New Old Traditions
Yule + Winter Solstice 101 : The History and Modern Benefits
Tuesday, December 21st is both Yule, which is a pagan Sabbat, and Winter Solstice. Having grown up in a Christian household, I was unaware of either of these things until I was in my twenties. It wasn't really until the past 5 years that I started to really be curious about them and to explore what value these ancient traditions might have in my modern day life.
As I do, when I learn something new that positively impacts my life I enjoy synthesizing and sharing. So here I'm going to:
- Break down what yule sabbat and winter solstice mean
- What purpose and importance they had to our ancient ancestors
- Why I think they can add value to your life today
Winter Solstice Defined
First let's talk about winter solstice.
The word solstice is not one that is commonly used, it is Latin in origin and literally translates to something like the standing still of the sun.
We know that the earth rotates on its axis that's tilted. We also know that the earth orbits the sun in an elliptical or an oval shape. Because of these two factors, for half the year our days are getting a teeny tiny bit longer each day and the other half of the year they are getting a teeny tiny bit shorter.
A solstice is the point where this shifts.
Summer Solstice is in mid June and is the longest day of the year (and the shortest night), from then on our days will begin to get shorter. Winter Solstice in mid December is our longest night of the year (and shortest day), from then on our days will begin to get longer.
Well, at least in the northern hemisphere. Because of that tilted axis the Southern Hemisphere of our planet experiences the opposite. For them Winter Solstice is in June and Summer Solstice is in December.
A fun side note that many Americans don’t think about often, while our media is all about ‘winter wonderland’ for Christmas, in the Southern Hemisphere (so in Australia for example) Christmas is a summer holiday!
We’ll talk more later about why the solstices were important to our ancestors.
Yule Defined
Now let’s move on to defining the Yule Sabbat.
Sabbat (pronounced sah-baht or sa-bot depending on who you ask) is simply the word for a pagan holiday. For the purposes of this conversation, pagan is really any European religion that pre-dates Christianity.
Another fun fact for you. Before the birth of Christ and Christianity, there was mostly a polytheistic attitude towards religion globally. Poly meaning multiple, most religions had multiple gods or goddesses. Part of the challenge that Jesus faced during his short life was that he was preaching a monotheistic (or singular god) point of view. For a long time after Jesus’ death his monotheistic teaching was referred to as ‘The Way’ and was thought to be blasphemous by most other (pagan) religions.
So Sabbat is the word for a Pagan holiday, all of which align to the seasons. Their holidays honor the cyclical, seasonal nature of time, also known as the Wheel of Life. The word Yule is Norse and literally means wheel. Making Yule the celebration of the wheel (or cycle) of life.
Before science humans didn't understand why the days got shorter and longer. As humans do, we made up stories to explain it and those stories often involved the interference or dependence on a god or goddess.
Different parts of the world have different historical traditions (this book is a great resource if you’re curious about this). For our purposes I’m going to summarize down to the most commonly told story today.
It is believed by Pagans that there is a Sun God that controls the power and presence of the Sun. Yule is a time for humans to give the Sun God offerings, to honor and celebrated him to entice him to return and bring the sun back to us.
Again, back to that Wheel or Cycle of Life, there is a cycle of life among the gods and goddesses as well. Pagans believe that there is a god that, through the passing of the seasons is born a boy, grows up to become a mighty king and eventually dies to be reborn. And there is also a goddess that, through passing of the seasons, is born maiden, gives birth becoming a mother and then ages into the wise crone, dies and is reborn the maiden again.
Another tangent, I’m a logophile (or word nerd) and the etymology (or history) of the word virgin is relevent to this story. The etymology of the word virgin shows that it was first used applied to priestesses in Mediterranean temples. It was used to identify a woman who was a complete entity unto herself who was not bound by secular law, had no husband. She needed nothing else and no one for completeness. This sort of independent, unbridled woman was said to be an intact virgin. Tying back to the cycle of life, the newly born virginal maiden goddess is able to give birth to the god (and the return of the light) because she is whole and complete unto herself, needing no man to procreate.
So the Yule Sabbat is the celebration of the virginal goddess giving birth to the sun god, a celebration of the wheel or cycle of life and is celebrated on winter solstice.
Yule, Winter Solstice + Christmas
Alright, so we now know what Winter Solstice and Yule Sabbat are, how did we get from that to Christmas?
I grew up in a Christian household and so my entire education about. Christmas was from the Bible and it wasn't until I got a little bit older and started exploring pre-Christian religions and paganism a little bit that I realized that there is additional context to that story.
I want to pause here and just say, I am not anti-Christmas. I don’t think anything I’m about to share should or needs to impact the sacredness and the validity of Christmas to a practicing Christian. I think it's helpful to have the additional context as we begin to think about why you may want to honor Yule as well.
We already talked about the fact that most religions were polytheistic and that Christianity was really the first monotheistic religion to reach mass popularity.
We all know that Christmas is celebrated in December, which is in winter for the entire northern hemisphere (including Bethlehem where Jesus was born).
According to the Bible Mary and Joseph traveled to Bethlehem on a donkey because there was a census and Pharaoh was requiring everyone to return to their hometown to be accounted for. Historians have fond that it is very improbable that a census would have been performed in winter time. It is much more likely that it would have been done in early summer, meaning that Jesus was likely born in June or July, not in December.
Why do we celebrate in December then?
For that we have to look to the Romans.
