The winter solstice has passed. The joys of the festive season, while still fresh in the memory, are over for another year. Now it’s time to look forward to a new year and the various celebrations and changes to come. While winter still has a few dark and cold days to share with us, attention…
December sees a plethora of religious and cultural celebrations worldwide, including Christmas, New Year, Hannukah, and Kwanzaa. The month also plays host to the year’s darkest day on December 21 or 22 which comes with the promise of the returning Light. Tracing the origins of these holiday seasons is a fascinating subject, and something I…
The other day I was thinking about all that’s going on in the world that could trigger fear, hopelessness, or even despair. Having a fairly well developed cynical side to me—though not even close to being as dominant as it once was—sometimes it’s easy to fall into that trap and hang out there for a…
Samhain (pronounced SOW-en) is perhaps the most important but least understood of the ancient Celtic festivals. The word Samhain means “summer’s end,” and marks the end of harvest and the start of the darkest time of the year. A time when the veil between the world of the living and the world of the dead…