For those who celebrate December as a Yule festival of winter in and around the solstice I send the warmest of wishes! And surely there is no better emblem than the Yew tree. An ancient and sacred symbol of life and death with its lush red edible berries for birds to enjoy and its poisonous seeds and evergreen needles!
“Of boughs, as if for festal purpose decked
With unrejoicing berries -ghostly Shapes
May meet at noontide: Fear and trembling Hope,
Silence and Foresight, Death the Skeleton
And Time the Shadow; there to celebrate,
As in a natural temple scattered o’er
With altars undisturbed of mossy stone,…”
William Wordsworth
And some of us are just now starting the celebration of Hanukkah, the Jewish festival of lights or 8 nights of candle lighting. Primarily an enactment of re-sanctification, after desecration by others and just as pertinent in 2025 with the last of the live hostages returned from Gaza to their homeland.
“Light the first of eight tonight—
the farthest candle to the right….
To celebrate the joyous day
when we regained the right to pray
to our one God in our own way.”
Aileen Lucia Fischer
שלום בבית (Shalom babayit) – Peace in your home
And I shall be away, here on in, holidaying until the end of December and no doubt will have plenty of opportunity for more church crawling in Cornwall but still, like “The Maji”, celebrating Christmas as the reason for the season
“Now as at all times I can see in the mind’s eye,
In their stiff, painted clothes, the pale unsatisfied ones
Appear and disappear in the blue depths of the sky
With all their ancient faces like rain-beaten stones,
And all their helms of silver hovering side by side,
And all their eyes still fixed, hoping to find once more,
Being by Calvary’s turbulence unsatisfied,
The uncontrollable mystery on the bestial floor.”
W.B. Yeats
"But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans[a] of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.” Micah 5:2
Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and every blessing –
This post was pre-timed for publication before news of the Islamic attacks on Bondi beach against those celebrating Chanukah. 15 or so dead and dozens of victims but Ahmed Al Ahmed, an unarmed Muslim bystander who disarmed one assailant, must be counted amongst the righteous.
PoetryPix 