color before the real message of this mysterious season appears.  A well-running woodstove, a blanket, a book of Robert Frost, cats snuggling around  and those huge, silent trees outside, the beauty of their exposed black limbs against a gun-metal sky with the promise of snow:  this is the comfort and promise of Winter, that allows or enforces even, this solitude, this time of contemplation and renewal.

Lady Nyo

SAMHAIN, A CELTIC WINTER POEM

Dark mysterious season,

when the light doesn’t

quite reach the ground,

the trees shadow puppets

moving against the gray of day.

–

I think over the past year

praying there has been a

kindling in my soul,

the heart opened, warmed

and the juiciness of life is

more than in the loins–

a stream of forgiveness

slow flowing through the tough fibers

not stopper’d with an underlying

bitterness

but softened with compassion.

–

This season of constrictions,

unusual emptiness,

brittle like dried twigs

desiccated by hoar frost

just to be endured.

–

I wrap myself in wool and

watch the migrations–

first tender song birds which harken

back to summer,

then Sandhill cranes,

legs thin banners

streaming behind white bodies,

lost against a snowy sky.

–

They lift off to a middling cosmos,

while I, earth-bound,

can only flap the wings of my shawl,

poor plumage for such a flight,

and wonder about my own destination.

–

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2010, 2011  from “White Cranes of Heaven”, published by Lulu.com, 2011

Athene writes so beautifully about this issue,

the Winter Solstice and Xmas, that I wanted to post her comment on the front of the blog. I tried to post both Welsh Phil’s comments also, but wordpress is giving me fits…new system here and I can’t get around yet.

Athene:

# Athene Says:
December 9, 2008 at 11:46 pm edit

Paganism is a beautiful religion, and P is correct in that some Christians around are a bit unsettled that paganism is more Christian than Christianity. While I’ve encountered several Christians who believe that paganism is Devil worship (untrue as pagans don’t worship the Devil – the concept of Satan is a Christian belief), I have also encountered those who have similar thoughts of the Anglican minister.

To me, the three religions of Abraham are growing the most fundamentalist. While I’m sure there are fundamentalists in any religion, these three seem to be the most polarizing and isolating in terms of beliefs.

Personally, my beliefs on religion are that you may believe in whatever you wish to. If you want to worship God (Christian), Allah, Zeus, Hera, Thor, Loki, Anubis, Anzu, Nyame, Ananse, Enumclaw, Kapoonis, Ilmater, Tutujanawin, Ba Sin, Guan Di, or even no higher power at all, then awesome. The only time I will object to religion is when others try to push their religion on me (usually, again, fundamentalist behavior, and not widespread among more moderate believers). I, personally, am staunchly against a ban on gay marriage/civil unions/adoption due to the reasoning that the Bible forbids homosexuality. If there is a non-religious secular reason to ban gay marriage, then I’m all ears, but all I hear from the fundamentalists is that the Bible says it [homosexuality] is an abomination, and references to Sodom and Gomorrah. Interestingly enough, while Leviticus forbids homosexuality, it also forbids the eating of shrimp and lobster.

But these are debates for another time…

Christmas, anyway, is essentially a pagan holiday. Christmas trees, yule logs, holly and ivy – they are pagan Solstice traditions that have been adopted into the Christian religion as keeping such traditions would help ease the transition from pagan to Christian for the converts.

The tree (evergreen, able to survive the winter) was the essence of life. It was also a phallic symbol of fertility.

Red holly symbolizes menstrual blood of Diana, queen of the heavens. Holly is also an acceptable wood to make a wand (today, used for drawing down the Moon/Diana)

Mistletoe with the white berries symbolized semen (another sun god fertility reference)

Thus, standing under mistletoe and holly and kissing would empower that couple to be blessed by the god and goddess to be fertile and bear healthy strong children in the upcoming year.

And the 25th? It’s the birthday of the sun god Mithra.

To end my little bit, in good Wiccan spirit – “An ye harm none, do what ye will.”

And for P, namaste.

Athene

Winter Solstice in place of Xmas….

Every year it hits. A general unease with the season…or more, the ‘holidays’ and every year I determine I must do something about it.

This year I have talked to family and friends and it’s rather interesting. Many feel like I do…except my son and Husband.

They are the holdouts….spoiled by the previous Xmases. Having only one child has allowed us to spoil him in certain ways. He is a good young man, 21 now, but I could see it in his face when I said: “How about no Xmas this year?”. A look of panic, like the world has stopped turning. A bit of the same in my Husband’s expression.

In Christian tradition Xmas is a time not for self-indulgence, but for sharing in ways that promise renewal for ourselves and others.

Seeking a deeper meaning for this time of year, as I am spiritual, not religious.

And that is the rub. All around are the Churches….the different denominations we have attended over the years….Episcopalian (from youth and more recently) Quaker, Mennonite. But I don’t fit.

Perhaps it’s because I have never really ‘felt’ like a Christian. And that was helped along when I realized that I was part Jewish..though that ‘secret’ was only revealed after my father died. But I was born on the wrong side of the stick, I am told by a Jew, and I am not a Jew because my mother wasn’t.

So, that claim to religion is out. But then again….I think religions…of all elk, are superstition. Or something like that. I just never…well, bought it.

I think how I would describe myself best is I am really a pagan. No, not human sacrifice, though there are some folk I would gladly throw on a merry pyre, but I don’t delve too deeply into the modern paganism that I see and have once experienced. Silly stuff, with a lot of rules and regulations.

I go more towards the worship of the Earth…the turning of the seasons, what I understand and make of it all. There is such magnificence and splendor in the Earth and nature, that why do we seem to gravitate towards tinsel and ho-ho-ho?

There is enough within nature, and what we have made of it to celebrate. I came across something about the “Holy and the Ivy” and had never understood the basis of this song. Long ago, holly and ivy were considered the male and female symbols within the forest. Songs narrated their often rowdy vying for mastery in the forest or the home. Sounds much more interesting than what we are served up with plastic boughs and plaid ribbon this time of the year.

So this year I am going to institute a celebration of the Winter Solstice. It happens on December 21. I will decorate this old house with holly (we got a large tree , a male…and we have a neighbors female tree…with berries.) and Ivy we have aplenty. Fir boughs on the mantels and windows and over the doors. We will dwell in the beauty of the Solstice, and we will light candles for the appropriate reasons.

We will strive to avoid the crowds, the tinkling bells, but we will give to the Mennonites because they seem to have a strong tradition of service.

And perhaps, in essence, this is what the season is all about: charity and service to others.

Lady Nyo

A REASON FOR THE SEASON

I saw the Cooper’s hawk this morning. She landed on the chimney pot outside, probably looking for my miniature hen, Grayson. Four years ago she was a starving fledging who mantled over to me while I fed her cold chicken. She’s back this holiday, my spirits lifting. A good Christmas present.

In the middle of the commercialization of Christmas, Nature closes the gap. I have noticed squirrels with pecans in mouths leaping the trees, hawks hunting over now-bare woods, unknown song birds sitting on fences, heard the migration of Sandhill cranes as they honk in formation. You hear their cacophony well before they appear.

There is a brightness to the holly, washed by our early winter rains and the orange of the nandina berries has turned crimson. The smell of woodsmoke in the air and the crispness of mornings mean the earth is going to sleep. We humans should reclaim our past and our fecal plugs and join the slumber party like our brother bears.

Jingle Bells will fade and our tension with it. Looking towards deep winter when the Earth is again silent will restore our balance and calm our nerves with a blanket of peace.

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2008