Hello all, Here is wishing you a glorious start of 2001, This issue will more than make up for the scanty last issue and for the first time the only thing by me is my editorial comments here and on the link of the week which I am thrilled about. No Poetry this week but I know we will have more soon. Sheila K. Watkins Web page: Subscription & unsubscription information: Submissions: zeliziw@n... ~*~*~*~ The Knowing By The Raven This is a difficult article for me to write to start with because I am uncomfortable with the topic. It is the Knowing. This is far different from learning the Craft. Knowledge attained through learning I can comprehend. It is logical, sensible and has a point of reference bound by reality. But the Knowing has no logic, no based reality. It just is there. All my life I have fought this knowing. It made me different from my family. It made me a stranger and outcast. Even my friends looked at me with that quirky look in their faces when I spoke of the Knowing. Though later in my life I did eventually find out that at least one past family had the skills but they too hid them away. Only a small select few who knew kept their secret safe. Where to start in this revelation of my life. I guess perhaps the first time I can remember? I always saw thing that others did not. I can remember as a young girl going to the Battlefield of Gettesburg and seeing the men fighting at the Devil's Tower. I saw the gun smoke, the bearded men, and the gray uniforms. I thought how neat it was that people were reenacting the battle. How alive it made it become to one watching it. In some respects it is what made me join reenactors. A chance to show that history is more than just dates and places on a dull piece of flat paper. But I digress here. As we got closer I noticed my parents saw nothing. Despite my telling them what I saw I realized they did not. I guess that was the first time I realized just how different I was. I remember the comments, hard and cutting and thinking I could not let this interfere with being a "good" daughter. So I pushed it from my mind. I tried hard to ignore the "others" I would see periodically in my life. They would show up at the most damnedest times. Just when I thought I would have it all under control. Atmosphere, places, people. I seemed to sense beyond the norm. Who to trust and who to not, what place was good and what place held darkness. Where I was safe and where I was not safe. Some called it instinct. I chose to listen to that. But it was not. It was the Knowing. It happened more as I grew up despite all that I tried to do to hide it, bury it and deny it even curse it. It would come up and hit me between the eyes. Sometimes so strong it could knock me over. Once I wanted to follow the emotions of one gone to her death. That was in Yorktown. How I recall that like it were yesterday. I was there reenacting the battle with a Revolutionary group. Thousands of us all there for that important date. What I remember however is the bitter bone cold chill that followed me everywhere. Falling asleep in the middle of the day to be slapped awake by my friends concerned over my crying and screaming in my dreams. Dreams so vivid I checked my hands dozens of times for the blood that I dreamed congealed there. Of nearly falling to the ground when the British passed by playing a dirge of wanting to die because "he" died. So many things happened that weekend. Even to speak of them now brings that chill to my spine. And yet despite it all I still fought it. I could not be different. No matter what happened I had to fit into the mold my parents wanted of me. It was important. I had to be logical, grounded, and sensible. Yet it seemed the harder I tried the worse it actually got. Time and time again I would hear the sounds of those no longer here with us. I tried hard to avoid seeing them and in so that respect I succeeded but not always. Places seem to affect me the most. Strong emotions that were there. In my attempt to escape the Knowing I found those in reenacting who felt the same things. Those who knew the Knowing sensed a comrade in me and pushed me to try to explore these venues that I tried so hard to bury. In some cases certain ones seemed to bring it out even stronger in me. As though I fed on their energy. What exactly is the Knowing? I have often asked myself that, many times. Is it the seeing of the past? The future? Hearing things? Knowing things? I don't know. I think the Knowing is different for many people. It is that quiet voice within us that seems to know more than we are aware of. Too often we turn it off. I did for a long time. But I cannot deny it any longer. It is part of who I am. I am a spirit healer. I have come to that conclusion. I have an innate ability to see beyond words and tone of voice to see pain and suffering. I am only learning now to accept my gifts. And they are gifts not the plague