Wicca Faith & the Yule Sabbath.

Sabbath: Etymology.

The word 'Sabbath' (originally spelled in Irish Celtic) / 'Sabat' (European Portuguese) / 'Sabá' (Brazilian Portuguese) derives from the word 'Sábado' which derives from the Latin 'Sabbatum', which in turn derives from the Greek 'Sábbaton', which originates from ‘Shabat/Shabbat’ the Hebrew word שבת 'Shavat'/'Shabăt' ('Shabos'/'Shabes' in Ashkenazi pronunciation), meaning 'to rest'.

More specifically, the Hebrew term שבת ('Shabat'/'Shabbat') refers to the act of 'stopping work'/'resting from work'.

Therefore, Shabbat is the day of rest in Judaism dedicated to the cessation of work activities, symbolizing the Seventh Day of Genesis (Hebrew Bible), after the 6 days of Creation.

It is the 7th day of the week, dedicated to prayer and rest, commemorating God's cessation of creation on the 7th day. Observed from sunset on Friday until sunset on Saturday, its exact timing varies from place to place according to the time of sunset.

Besides being a day of rest, Shabbat is also a time for family gatherings, celebrating the Jewish faith, and remembering the redemption of the Jewish people from Egypt.

The Witches' Sabbath.

The Pagan Sabbath, also known as the "Witches' Sabbath" or "Aquelarre", is the name given to a celebration of Pagan witchcraft practitioners and their rituals. Just as the Goddess is honored through the lunar cycles, the God is revered through the solar cycles (seasons). Thus, we have the four Lesser Sabbaths, which occur at the Solstices (summer and winter) and Equinoxes (autumn and spring). And the four Greater Sabbaths, which are the seasonal transition periods between the Solstices and Equinoxes. The eight Sabbaths make up the pagan solar calendar called the Wheel of the Year.

As discussed in a previous article, the Wheel of the Year was redefined after the founding of the Wicca religion/faith by Gerald Gardner in the 1950s, who initially standardized the celebration of only the Greater Sabbaths. The celebration of the Lesser Sabbaths was only adopted in 1958 by Wiccan witches of the Bricket Wood Coven, before influencing and being adopted by other members of the Gardnerian tradition, and eventually by the Alexandrian and Dianic traditions.

The Yule Sabbath: Etymology.

The word 'Yule' has roots in ancient Germanic languages, possibly from the Proto-Germanic 'Jehwlą' meaning 'celebration'/'festival' or the Proto-Indo-European 'Yeka', 'play'/'joke'.

According to the English monk and historian, Venerable Bede, the word 'Yule' comes from the Norse 'Iul' meaning 'Wheel'. ‘Yule’ (from Old English: ‘Géol’/’Géola’), also known as ‘Jól’ (Old Norse), ‘Júl’ (Scandinavian), ‘Mid-winter’ (Modern English), and ‘Alban Asthuran’ (Gaelic: ‘Arthur’s light’—refers to the rebirth of Arthur, the Sun King of myth, the Divine Child), means ‘around Christmas’/’Christmas’/’Nativity’ and represents ‘the child of promise’/’seed of light’.

It was considered the true Christmas by the tribes and peoples of pre-Christian Europe, and thus, because of its importance, it was syncretized by the Catholic Christian faith as ‘Christian Christmas’.

History of the Yule Sabbath.

It was the first seasonal festival celebrated by the Neolithic tribes of northern Europe, making it the oldest, and to this day it is considered the beginning of the Wheel of the Year by the pagan philosophies and faiths of the Northern Hemisphere (NH).

The Scandinavians have a God named Uller (Norse pantheon) who is honored during Yule within the Norse tradition, where it is considered the new year.

It is one of the four minor Sabbaths that marks the winter solstice in the Wheel of the Year. Its first day has the shortest day and the longest night of the year. During this period, the Goddess, at the end of her ancient age, gives birth to the new Horned Sun God, who will soon fertilize her again and bring joy back into her life. It is the return of light, since everything was dark with the death of the God on the Sabbath of Samhain. The rebirth of the Sun God at Yule is a sign that winter will soon be over and a new phase is approaching again: spring.

To celebrate the birth of the Horned Sun God, snow-covered trees are covered with candles, gifts, food, and colorful baubles that symbolize the God's fertility. At the top of the tree (the pine tree was chosen because it is one of the most resistant plants to extreme and harsh winters) they often placed the most common pagan symbol, the pentagram (a five-pointed star without a circle around it). With Christianization, these customs were readapted to the story of Jesus Christ and the Christian celebration of Christmas. With Christianization, many of these customs were incorporated and reinterpreted within the Christian tradition, connecting them to the story of Jesus Christ and the celebration of Christmas.