The Roman empire lasted for several hundred years and part of their success is thanks to their strategy of cultural integration. They did not attempt to dominate and transform the culture of every territory they conquered, instead they brought new technology, resources and encouraged integration and allowed the regions existing gods to co-exist with their gods.
For a long time, there was no real Roman religion.
Fun fact: in Imperial Rome the term Lord was used to refer to Caesar. So when Jesus spoke of his Lord it was seen by the Romans as disrespectful to their ruler. This is where the prosecution of Jesus and his eventual murder come from.
Eventually there was a Roman Emperor, Constantine, who lived about 250 years after Jesus died, who converted to Christianity and Constantine wanted the entire empire to convert as well.
Once again, the Romans used the strategy of integration, they aligned the Christian holidays with the existing pagan celebrations. Over many generations, thanks in large part to the church an patriarchal domination during the Middle Ages, the pagan traditions gradually took a back seat (eventually becoming taboo) and the Christian holidays (and the pagan elements) became mainstream.
Winter solstice or Yule celebration, the story of this virginal goddess giving birth to a God blended nicely with the story of the Virgin Mary giving birth to Jesus.
Our tradition of Christmas lights has its roots in the pagans lighting candles to attract the Sun God. Christmas wreaths were used by Pagans to symbolize the Wheel of Time for Yule.
Again, I don’t think any of this invalidates Christmas. Christians believe the Bible is the word of God and celebrating the birth of Jesus is a sacred and special time — regardless of the date, the wreaths, the lights or anything else.
I have been wondering though, what value we perhaps lost by eliminating the old traditions all together. In my home we’ve created space for a both/and — we honor the pagan traditions AND the Christian ones.
Solstice + Our Ancestors
Why was a solstice important to our ancestors?
We’re talking about ancient times here. Obviously there was no Google or weather apps. There was a lot less known about science in general. For some context, we thought the Earth was the center of the universe until the mid 1500’s and good old Isaac Newton defined gravity in the mid 1600s. So our ancestors from BC times really didn’t understand much about how our planet operates or why we have seasons.
Yet, they were incredibly dependent on our planet. They were hunters, gatherers and farmers; dependent on daylight to see and be productive. Reliant on the seasons to determine when and where they could travel. The seasons were their calendars and really dictated how their lives and health went.
Additionally, everything was far more localized making the regional seasonal impacts all the more important. For example, they only had access to the foods that were in season. Unlike the variety we’re used to right now. My toddler is obsessed with strawberries which are definitely not in season in the winter, but I can go to the grocery store and buy strawberries grown in the Southern Hemisphere where they are in season. In fact I’d venture to say that many in 1st world countries today are not present at all to what foods are ‘in season’ because we can get most items year round. However, back in the day, our ancestors didn’t have that option. They were completely dependent upon the region and the seasons.
This is why their holidays, or Sabbats, centered around the seasons and why they assumed the gods controlled them.
As for Yule, Winter Solstice is also the first day of winter, so let’s think specifically about the seasonal shift from autumn into winter.
Autumn is when our ancestors would harvest everything. Anything not harvested would be composted by the earth, slowly of the course of winter turned into fertilizer for the growth in the coming Spring.
By the arrival of Winter they needed to have everything prepared to go into a season of cold. During winter things freeze, animals hibernate and everything slows down. Humans spend a lot of time indoors, protecting themselves from the elements.
For our ancestors, winter would have been a time spent in small family groups, in doors. They would use this time to weave, make repairs to tools and probably spend a lot more time sleeping.
For our ancestors Winter Solstice was the celebration and final preparation of the shift into the season of quiet ahead.
Benefits of Yule + Solstice Today
How can all of this benefit us today?
In contrast to how our ancestors spent the winter months, I invite you to think a bit about what your life looks like in December, January, February, and even March.
I know for me, December is a time of hustle and bustle. There’s a lot of shopping, community, celebration, togetherness. Good food, parties. I think of the hundreds of thousands of people that gather in major cities to ring in the new year together. Then, in January, I’m prepared to be bombarded with ‘new year new you’ sort of advertising and being encouraged to set New Years resolutions. After the month of diversion into holiday festivities, January is a time to get back to work. Then February, March — it’s all just a blur of the grind of life as usual. When I worked at Corporate it was a time of kicking off new projects and figuring out how to distribute our budget. For families up north with kids, winter is a time of complex logistics, keeping everyone bundled and getting out their energy, trying to keep the pace of life up in spite of the obstacles presented by ice and snow.
However, if we look at what our ancestors and the planet can teach us, winter is a time for slowing down for getting your house in order, for cozying up, for introspection, for marination.
We talked about how the earth claims what was wasn’t harvested in autumn, and over the winter turns it into rich soil to support new growth in the spring. I think that we can metaphysically do that as well. We can take inventory of our thought life, our spiritual life, and our consciousness, search for what is ready to be complete. It’s a good time to do shadow work, to look at the parts of ourselves that maybe aren’t working so great, that we’re ready to release. A time to reconnect with the light within us, our passion and our higher, truest selves.
In my family we look at Jesus as the reason for the Christmas season, and we use Yule to remember the reason for the winter season.
Yule and Winter Solstice always fall a few days before Christmas. My family has found that this provides a wonderful opportunity to take a beat and connect to what is happening seasonally. Yule gives us an opportunity to spend some time in reflection and to set the stage for our spiritual growth in the coming winter season.
