editorial
by Melanie Fire Salamander
I want you to know that as I wrote that title, part of me went "Gack!" In other words: "A time for family! I'm outta here!"
Here lies the problem with this time of year. So many of us, for very good reasons, think of now as a time when we're commandeered by guilt into visiting members of our family we'd rather not see. My love for certain relatives grows at the inverse of their proximity. But I also want to make them happy... so often I have gone to visit at Yule. We all do it. (Or if we don't, that points to a greater rift, perhaps greater pain.) Often we're dragged across the country at great expense of money and time, waiting interminably in airports that get fogged in or snowed out, for planes that break down or come in late -- I know their tardiness doesn't stem from airline attendants partying in the skies, but sometimes it feels like that when the crew sails down the walkway, all cheerful, not a hair out of place, to the holding pen where I've been steaming for millennia.
This year, our discomforts are magnified by pure terror, brought to you by our pals the Al Qaeda. We console ourselves that statistically our particular planes probably won't be hijacked, but when a dark-haired man gets up and strides purposefully up the aisle of the plane, I know something in me jumps, even if he's heading for the first-class restroom.
Or you could take the bus. Don't get me started on the bus.
Besides the vagaries of family togetherness and travel, I could talk about our ultramaterial culture, the commercialization of the season, the stress of buying, ring those chimes so often rung this time of year.
But I won't.
I'd rather focus now on the good of this season, which is a lot. It's my feeling we have to reclaim for ourselves this time of year, the winter solstice, one of early pagans' most cherished festival times. Maybe you love the pageantry, the lights and decorations, greenery hung high on walls and windows; maybe it's a focus for you to recast this season as a Yule of personal symbolism. Maybe not. But as pagans, as humans, we feel something about the return of the light, the sun stopping on its perceived journey northward, hanging in the balance, then coming back to warm our gardens, our homes, our lives.
As pagans, as humans, we feel something about family, too. Humans are social animals, litters from mammal mothers. Just as we can remake Yule, we can remake the concept of family. Doing so does not preclude settling feelings about our families of birth, a therapeutic process that benefits anyone. But around our Yule tables, in our Yule rites, we can draw together the family we choose. We can purge the holly and the ivy of its past associations and hang it as a purely pagan gesture, a gesture of love.
Family is looking to the next generation, too, our children, for those who choose to continue the race. In this issue, Barb talks about a kids' winter season; Lisa writes about how to include children in ritual. Sienna writes about teaching your kids how to follow their True Will. We also have a new astrological column with a focus on using the stars in magick, by Thea; a review of this year's Hecate's Sickle festival by Blackcat; our musical column by Genevieve; and musings on spirit and chaos magick by George D. Jackson. Each writer forms part of our Widdershins family --to whose members I extend my love and gratitude. You, reader, are part of that family too, if you want to be: the most important part. I wish you all happiness in your Yuletide and New Year.