The highlight of the Yule celebration is the Horned Sun God, who is reborn and bringing back his energy and light. With this, the Goddess will smile again and return to her youthful/maiden face in the spring.

During this Sabbath, it was quite common to bring trees indoors to offer shelter to the nature spirits, survival, and protection during the winter — which in the Northern Hemisphere is quite harsh and intense.

Gifts were offered to the spirits, food to the fauna struggling due to the extreme cold, and protection to the flora. The trees were kept in a cozy location, decorated and protected from the cold, and families were blessed and protected by the nature spirits themselves.

Yule celebrates the life and rebirth of the Horned Sun God, so that winter will not be so harsh. Dances, music, and food and drink are offered to the newborn God. In the decorations of the tree, the Yule log (preferably oak), and the house, holly is used to symbolize the God's semen and mistletoe to symbolize the Goddess's womb. It is a time of trust in the return of light, envisioning the future, and listening to the guidance of one's inner voice. A time to recharge and rest our triad (mind, heart, soul/spirit), retreat, introspection, self-knowledge, and connect with the latent life within us, with the deep desires of the heart, soul, and spirit, with what wants to be born/reborn. It brings the work of our great Mother Earth.

Christianization.

Nativity Story:

The nativity story is the Christian version of the theme of the rebirth of the Sun, as Jesus Christ is the Sun God of the Christian Era. Jesus' birth is not dated in the Gospels and was not given until 273 CE (common era = after Christ (AD)) when the Church took the symbolically sensitive step of officially setting him at midwinter to align him with the other Sun Gods (e.g., the Persian Mithra, also born at the winter solstice). As Saint Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople (present-day Istanbul, Turkey), explained a century later with praised candor, the nativity of 'the sun of virtue' was fixed so that 'while the pagans were occupied with their rituals, the Christians could perform theirs without disturbance.'

‘Profane’ or ‘sacred’ depended on one’s perspective, since both were essentially celebrating the same thing — the annual tidal cycle of darkness toward light. Saint Augustine recognized the solar significance of the festival when he urged Christians to celebrate it for the one who created the Sun, much more than for the Sun itself.

Mary in Bethlehem is once again the Goddess life-in-death (her young/maiden face). Jerome, the greatest scholar of the Christian Fathers, who lived in Bethlehem from 386 until his death in 420 CE, recounts that there was also a grove of Adonis (mortal lover of Persephone and Aphrodite—Greek pantheon—personification of the Sumerian fertility god, Tammuz) there. Tammuz, beloved of the Goddess Ishtar (also called Inanna — Goddess of love, eroticism, fecundity, and fertility in the Mesopotamian pantheon), was the supreme model of the dead and resurrected God in that part of the world. He was a God of flora (vegetation and grain); and Christ absorbed an aspect of this kind as much as the solar aspect, as the sacrament of bread suggests. As the Scottish anthropologist and writer James Frazer points out in his book The Golden Bough (p. 455), it is significant that the name Bethlehem means ‘the house of bread.’

The resonance between the cycle of grain and the cycle of the sun is reflected in many customs. For example, the Scottish tradition of keeping the “grain maiden” (the last handful harvested) until Yule and then distributing it among the livestock to make it grow throughout the year; or, in the other sense, the German tradition of scattering the ashes of the Yule log across the fields or keeping its charred remains to bind them to the last bale of the next harvest (again, the magical properties of everything surrounding the Sabbath fire, including its ashes, for the Yule log is, in essence, the Sabbath fire brought indoors from the cold of winter).

For Christianity to remain a viable philosophy of faith and to engage with the popular spirituality of the time, the Queen of Heaven was readmitted to obtain what, in fact, was her true status: a mythology and popular devotion that far exceeded, and sometimes even conflicted with, the biblical data about Mary.

She received this status (of Virgin Mary) because she represented what British historian Geoffrey Ashe calls "a Goddess-shaped yearning" — a deep desire to reconnect with the sacred feminine, which had been silenced for centuries by patriarchal structures within religious institutions. (This is not the essence of Jesus' teachings — who honored and respected women — but rather later interpretations, such as that of Saint Paul, which ended up limiting the view of sexuality and women's roles.)

The virtual deification of Mary came with alarming speed, initiated by the Council of Ephesus in 431 CE, "amid great popular jubilation, due, no doubt, to the influence that the cult of the Virgin Artemis still held sway in the city." Significantly, this coincided closely with the determined suppression of the cult of the Egyptian goddess Isis (Goddess of magic, fertility, motherhood, nature, and protection — the Egyptian pantheon), which had spread throughout the known world.

