New Project, New Year

So it's a new year, and I've decided to start this new project.  I know that by some people's standards, the new year started back at Samhain, so I'm late.  And by other people's standards, the new year doesn't start until January 1st, so I'm early.  But I've always viewed Samhain sort of as the end of one year, and Yule as the start of another, so the time just after Yule is often the time that I find myself inspired to start new things.

Lately, my mind has been on Yule and all of the other things that come along with this time of year.  You hear a lot about seasonal affective disorder around this time of year, where people who don't generally suffer from depression get the "winter blues," so to speak.  In years past, I have always been blessedly immune from feelings of depression during the winter, and I think that has a lot to do with my perspective on the season.  For years now, my coven and I have tried to observe something we call Witches' Rest during the time between Samhain and Yule.  While the God resides in the land of the dead, we take that time to turn more inward ourselves for rest and reflection.  The natural energies of the winter season are those of withdrawal, darkness, and slowing rhythms.  The land is bleak and barren, the hours of darkness far outweigh those of daylight, many animals migrate, hibernate, or at least go into hiding.  And so we do our best in this modern world with our modern responsibilities to embrace that energy and learn its lessons, while all around us the rest of society is trying to go against the current.  It can be extremely difficult when the rest of the world is running itself ragged trying to be festive and merry, and is bound and determined to pull you in.  Most of us, even if we are fully open about our Pagan spirituality, cannot avoid the rush of Christmas entirely because of the family, friends, co-workers, etc. in our lives.  So it can be challenging to fully embrace the real energy of the season in the face of all of the chaos that this time of year can bring, and even among my own coven mates, some of us find it easier than others.  Some have a hard time reconciling the more calm and quiet energies of Yule against the hustle and bustle of Christmas that they have been conditioned for so many years to view as the hallmark of a successful holiday.  Others truly wish to tap into the slower and more solemn winter energies, but find themselves being bombarded by holiday obligations nonetheless, incapable of saying "no" to those in their lives who just wish to spread some Christmas joy!  There can be so many hurdles, and unfortunately when you're talking about trying to wind down, turn inward, and take time to rest and reflect, any amount of effort that you have to put forth can ultimately prove counter-productive.  The more you stress yourself out trying to relax, the less you actually are relaxing!

In the past, I have had no trouble tapping into the energies of this season.  Once it occurred to me that Yule should be celebrated differently than Christmas, it made so much sense to me, and my own personal traditions for this holiday began to fall into place.  Yule is a time of darkness.  It is the darkest day of the year--the longest night.  Yes, the rebirth of the God and the return of the light brings hope, but perhaps the symbolism of the God returning as a child is representative of the fragility of that hope.  In the agricultural communities that shaped the holidays we observe today, there would have still been much to overcome after the solstice.  Though the light has returned, it will still be some time before it has grown in strength enough for that return to be evident.  It is a slow awakening for the earth, and it should be for us as well.  We, at Yule, have reached both the peak of darkness, and the turning point, where that darkness begins to wane.  Yes, we celebrate that turning point, and Yule should be a time of joy, as we welcome back the God.  But in my opinion it makes the most sense for it to be a time of quiet celebration, and in my experience trying to push myself too far toward orchestrating overblown celebrations does nothing but leave me exhausted.  It runs contrary to my natural energies at this time of year.

So, if I'm pretty content with my view of Yule and my ideas for how to celebrate it, why am I tying this post into the seasonal trend of melancholy?  Well, for the first time in a long time, I think I have experienced a bit of the winter blues this year myself.  I don't feel that I am experiencing them for the same reasons that so many others do.  It isn't because I have a hard time with the prevalent energies at this time of year.  It's not that the darkness, the bleakness of the land, the slowing down of everything around me depresses me.  I actually embrace that energy quite well, and if I'm honest with myself, though I do strive for a balance of light and dark energies, I am someone who tends to lean more toward the dark side naturally.  I am much more in my element on gray and gloomy winter days than I am in the scorching sunlight.  Perhaps because my fair skin burns in record time, but that's a story for another day!  No, it isn't because I have a hard time dealing with these energies that I feel down.  Actually, I think it's because I haven't had the opportunity to embrace them quite enough this year.  Some changes in my life have made my routines quite different this Yule season.  My husband and I opened a retail store in the early fall, and this has had a huge effect!  Just as I was meant to be winding down for my annual observance of Witches' Rest, the rest of the world was winding up for the one holiday they go all out for all year long.  So though I was ready to go into a state of semi-hibernation, activity at the store started a gradual and steady increase just after Samhain and leading up to Christmas.  My responsibilities there kept me in much closer proximity to the way the mainstream population responds to this time of year, and trying to exist somewhere in between those two worlds left me exasperated.  So now, in the aftermath, I feel a little frazzled and confused.  It is time for that gradual awakening, and a part of me does feel a little bit of that inspiration and motivation that I usually feel at this time of year.  But I feel like that inspiration has no real direction.  I didn't have the opportunity to really reflect on the successes and failures of the previous year, and to plan for what I want to accomplish in this year.  I didn't have time to rest and recuperate.  So now I feel as though it's time for me to be entering into the next phase of the yearly cycle, without fully reaping the benefits of the previous one, which actually does sadden me a bit.

I don't have any great revelations to conclude this with.  It touches on an ongoing theme for me and many of my friends.  How do we, as Witches, embrace our own traditions while living in a world that so often doesn't support them?  It's a struggle that we all have to find our own answers to, and sometimes the answers change from year to year, from month to month, and from day to day.  I guess the main thing I have taken away from this experience is that it is so important to do whatever we can to protect those traditions.  When you're someone who tries to tie your life very closely to the cycles of the seasons, the cycles of the moon, etc., you have a limited window of opportunity to work within.  Once it's gone, it's gone.  I guess it's all about having healthy boundaries in place.  For me, I'm sure a major theme of the coming year will be finding ways to hold onto those boundaries, while still fulfilling the responsibilities of the occupation I have chosen.  I don't regret opening my store, by any means.  I love it, and it gives me far more rewards than anything else.  But I will admit that I hadn't anticipated what a challenge it would be to balance it against my Craft and my coven life.  I'm sure I'll get it all sorted out with time, but for now I have to go about the business of reconciling my sense of being robbed of my "down time" against my sense of inspiration for the new year!