new year Archives - The Rational Heathen

Honoring the New Year

January 1, 2018 Tyra Ulfdottir Comments 0 Comment

I started doing research about New Year’s celebrations and ended up laughing at Christian pages that talk about how pagan celebrating the New Year is and how “good Christians” shouldn’t celebrate it. Whatever, bro. Tell that to the millions–if not billions–of partiers who are happy to ring in the New Year.

Holy Days of Obligation and the History Behind New Year’s Day Celebrations

Technically, New Year’s Day is a Christian celebration. Granted, a co-opted Christian celebration, but one just the same. The Roman Catholic Church couldn’t get past the Roman tradition of celebrating Saturnalia and the the first day of the month honoring the god, Janus, so it co-opted the celebrations and made New Year’s Day the celebration of Jesus’s circumcision. Vatican II made it a holy day of obligation in 1969 to venerate the “Virgin” Mary. Just so you would go to mass with a hell of a hangover and hear the priest rail against those who indulged the night before.

But to a large degree, those Christian web pages are right. Celebrating New Year’s Day is technically pagan. The first celebrations of the New Year happened during Mesopotamian times some 4000 years ago on the vernal equinox (that being their new year.) The Romans celebrated New Year’s on the Ides of March (remember Julius Caesar?) The Romans eventually switched their calendar over to January 1st since that was the day when they inaugurated new consuls and tended to keep track of years by consul terms.

A Holiday for the World

You look at just about any civilization that kept a calendar and you’ll find some sort of New Year’s celebration or observance. The Hindus recognize New Year during different times depending on the region. We Heathens recognize December 21st as our new year where the veil between the worlds are at their thinnest. The Wiccans recognize Samhain as being their new year. The Chinese and Vietnamese celebrate their own version of New Year’s sometime between January 20th and February 20th, depending on when their year ends. That’s a lot of non-Christians celebrating the beginning of a new year.

Why Celebrate the Ending of an Old Year and the Coming of a New One?

I think the reason why the new year is so appealing is to turn over a new leaf, as it were. It’s a time to reflect on the past year and hope for a better year ahead. It’s as if we collectively want to step back and take a breath from what we’re doing to celebrate the possibilities that lie ahead. We, as humans, need a time to say good-bye to the old and hello to the new. Hence, we celebrate the coming of the new year.

Happy New Year, my friends and readers! I hope 2018 is filled with wonder and magic for you.

The Last Breath of the Old Year

January 1, 2017 Tyra Ulfdottir Comments 0 Comment

Yule feels more powerful up north. I say that from experience. While you could feel the race of the season towards the longest night of the year in lower latitudes, it is definitive the further north you travel. Toward yule, we lose around 4 minutes of sunlight a day, but on the flip side, we start gaining it back at the same rate.

The Entire World Takes a Breath

This time of the year feels as though the entire world has slowed down and is taking a long breath. If that makes any sense, whatsoever. The days are short. The stars are bright in the frosty sky. The quality of light is different too. Animals are working hard to find food; many of them have shown up on my land in the hopes of finding something edible.

This year, I’ve been working hard to get things done before the sun sets in the southwest horizon. Even on the opposite side of the solstice, it feels like the magic of this special time of year is still in effect.

Return of the Light

Even as I say this, on New Year’s Day it feels like the light is finally returning. It’s 12 days after Yule and we’ve gained more than a half hour of light. Still, winter is here and Skadi will be bringing us some of the coldest days we’ve had in awhile.

This year, we’re prepared for the worst of it (we hope) with enough firewood for the winter. Still, it is often a close run thing. But the sun is returning, and every day is growing longer. So, we have the promise of spring during this dark and cold time.

New Year’s Celebrations

I’ve never really been one for New Year’s celebrations. We’ve often avoided “amateur night,” as my husband blithely puts it. The fact that it is simply a man-made date on a calendar has much to do with it. Where you decide to end one year and start the next is largely subjective. Yet, much of the celebrations seem to follow our Yule. New Year’s marks the end of our Yule, and the beginning of our next year in our modern calendar. (I write this as I hear fireworks and gunshots from my neighbor’s New Year’s Eve party from a quarter mile away. I’m in a rural area; gunshots are expected.) It seems fitting to say goodbye to the year with the end of our Yule.

I had written how Yule had been primarily a non-event. That much is true. Yet, I used the time to observe nature around me while I was getting the farm chores done. It really does seem like nature does take a breath during this dark time as we turn the corner and head into the light.

Hope you had a good Yule, and I wish you the best for next year. See you on the other side.

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Images courtesy of Magickal Graphics.

Thoughts on the New Year

January 4, 2016 Tyra Ulfdottir Comments 0 Comment

Well, Happy New Year.

Or happy fucking new year.

The cynic in me is grumpy because I’m overworked, underpaid, and had a shitload of animal deaths in 2015. If I were a Christian, I’d be asking god why this happened and why is he punishing me. Instead, I ask Tyr why this is happening and why this feels like I’m being punished.

See the difference?

No, well, some days I don’t either. And having been raised in the Christian tradition, I sometimes forget that bad things just happen. So, I whine and complain.

On the other hand, I did save one of my very sick critters — no thanks to the vet who came out here. It took my powers of deduction and research to figure it out and treat the problems. I would’ve saved my animals if my vets had been more on the ball. But no.

Enough Whining and Onto the New Year

The end of the year always feels like the end of things to me. I have actually referred to it as the bottom of the year because the days are shorter, life slows, and the life cycle awaits the sun for rejuvenation. Here in the Northern latitudes, the loss of light and gaining of light is far more pronounced. We have afterglow from the sun for up to an hour longer in the evening, which you don’t see in more southerly states, but we lose a lot of light fast as we trek toward Yule. Once the solstice has passed, we gain light at a frenetic rate as well.

The New Year is Always a Surprise

Oddly enough, the new year always catches me by surprise. I suddenly realize there are things I must do now that December is over and I feel like such a slacker. At the same time, I’m still getting stuff done that I should’ve gotten done in December, had it not been for the holidays. December I was getting stuff done that should’ve been done during hunting season. And so on. I realize that every season I have things to do. Soon, it will be kidding season, assuming any of breedings took hold with my goats.

Ah, the joys of a new year. May you have a better new year than last year. I’m hoping for it.