like I once thought. I sometimes wonder what my life would have been like if I had allowed myself to nurture them earlier what would have happened. Would life have taken a different turn? Would my parents have even committed me? Who knows. But now I take that venture out on to the limb. I have allowed myself to a degree to step into this realm I fear. I say to a degree be what I fear. Yes even after all this time I still have that niggling fear of being different. I guess the Knowing is something many of us face. Some with great ease, others with great difficulty. It is the unknown. It is not scientific, touchable, or grounded. It is ethereal, wisps, tendrils of mists, flights of fantasy. And yet all so real to those of us blessed with the capability of the Knowing. Is there more than one type of Knowing. With some mixed emotions I say yes. I have only spoken of the one that causes me the most fear. But there is another I am aware of that affects my life. It is a Knowing of Understanding. I will talk on that later. ~*~*~*~ Cool Link of the week: Recent Developments in the Study of The Great European Witch Hunt Personally I think this is a must read. ~*~*~*~ A Look at Yule, The Winter Solstice By Moon Witch Yule is the Winter Solstice. The Winter Solstice is when the sun enters Capricorn and this year it does so on December 21. It is the longest night and shortest day of the year. It is the beginning of the waxing part of the year. Even though it is in the heart of winter, the days still begin to grow longer. It gives us the hope and thoughts of spring with the knowledge of the sun's rebirth. This is a time that many traditions recognize the battle between the Holly King and the Oak King. The Holly King reaches his time to go to the underworld and allow the Oak King to be reborn and grow to become ready to fertilize the land in spring. In days of old, families would gather for feasts and celebrations to call back the sun. Families spent much of the cold months together to share food and the warmth of the fire. Yule logs were burned as a symbol of calling back the sun. Wreaths were made to hang on the door as a symbol of the wheel of the year and the cycles of life. Yule is the name given the holiday by the pre-Christian Norse and Teutonic peoples. It was their principal holiday, marking the passage of the Winter Solstice, signaling the coming end of winter, and was their New Year. The word YULE meant "wheel" and referred to the returning of the "wheel of the year" to its starting point in their religious mythology. Many of the traditional seasonal icons, from the boar's head feast of the English to the Yule Log itself came from this pre-Christian culture. Our modern Santa Claus has his origins there, where Nik was another name used for the God Woden, and in some older stories, St. Nick rode across the skies on Woden's white horse. The Yule Tree is yet another survival of pre-Christian Teutonic custom and is thought to be connected to mythologies surrounding the Tree of Fire; Yggdrasil, The World Tree upon which the God Odin, giver of runic writing, hung for several days; and the earlier worship of dryads, or tree spirits. Wassailing, now used to refer to caroling, originally was the custom of offering of cider to a particular tree in each apple orchard, singing songs to it to insure the next season's crop. The modern association of deer with the season comes from the ancient tribal Horn Dance done to expel the winter spirits. The horn dance is done still today as a folk custom in parts of England. The eternal struggle of the Oak King and the Holly King of English mythology represents the struggle between winter and summer, between famine and plenty. The winter solstice celebrates the power of death and the rebirth of life. The forces of creation must inevitably fade into those of death and destruction, to maintain life and allow it to fulfill its purpose. The height of power contains the seeds of destruction, and the darkest night presages the birthday of the sun. It is a universal acknowledgment of the fact that in nature, something always must die to give life to something else. The decaying debris on the forest floor gives nurture and sustenance to the sprouting acorn. And so with the winter solstice and the rebirth of the sun and the promise of spring, hope returns eternally to mankind, as the wheel of the year turns relentlessly onward, around and around, with no beginning, and never ending. Although I have only touched on European and Middle eastern traditions, today, this season carries much meaning for many peoples of widely varying traditions, but in it is contained the same, reassuring truth: that all is not lost, and hope will return to brighten the hearts and lives of everyone, no matter which of this myriad of stories of the season you find to be personally most comforting. Copyright (c) 2000 Sheila K. Watson. All Rights Reserved