People around the Salt Lake Valley plan to welcome back the light this evening as they celebrate winter solstice.

Celebrations of the shortest day of the year date back more than 5,000 years to Ireland’s Newgrange, a stone structure thought to be used to recognize the solstice. Newgrange is built on a hill, and the building contains a chamber with a window that only allows in light from the sun during the winter solstice.

Tara Sudweeks Willgues, a minister at Church of the Sacred Circle, which promotes earth-based spirituality, said while no one knows how the structure was used, it’s apparent it was built for the solstice.

“It was built so long ago that any traditions around it have been lost,” she said.

But not having distinctly established traditions doesn’t stop her and several other Utahns from gathering each solstice to celebrate the impending return of longer days.

She and Edward Slomka are members of the Sun Stave Circle, and Slomka is in charge of planning this year’s celebration. Tonight’s activities will include the burning of a decorated Yule log and feature a living tree, which will be given to a participant to be planted in Heber. The Sun Stave Circle is a “nonorganization” that allows members to come and go and volunteer to host pagan events, such as the solstice celebration.

He and Willgues see clear ties between pagantraditions and Christianity’s celebration of Christmas. In many ancient cultures, such as the Roman Saturnalia, people brought greenery into their homes and exchanged gifts. Also, the Yule log was a tradition dating back to ancient Nordic cultures to help welcome back the sun.

“We start gaining more daytime again,” Slomka said. “By having light and burning the log, it symbolizes the light of hope and it’s evolved from there.”

Willgues calls the solstice a “fairly major celebration” in paganism, mainly because it has become so deeply ingrained.

“A lot of it has to do with ancient traditions, and now it’s all mishmashed into Western cultures,” Willgues said.

In addition to burning a Yule log, Slomka will offer an activity for people to make pinecone bird feeders, another show of respect for nature.

“You don’t have to be member of anything to come to our group,” Willgues said. “We welcome anyone who is curious about earth-based spirituality or wants to celebrate the solstice.”

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* SHEENA MCFARLAND can be contacted at smcfarland@sltrib.com or 801-257-8619.

* SUN STAVE CIRCLE: 7 p.m., South Valley Unitarian Church Building, 6878 S. Highland Drive. Bring a can of food for the homeless shelter and an item for a potluck dinner.
* UNITARIAN CHURCH OF OGDEN: 6-9 p.m., Earth-Centered Spirituality Group, 705 23rd St.

Source: Salt Lake Tribune

Shortly after 4 p.m. today, the North Pole will be tipped as far from the sun as it gets during its annual orbit, resulting in the shortest day of the year.

After that, the pole starts tipping back toward the sun, taking the Northern Hemisphere back into summer.

For some Spokane residents, it is more than just an astronomical occurrence – it is a time of religious celebration.

“For me it’s really important to observe Yule because it’s looking back at what this time is really about and sort of escaping the craziness,” said Kevan Gardner, a self-identifying Wiccan and member of the Spokane Unitarian Universalist Church, which is holding its annual Yule celebration tonight.

Gardner said that Yule is a time of hope, best expressed by a line from one of the songs sung during the season: “Even in the deepest dark, the light does shine.”

“We go through the dark, we go through the hard times, but there’s always hope ahead,” he said.

Gardner is part of a smaller group within the church called the Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans. Wiccans fall under the broader umbrella of paganism, said Gardner, who became involved in the Unitarian church after helping organize a Yule celebration 13 years ago.

Covenant education and outreach officer Terri Cailin described paganism as an umbrella faith that includes Earth-centered and non-Abrahamic traditions.

Gardner said he is a pantheist, believing divinity is found throughout the natural world and its inhabitants.

Cailin said tonight’s Yule celebration will encompass elements of various pagan faiths.

“We’re celebrating the dark and then inviting the sun to come back,” she said.

Kim is a Covenant member who asked that her last name not be used because she’s not “out of the broom closet” because of stigma attached to the concept of paganism. She said attendance at the overnight vigil that follows tonight’s service is usually sparse.

Participants stay at the church playing games or performing tarot readings.

“Witchy stuff,” she said.

As the sun rises, participants head outside to cheer, rattle drums, and sing as the sun comes up.

Kim describes the experience as a “very free-form organic ritual.”

Covenant’s celebration is falling after the solstice physically occurs. Washington State University astronomy instructor Michael Allen said the date varies each year due to the Earth’s orbit around the sun, with solstice occurring a few minutes past midnight on Friday, Greenwich Mean Time. With Spokane clocks set eight hours earlier, the solstice actually occurs this afternoon.

Allen said that around the time of the solstice, the sun just grazes the horizon at the North Pole. At lower latitudes, like Spokane, he said, the sun will be closer to the horizon than it is during the rest of the year, never getting directly overhead.

Solstices have been watched for thousands of years, and appear to have been significant to the civilizations that built Stonehenge and the Egyptian pyramids, Allen said.

Allen said the idea of a winter and summer solstice is a misnomer since today’s event is the Southern Hemisphere’s summer solstice.

Gardner said that while other churches share similar spiritual paths, the Unitarian church focuses on the values that unite the different religious practices of its members.

“We may have different sort of paths, but we agree on the same basic tenets,” including commitment to human life and stewardship of the Earth, he said.

Source: The Spokesman Review

With an estimated 400,000 members nationwide, and a high-profile fight with the federal government over veterans’ grave markers, Wiccans are moving into a more prominent place in the religious landscape.

And Selena Fox is leading the way.

