Happy Solstice!

Happy Solstice/Yule, everyone! Well we're all still here, and so is the world, so I think that's pretty good cause for a celebration. Also, it was the last day of work before the holidays, which is a pretty good reason to celebrate, too ;)

Today dawned beautiful and bright with a fresh dusting of snow and not-very cold, just a mere -5 in my neck of the woods. A perfect reminder that the dark days of winter will not last forever. Awesome boss let us all go at noon today, so I toddled off downtown to do some shopping and grab some lunch. I walked down the forest path that leads back to town, and along the quite side streets when I had....my perfect solstice moment.

The scene in front of me

A beautiful bluebird day with the mountains shining bright and white with their new coat of snow. The sun was warm on my back, and I had to squint against the glittering snow. Quiet. Peaceful. Perfect.

 Yule is a time when we celebrate the return of the Sun and welcome it back into our lives. Today I felt as though the sun was welcoming me back into it's life - he was happy to see me out and about and enjoying his presence, instead of scuttling from building to building, from one job to another, to home, to bed. Today was a promise: the days ahead may still be dark and cold, but I am still here. I will return. It was a perfect moment.

To top it all off, the world didn't end AND there is an "Ecumenical Solstice Celebration" happening in the next town over! I'll be heading over to that after dinner to celebrate tonight. Wherever you are, however you worship, I wish you all a Very Happy Yule. May your celebrations be merry and bright.

Ackbar's Fishsticks

Thanks to the boyfriend's alarm on his phone this morning, I have now had this stuck in my head all day. Time to share the love!

Braiiiiins

I will confess to being a bit of a spiritual and intellectual zombie for the past month. I've just been shuffling along from one day to the next, one job to the next, from rehearsal to the couch to bed without really engaging with anything on a deeper level. I read the usual blog posts, of course, but nothing really flipped the switches in my noggin.

My immune system was walloped with a food-poisoning-and-cold one-two punch in the last week, which has knocked me firmly on my backside and has me taking some much needed time to regain perspective. Lo and behold, no sooner did I do so, fun new fascinating concepts fall into my lap. Yay!

A possibly-former-Catholic and definitely queer past boss/now facebook friend of mine posted a link to a video about the Catholic Church and it's secrety history on sex, abortion, and birth control, which has just got my mind a-whirring. I won't post the entire video here (it's 45 mins long) but you can watch the documentary here: http://www.catholicsforchoice.com/secrethistory.asp

This video reminded my why I enjoyed religion class so much in (my Catholic) high school, it was as much about learning the tenets of the Church as it was about philosophy, history, ethics, asking questions, and really intellectually engaging with your faith. The theologians and professors interviewed in the documentary revealed facts I never knew about the Church's history and in particular in regards to St. Augustine's writings (i.e. that he basically just projected his issues over his own promiscuous sexual history on the rest of the population) and the role of conscience vs doctrine. Their willingness to engage with these issues and ability to come out and basically say "The hierarchy of the Church is old, stubborn, and dead wrong" made my brain sit up and take notice. I wasn't/am not the only one! Not that I didn't know that, of course, just hearing it after all the nonsense in the States about institutional conscience rights and depriving people of birth control...it was nice.

This is what has attracted me to pagan leanings (aside from my hippy tree-hugging tendencies), is the pagan community's great capacity not to take themselves too seriously and to continually examine, discuss, and adapt their beliefs to the relevant social and scientific contexts. There is (generally) a recognition that the pagan beliefs and rituals of today are only a few decades old and they cannot and should not be set in stone. There is always room for exploration and examination. People are willing to use their brains.

Here's another happy for today: Fox News gets schooled for their "War on Christmas" rhetoric


So remember folks, use your brains or you'll end up a zombie!