holiday cheer, the pagan way
Originally published at ravnsdaughter. You can comment here or there.
If my about page was up-to-date or finished, which it isn’t at the time of this posting, it would tell you I’m a pagan. The next holiday on the pagan calendar is Yule, which is sort of our analog to Christmas. Growing up, I celebrated Christmas since my family was basically Christian, even if we never went to church or talked about it or prayed, or well… you get the picture. It was the default, so I guess it just was. Anyhoo, when I was in my late teens, I discovered that paganism was much more in line with my way of thinking. In fact, as I’m now 38, I’ve been pagan half my life. At some point in the future, I will probably get into a bit more detail on things, but that’s not the point of this post.
I spent the first 16 years of my adulthood in the Vancouver area, which is very multicultural, has a huge alternative culture population, and of course is big enough that you don’t usually need to worry too much about your non-mainstream interests/hobbies/beliefs impacting your life and job that much. But now I live in a very Christian town. You could almost call this area the bible belt of Northern BC. And as it’s a small town, and I’ve started getting involved in the community, I have to be at least a bit more careful.
I love decorating for the holidays, though in past years that hasn’t always happened, thanks to my mental health. But this year, I’m going at the decorating with a vengeance. I’ve just started, and only have a couple of things out, but I’m so happy with how my wreath just turned out I had to show it to you. You’re probably thinking yeah, ok, it’s a wreath. So what? But if you look closer… it’s got a few pagan touches that are subtle enough that most people won’t notice them. It’s got silver holly garland wrapped around it, but it’s also got it woven into the shape of a 5-pointed star in the centre. It’s a subtle pentacle! And then I added 5 silver bells, one at each point of the star, for the elements (earth, air, fire, water, spirit).
And there we go! I have a wreath on my front door that none of my more devout neighbours would bat an eyelash at, but I still get to keep my own faith and be happy.