A Wiccan priestess and founder of Circle Sanctuary, a 200-acre nature center in the Wisconsin woods about 30 miles west of Madison, Fox battles for acceptance of the so-called neo-pagan religion.

Though they are often equated with witches, many Wiccans reject the label because of the baggage it brings.

Fox, whose graying hair flows midway down her purple dress and matching cape, exudes more hippie-esque charm than any kind of Hollywood-conjured witchery. She embraces the task of fighting discrimination against Wiccans.

“Spirituality should be something that lifts the spirit,” she said.

Fox, a 57-year-old psychotherapist, wants to make clear that Wiccans do not worship the devil or engage in Satanism. She doesn’t cast spells, ride a broomstick or wear a pointy black hat.

The golden rule for Wiccans is, “And it harm none, do what you will.”

A nature-based religion, the Wiccan faith is founded on respect for the earth, nature and the cycle of the seasons.

A “yule tree,” which looks identical to a Christmas tree, sits in a corner of the 100-year-old red dairy barn Fox has converted into an office, meeting room and spiritual center.

“We worship the divine and we do that by recognizing that the divine permeates all of life,” Fox said.

The highest profile fight in Wiccans’ struggle for recognition is with the federal government over its refusal to allow pentacles on grave markers issued by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The pentacle, a symbol of Wiccans, is a five-pointed star representing earth, air, fire, water and spirit. Variations of it that are not part of the Wiccan belief have been used in horror movies as a sign of the devil.

Last month, Americans United for Separation of Church and State sued the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs on behalf of Circle Sanctuary and others arguing that the VA is violating the constitutional rights of Wiccans.

Buried at Circle Sanctuary’s cemetery are the remains of two soldiers – a Vietnam veteran from Ohio, and Jerome Birnbaum, a Korean War veteran. There also is a memorial to Nevada National Guard Sgt. Patrick Stewart, who was killed in Afghanistan last year.

The widows of Stewart and Birnbaum are part of the lawsuit.

Fox and others say not including the pentacle on the list of accepted grave marker symbols is especially maddening because the Army Chaplain handbook has listed ways to accommodate Wiccans since 1978 and about 1,800 active-duty service members identify themselves as Wiccans, according to 2005 Defense Department statistics.

Fox said the VA’s lack of acceptance of the pentacle points to prejudice.

“I didn’t want to have to sue the government to try to get the U.S. Constitution upheld,” Fox said. “It’s discrimination. There’s no other explanation I can think of.”

A spokesman for the VA had no comment, citing the ongoing litigation.

People are attracted to the Wiccan religion for its devotion to nature and incorporation of both male and female deities, said Nikki Bado-Fralick, an assistant professor of religion and women’s studies at Iowa State University.

She estimates the number of Wiccans nationwide has increased from about 40,000 in the late 1970s to around 400,000 today.

The Census Bureau, based on a survey in which people self-report their religion, put the number at a more modest 134,000 as of 2001. Fox said she thinks that number is low because many Wiccans fear reporting their religion.

“Oh lord, everyone thinks you worship the devil,” said Joey Bunbury, a 39-year-old property manager from Madison and a Wiccan for about a decade. “People don’t understand.”

Some Wiccans use the name good witch, pagan or neo-pagan, to describe their spirituality, but others say there’s just too much of a negative connotation and prefer to be called Wiccans.

“There’s a misinterpretation that says if you say you’re pagan or Wiccan, you’re weird,” said Jerrie Hildebrand, an ordained Wiccan minister living in Salem, Mass. “Most of us look like Joe or Jane America and you’d never know.”

Hildebrand is assistant director of the Lady Liberty League, a group headed by Fox that addresses discrimination.

She said the group receives more than 100 complaints a year, and only a handful ever get amicably resolved.

Complaints range from school children being told they can’t wear jewelry with Wiccan symbols to workers who face harassment.

Source: San Diego Union Tribune

Some commonly held Wiccan beliefs and practices include:

_ The Wiccan religion and related pagan religions incorporate revivals, continuations, and adaptations of customs, mythology, symbology, folkways, worldviews, and spiritual practices from pre-Christian Europe.

_ Those who follow the Wiccan religion refer to themselves as Wiccans. Some use the ancient term for wise ones, witches, but others avoid this term because of negative connotations. Groups of Wiccans sometimes are called circles or covens.

_ The major branches of paganism include the Wiccan religion, Unitarian Universalism Paganism, Druidism, Teutonic Paganism (Asatru), and Eclectic Paganism.

_ Honoring nature is considered central to Wiccans’ spiritual practice. Humans are viewed as part of nature, not as its dominators or owners.

_ Wiccans worship “The Divine,” or god, in one or more forms, often as a Mother Goddess and Father God.

_ Wiccans recognize eight holy times during the year, known as Sabbats, which are marked by rituals and feasting, and which include the Solstices, Equinoxes and mid-points between.

_ Wiccans invoke the elements of nature — earth, air, fire, water — at the start of rituals and thank them at the end.

_ Most Wiccans and pagans believe in an afterlife and some form of reincarnation. They believe it is possible to contact and communicate with dead people.

_ Some pagan holy places include Stonehenge in England, Newgrange in Ireland, and Delphi in Greece.

_ Some of the ceremonial tools used by Wiccans for their worship include the pentacle, chalice, incense, candles, herbs, wands, crystals, and Tarot cards.

_ The predominant form of ritual and social space for Wiccans and most pagans is the circle.

Source: International Herald Tribune