Friday, December 22, 2017

YULE: Solstice. Santa was a Shaman (video)

English Heritage; Amber Larson, Pat Macpherson, Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly




The Story of Yule
Wikipedia edited by Wisdom Quarterly

Xmas traditions came from the Vikings
Yuletide ("Yule time") is a festival observed by the historical Germanic peoples.

Scholars have connected the celebration to the Wild Hunt, the god Odin, and the pagan Anglo-Saxon Mōdraniht. It was later ruined as it underwent Christianized reformulation resulting in the term Christmas time.

 
Terms with an etymological equivalent to Yule are used in the Nordic countries for Xmas with its religious rites and also for the holidays of this season.

Today Yule is used to a lesser extent in the English-speaking world as a synonym for Christmas.

Present-day "Christmas" appropriated many customs and traditions such as the Yule log, Yule goat, Yule boar, Yule singing, and others stem from pagan Yule.

Today the event is celebrated in Heathenry and some other forms of Modern Paganism.



This video is a timelapse of the sun rising at Stonehenge -- the ancient British site revered by Neopagans, Druids, Wiccans, and New Agers -- on the 22nd of December 2017. It shows the first sunrise after the shortest day of the year and the winter solstice.
Why "Yule"?
Yule (modern English representation of Old English ġéol/ġéohol and ġéola/ġéoli) the former indicating the 12-day Yule Festival -- later stolen by Christians and renamed "Christmas time."

The latter indicates the month of "Yule," whereby ǽrra ġéola referred to the period before the Yule festival (December) and æftera ġéola referred to the period after Yule (January).

Shamanism worldwide: Scythia to USA
Both words are thought to be derived from Common Germanic, jeχʷla-.

They are cognate with Gothic (fruma) jiuleis; Old Norse, Icelandic, Faroese, and Norwegian Nynorsk jól, jol, ýlir; Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian Bokmål jul [Bosworth & Toller (1898:424); Hoad (1996:550); Orel (2003:205); "Bokmålsordboka | Nynorskordboka" (ordbok.uib.no)].
 
The etymology of the word, however, remains uncertain. But numerous speculative attempts have been made to find Indo-European cognates outside the Germanic group, too (Orel, 2003:205). The noun Yuletide is first attested from around 1475 (Barnhart, 1995:896).
 
The word is attested in an explicitly pre-Christian context primarily in Old Norse. Among many others (see List of Names of Odin), the long-bearded god Odin bears the names jólfaðr (Old Norse for "Yule father") and jólnir ("the Yule one"). More

The Longest Night of the Year
(timeanddate.com) Northern Hemisphere Winter Solstice: (North America, Central America, Europe, Asia, Northern Africa). December Solstice in New York, NY, USA is on Thursday, Dec. 21, 2017 at 11:28 am EST.
(usatoday.com) The winter solstice -- also known as Yule, Midwinter, the Shortest Day of the Year, and the Longest Night -- occurs at 11:28 am ET Thursday. But this short, little day with the great many names also may be the worst day of the year, according to astrologers. The reason? Saturn. Apparently, the sun will...
(washingtonpost.com) The 2017 winter solstice arrives on Thursday at 11:28 AM Eastern Time.
(northjersey.com) The winter solstice of 2017 is coinciding with a nasty astrological situation. 
(cnn.com) The winter solstice not only marks the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, but it also marks the shortest night. If you live south of the equator, everything is flipped and reversed -- longest day and shortest night of the year.
(aljazeera.com) Today Google celebrates the solstice, which marks the start of summer in the south, and winter in the north. 
(independent.co.uk) Today's animated Google Doodle marks winter solstice as the UK is plunged into darkness, with just seven hours and 49 minutes of daylight to relieve the gloom. 
(newsweek.com) When the sun directly hits the Tropic of Capricorn on Dec. 21 at 11:28 am EST, it will mark the deepest and longest part of winter. The winter solstice, in a literal sense, marks the shortest day of the year in the Northern hemisphere. But it's a scientific phenomenon steeped in cultural... 
(foreverconscious.com) The December 2017 Solstice falls on the 21st and marks a significant turning point and start of a new cycle. In the Northern Hemisphere, the December Solstice is the first day of winter and a time of inward reflection. In the Southern Hemisphere, the December Solstice is the start of summer and a time of... 
(theguardian.com) It was soggy but joyful among the stones, which have been found this year to help mental wellbeing.

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