Old Time Religion

Here it is the longest night of the year.  By rights as a long-lapsed neo-pagan (an orientation I flirted with in my neo-hippie days, back during the neophyte decade of my 20s), I should kindle a Yule log, make wild music and raise (multiple) horns of usquebaugh to the winter stars.  I did that, once, with the Waters of the Brandywine Grove of New Reformed Druids, and must say that any religion that has single malt as its sacrament has at least one undeniable good point.

We will worship like the Druids, Drinking strange fermented fluids, Running naked through the woo-ids, Coz that's good enough for me!

But while that Old Time Religion has its charms, it doesn't do for everyday.  Though before you take my disavowal too seriously, check out the Greenman who presides over this blog.  That is hardly a jolly old elf I've chosen as my avatar.  There is no white to those feral eyes.  And anyone who has attended as many Renaissance faires in full garb as I have - and who was a known associate of witches while living the life of what at Bryn Mawr (women's) College was colloquially referred to as a "Bryn Man" - has a healthy streak of the heathen going despite protestations to the contrary.  The point is, the spirit moves in mysterious ways.  There, now I've scuttled my chances at that Senate bid.  One less thing for us all to worry about.

In any case, a couple of weekends ago the family traveled to Turners Falls, Massachusetts to watch my cousin Margaret and her three children perform Welcome Yule with the local community revels.  I think Morris dancing has a lot to recommend it, particularly as done with clacking caribou antlers, and I have a fondness for singing wassail and the minor keys of medieval carols.  The performance of "On This Day Earth Shall Ring" by a willowy masked contralto was hauntingly done.  Elias was a bit unnerved by the blue woaded woodwoses - and who wouldn't be - but his sister heard the siren call of the theater and is drawn to the stage like nutmeg to eggnog. The cousins were enchanting and a grand time was had by all.

I like my religion in small doses of high ceremony.  Give me a vaulted cathedral where my tenor note hangs in the frosty air from choir to nave. For me the leaping lord of the dance and the rumble of the 5th Avenue subway beneath St. Thomas Church during the service of lessons and carols.  I'll take Linus reciting the King James Gospel to re-right the Christmas pageant derailed by consumerism.  Give me a bit of magic and mystery, though I despair of ever having true Faith.

Blessings on you all at the turning of the year.  And now for some mead.