After breaking the Christan shackles of my youth, I gorged myself on the spiritual feast that was forbidden in my brainwashed youth. They took advantage of a naive and sensitive child to program with their narrow-minded views. When someone wakes up from that kind of delusional reality, it tends to cause some anger and resentment. It's baggage that I'm still sorting out.
So, I strongly protest making children adopt a spiritual belief system that they are too young yet to understand. I feel that way with any belief system -- including Buddhism and Paganism, which are my two shared belief systems. But, I've rudely drawn us off course from the core of what I wished to share with you good people.
So, it's Yule!! Otherwise known as Winter Solstice, but I call it Yule being of Scandinavian heritage. Like so much of Pagan spirituality, it was forcibly assimilated into the Christian celebrations of Christmas. Typical of Christianity, they stole a lot from the Pagans (the tree and Santa Claus to name a few of the big ones). Yeah, you heard that right. Did you honestly buy that story that Santa Claus was a Christian "Saint?" Uh, no.
Again, typical of Christians, they replaced the Pagan Odin with one of the their Saints, Saint Nicholas or Sinterklaas. The character and mythology of Sinterklaass was a major influence for the development of Saint Nicholas. Santa is an old man with a long, white, beard? Odin, was an old man with a long, white, beard. Santa Claus wears a cloak? Odin wore a cloak, too. Santa Claus flies through the sky with his 8 reindeer. Oden, flies through the sky on a horse with 8 legs. Santa delivers gifts through the chimney to the children. Children in the some Pagan regions would leave their boots (Christmas stockings) by the chimney filled with sugar or carrots to feed Odin's horse. Then came the "Christmas" tradition of hanging the stocking by the chimney hoping for gifts from Santa. Along with the "Christmas" tradition of leaving cookies for Santa and his reindeer. Santa Claus is said to mysteriously know whether you're been bad or good. Odin, the supreme god of Norse Pagan mythology had this same magical ability.
As for the tree, in Pagan times, evergreen trees and plants were brought into homes during Winter Solstice (Yule). They helped remind them that some life (evergreens) continues to live, even in the dark of winter, and that spring's life will soon arrive!! Yule was unceremoniously changed to Christmas and some bullshit about the star being the star the shepherds saw when Jesus was born. Yeah, well, that may be their story but originally it represented the stars in the universe, along with the candles attached to the tree. The star on top of the tree was originally a pentagram representing the five seasons with spirit being the fifth element. I wanted to write this all out so you know where I am coming from when I saw I made a star for our tree!! The star I made is the star in this post's picture at the top!!
I collected the twigs from one of my favorite nature areas here in the Colorado mountains. As I chose them carefully, I thanked Mother Earth for her bounty. When I came home, I glued the pentagram together and wrapped it in raffia twine. Thus, our Yule Tree is complete!! To combine it with my Buddhist tradition of celebrating Buddha's enlightenment under the Pipal tree on December 8th, a Buddha statue sits under the tree, at the base. May you all have a very find holiday season whether that be Yule, Christmas, Hanukkah or Bodhi Day!!
~The Green Man Has Spoken~
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