Yule 2007

Well, we did it! We had our 1st Yule ritual as a Coven! Ten people gathered in my home to celebrate Yule. We were missing one of our Covenmates, Papisa, who was down & out with laryngitis. A speedy recovery is sent her way & she was lovingly missed last night!

One by one the guests arrived. Diana was the first to arrive, followed by Annan, Phelan, Clifford, Berkana, & my sister, K. Morgana, myself, & my 2 toddlers were already here. My sister K, the 1st one outside my immediate family, that is besides my wife Morgana & Kids, to learn that I was Wiccan, was at her 1st Pagan Ritual ever. She is a devout Catholic and finally came to see what I do after several other times of turning down invites to other past Rituals. I learned earlier that night from my wife that she did quite a bit of research on Wicca during the last week before she came tonight on our Religion & especially Bridgt, the Celtic Goddess, because she wanted to make a Bridgt corn dollie to give for our Pollyana.

Anyhow, sorry for the side story, we started Ritual about 8:45 PM. My HPS, Berkana, suffered her own bout of laryngitis earlier in the week asked me to read most of her parts of the Ritual due to still recovering of which I had no problem, but as the Ritual progressed, she did read some of her parts due to the Energy that was present helping her along. I did a short reading before everyone entered the Circle of what Yule, the Winter Solstice was and since children were here, I did not brandish my Athame as part of the challange to enter the circle, only a chorus of, "In Perfect Love and In Perfect Trust" was needed by everyone to enter & away we went.

The Circle was cast simultaneously as it was sealed and everyone within it cleansed to begin the Ritual. After the Quarters & Spirit were called & the Dieties joyfully welcomed, we sang, "Deck the Halls" to raise energy. As the song was ending, the candles that adorned the Altar were extinguished to symbolize the dark half of the year ending & after a few moments, the yellow candle symbolizing the Sun was lit and everyone took their tea light candles & lit them from the Sun candle as we were all chanting, "The Wheel is turning, the light is returning". The tea lights burned for a few minutes before they were extinguished & the candles on the Altar relit. Everyone was given their individual tea light to take home with them, except Diana because I forgot to give her the one she used & will give it to her the next time we meet.

We proceeded next to the Cakes & Ale part of the Ritual. The Cakes tonight were Christmas Tree butter cookies & the Ale was homemade Wassil. Since it is "Cold & Flu Season", we took the Wassil from the main Chalice & used a mini ladel to divy it out to everyone in mini dixie cups so that no germs were spread (thanks Berkana for the Idea!), and everyone, including my 2 1/2 year old who wanted more Wassil in the animal cup (LOL), loved it . After everyone was done, we passed the Chalice around 1st for the leftover Ale, & 2nd for the left over Cakes and placed their libations in the Chalice for an offering to the God & Goddess after Ritual. A reading was done by myself of the epic battle between the Oak King & Holly King at Yule to give everyone a chance to properly ground.

We closed the Ritual by thanking the Dieties, releasing the Quarters & Spirit, and finally releasing the Circle. I took our Libations outside to return them to Earth & looked up to the cloudy sky to thank the Dieties & the Goddess who was in her Mother stage as the Full Moon when all of the sudden out from hiding behind the clouds, the Goddess in her beautiful, silvery Full Moon stage appeared! I took a moment to thank her personally before I returned into the house to partake in the Yuletide Feast that was assembled by everyone bringing their pot luck contribution.

After we finished eating, we retired to the living room to start the Pollyana gift exchange because my sister had to get going home due to my brother-in-law was getting up to goto work. By concensus, I played Santa and gave the gifts out to everyone. It must be me developing my psychic ability that the gift I gave K was the one she was eyeing up all night. I knew what was it that present because it was from my wife. It was a Chakras starter set & I chose that to give her because she has been trying to get pregnant for the longest time & maybe, just maybe the problem is that her Chakras are out of alignment & this will help. The kids even had their own gifts to open as well. I sent home a little present with Diana as well for her 19 month old daughter, Sophia, as well. The Pollyana that I gave Berkana was a homemade set of wooden tiled Runes that I did woodburn myself. I didn't have time to stain them and she left them for me to finish for her. I chose to give her the Runes because as a group, I hope for us to study them as a form of divination. I also had a special present for her, I recently purchased a book on family Rituals online from ebay and along with the purchase I received a choice of wooden tiled Rune necklaces & I asked the seller if it could be blank & she sent me 2. I burned the Rune Berkano "B" on it for her since that is her symbol as well as my symbol on mine for us to wear at Ritual. BerKana loved the Runes & the necklace! Everyone else loved their gifts & had a really great time as well.

I was anxious and nervous prior to the Ritual because we had representatives from 3 Covens (counting ours) and my sister here last night, but was relaxed after everyone arrived. Having 3 Covens together for an open Ritual like this really helps promote Unity within our Pagan Community. It is awesome that people from different sects of Paganism can get together to honor & worship the Divine with an open mind and hopefully next year our Coven will be bigger and more Covens will be in attendance and that this will be the start of a huge step in creating a more unified Pagan Community in the future! Maybe if the weather is dryer next year we will be able to do this outside, but only time will tell!

As an added footnote, I still haven't come out of the "Broom" Closet to my parents, and I would of loved for them to be here on this special night. I am slowly dropping hints their way that I am a Pagan. I wear my Pentacle necklace outside my shirt as well as leaving my Pentacle pinkey ring (that is how my sister found out that I was Wiccan) visible and not turned around when I am with them. It's just hard for me to break it to them because they are such die hard Catholics. Some woman I know says that I am "Spiritually Confused" & I feel that this is what she is talking about because I am not totally open about my faith to my parents, but she doesn't know them very well. I also bring up to my parents time to time different things about Paganism in conversations. With my sister finally coming to observe, but not partake fully in a Ritual, I do now have someone to goto bat for me in my corner when the time comes to tell my parents that this is a Religion not that different from theirs in that we worship the divine just like them. One day they will know, but until then, it's on a need to know basis, and they don't need to know as of yet.

The Wheel is turning, the light is returning! Happy Yule & a Blessed Winter Solstice to All!

Yuletide Blessings,

Cædmon
High Priest
Coven of the 13 Moons
Philadelphia, PA

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"Houses are Built of Bricks & Stone,
But Homes are built of Love Alone."

-Author Unknown