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

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