What's the date of Yule this year?

[Maat]

**Quote**
INDEX: Yule/Winter Solstice

Author: Witchvox Central
Posted: January 27th. 1997
Times Viewed: 278,268

(around DECEMBER 22nd)
also known as: Yuletide, Alban Arthan.

Yule is the time of greatest darkness and the longest night of the year. The Winter Solstice had been associated with the birth of a "Divine King" long before the rise of Christianity. Since the Sun is considered to represent the Male Divinity in many Pagan Traditions, this time is celebrated as the "return of the Sun God" where He is reborn of the Goddess.
**Endquote**

From:
http://www.witchvox.com/va/dt_va.html?a=usxx&c=holidays&sc=yule&id=1900 .

My question is, "On exactly what date is Yule this year?"

I should explain: I belong both to a Church of Religious Science and a Unitarian-Universalist church; both churches explore and honor the various spiritual paths.

Blessings to all my DU Pagan friends!

I'm going to teach my daughter about Christmas per my liberal Christian friends AND about Jewish traditions and Muslim traditions AND PAGAN TRADITIONS.


I'm the one that asked for help from you fine friends seeking information about my daughter's birthday, Oct. 31st. Thanks again for that help; she had a wonderful birthday.

[Dead_Parrot]

1. The 21st for you...

These days the solstice can be pinned down to within seconds, so if you want to be anally retentive, it's at 10:36 AM on Dec 21 for CA. (6:36 PM GMT) It moves around every year, but an almanac will usually have it (or there's free software that will work it out for you - try Lunabar if you want to mess around...

Glad your daughter had fun (and hopefully not too many cavities!):)

[Dead_Parrot]

2. Although I should add...

...If they're doing anything based on the Celts, it could be on the 20th - The Celts counted each 'day' as starting at sunset (rather than using midnight as we do), so anything between sunset on the 20th and sunset on the 21st would be the solstice. As an aside, that's why we have so many important "eve"s - midsummer's eve, halloween, etc. It's a hangover from measuring the day differently.

Too much information? ;)

[Maat]

3. HeeHee. Daughter's doing well, thanks.

I don't want to get TOO technical.

I think that the 21st is GOOD enough for me; maybe we can talk about Yule eve.

Are you going to participate in a Yule ceremony?

[Dead_Parrot]

4. Probably...

It's a bit early to make plans - we're in the Southern hemisphere, so there's over 6 months to go :D
Midsummer is looming fast, though... B-)

[Maat]

5. Just exactly where do you live?

Sounds interesting.

[Dead_Parrot]

6. Wellington, New Zealand...

Moved here for from the UK a year ago, and they only way they'll get me back is in a coffin. I've heard Welly described as a small, damp San Francisco (although I haven't been to SF so I can't vouch for that). Plays merry hell with a pagan/christian calendar, with the kids trick-or-tricking in the early summer sun, Christmas on the beach, and the Easter re-birth stuff just as the winds start blowing in from the south pole - The Pagans swap everything over to make it fit the location, so you end up doing everything twice. (The Pagan Yule also fits more or less with the Maori new year, marked by the rising of the Pleides in mid-June. Beers all round.)

[Maat]

7. Wow - it sure is exciting to have a DU-buddy who lives in NZ!

Many, many years ago, when I rented an apartment with a nurse friend of mine, we rented the third room to a New Zealander named Simon.

He always had great pictures to show us!

My husband used to travel in the oil business (we since have moved into education and became more and more progressive with each passing moment). Anyway, he traveled to New Zealand once and just loved it. They moved him in and out of a country in a day, and he quick the company over a dozen years ago. He's been working out of our house for many years now, and I have for over five. It just really works for us.

I think I understand your feelings about staying there, though, from how Simon described it.

My sympathies about the calendar/location/hemisphere-related challenges.

I hope that you continue posting, and that we can exchange information about Pagan practices.

Like I said, we belong to a 'universalist'-type religion, that honors all paths and wisdoms (Church of Religious Science - www.rsintl.org or www.religiousscience.org ). We enjoy exploring many spiritualities, and I teach Beloved Daughter (9) about each.

We're 'old parents.' We're both 47 (hubby-bubby and I). Beloved Daughter is pampered beyond belief.

Take care and Merry Meet and Blessings to You!

[Dead_Parrot]

8. Thanks...

I'm new to this parenting thing (one daughter, just over a year old) Hopefully I'll get the hang of it in the next 20 years or so... Like you, I'll be teaching what I know about different religions and see what she does. Should be interesting.

Personally, I've wound up with a decidedly pantheistic bent, but via Christianity and Wicca: In the time-honored neo-pagan tradition of pinching anything you like the sound of, I cheerfully celebrate Christmas, Yule, Matariki and Samhain, despite the fact that living through that many new years I should now be pushing 140.
It's sometimes said of Catholics that they don't celebrate their religion, they mourn it: Nobody could accuse me of that. :)

I shall also, therefore, be trolling through the CRS sites and pinching anything you do if I like the look of it (It sounds like Holmes has done pretty much done that anyway, and no bad thing at that.)

Mrs _P practices a sort of fusion of Wicca and Maori, which a local group is cooking up. Personally, I can't even pronounce "Papatuanuku, Rangunui" without choking on my teeth, so she's on her own.

The fledgling appears to worship the God of Coating the Cat in Chocolate While Screeching. I'll have to see what Frazier says about that...

May you loins be full of fruit...
(sorry, I'm also a Pratchett fan)

[Maat]

9. Hope you are having a good day, Dead_Parrot.

The Maori language seems a bit beyond my abilities. May the Mrs. enjoy, though!

How neat to hear you have a little daughter! Enjoy! She will only get more talkative and stubborn as she grows up!

Holmes was called "the Great Synthesizer," and "borrowed" from just about every belief system; that's kind of what I like about it!

Enjoy New Zealand! I'm jealous!

On edit:
To me, it does not matter if one manifests Spirit (God) as the One-Energy, Universal-Oneness, the Unimind, the Cosmic Muffin (U.S. 70's hippie reference), or as a series of Master Teachers, such as Jesus and Buddha, or as a series of Celtic Gods and Goddesses. I believe that we are each divine, and a piece of the Divine. I believe that souls also function at different levels of enlightenment, one of them being 'human,' and that this could explain quite a bit. When I go to Native-American-style drumming, we refer to 'Mother-Father-God," or "Mother-Earth-Father-Moon." Since I adopted this philosophy, I can enjoy exploring all of the spiritualities and the "Christ consciousness." That's what makes life so much fun now!

Take care, my NZ friend!