From then on, theologians struggled to discipline Mary, allowing her "hyperdulia" (over-veneration — a graduated version, unique to her, of "dulia," the veneration permitted to saints), but not "latria" (the worship that was the monopoly of the male God). They determined, throughout Over the centuries, an official synthesis of the Queen of Heaven was constructed, through which they accomplished the remarkable double feat of desexualizing the Goddess and dehumanizing Mary — redefining Mary in idealized molds, dissociating her from the human dimension. But they could not stifle her power. It is to her that the common worshipper (knowing nothing or caring about the distinction between "hyperdulia" and "latria") turns, "now and at the hour of our death".

Protestantism, in its quest to reform the faith, ended up going to another extreme, further reducing the symbolic space for the sacred feminine. But in trying to banish it, it lost the magic that weaves the soul of the world — a magic that, even veiled and reinterpreted, Catholicism still retained in its symbols. For the Goddess, the sacred feminine, cannot be erased.

Silent plays of the Christmas season.

The Yule Goddess also presides over another God theme — "The Oak King and the Holly King", which also survived in popular Christmas tradition, though much of official theology ignored it.

In the silent plays of the Christmas season, the brilliant Saint George killed the dark "Turkish Knight" and then immediately cried out that he had killed his brother. "Shadows and light, winter and summer, are complementary to each other." Then comes the mysterious "doctor" with his magic bottle who resurrects the dead man, and all ends with music and joy. There are many local variations of this game, but the action is substantially the same throughout. (Doreen Valiente — Encyclopedia of Witchcraft, pp. 358–360)

Often, of course, the harmonious balance of the necessary twins of darkness and light, of waning and waxing, has been distorted into a concept of good versus evil.

In Dewsbury, Yorkshire (northern England, United Kingdom), for approximately seven centuries, the bells of the Catholic Church have rung in the last hour of Christmas Eve a melody traditionally known as “The Passing of the Old Boy,” symbolically announcing that the light of the “Prince of Peace” is coming to triumph over darkness. At midnight, they then ring in celebration of the birth. An ancient tradition, but one that reflects how ancient archetypes of nature — like the “Holly King” — have been misinterpreted over time.

Strange as it may seem, the popular name "Old Nick" for the demon reflects the same distorted interpretation. Nik was the name for Woden (Anglo-Saxon and Germanic god of war, wisdom, and magic — Anglo-Saxon pantheon — personification of the god Odin of the Norse pantheon), who is a figure closely connected to the holly king — as is Santa Claus, also called Saint Nicholas of Myra (Norse Catholic Christianity — in early folklore, he was not transported by reindeer, but rode a white horse across the sky, like Woden). Thus, Nik, god of the waning year, came to be described in two different ways in traditions: as Satan (Christianity, Islam, and Judaism — the fallen archangel, the chief adversary of humanity and all that is divine, also called the Devil) and also as the most joyful of saints.

The Bromley (Greater London, England, UK) ‘Horn Dance’, celebrated in Abbot (Piscataquis County, Maine, USA) (now a September (HN) ritual, formerly a Yule ritual), is based on the parish church of St. Nicholas of Myra. This suggests a direct continuity from the days when the local patron saint was not Nicholas, but Nik. In Italy, the place of Santa Claus is taken by a witch lady called Befana (Epiphany), who flies through the neighborhood on Three Kings' Day eve on her broomstick, bringing gifts to children up chimneys.

🎄 Yule Sabbath: References and Tradition.

Yule - References:

The true Christmas, winter solstice, lesser Sabbath.

🔸 Southern Hemisphere (SH): June 20–21 to July 31

🔸 Northern Hemisphere (NH): December 21 to January 31

Yule - Key Questions:

🔸 What is the most precious seed I wish to see sprout in the spring?

🔸 What is most important and essential to me?

Yule - Correspondences:

🔎 Focuses: acceptance of what cannot be changed, self-knowledge.

🤍 Cultivation: cultivation of domestic happiness, security, family unity, and home.

🧘‍♀️ Practices: rest, introspection, welcoming elders, caregivers, and the absent.

⭐ Purpose: Rebirth of light and hope.

🧭 Direction: North.

🎨 Colors: White, gold, green, red.

Yule - Symbols and Decorations:

❄️ Natural Symbols: Evergreen trees, snowflakes, dried leaves, pine trees, pine cones, mistletoe and holly, Yule log.

🎁 Other Symbols: Wreaths, pine tree decorated with baubles, cinnamon stick pentagram, gifts, bells, candles in Sabbath colors.

💐 Altar: Elves, evergreen trees, lights, holly, mistletoe, pine cones, wreaths, Yule log.

🦌 Animals: Cold-weather animals, eagle, wren, cardinal, deer, owl, squirrel, snow goose, wolf, robin, fox, swine (boar, pig), tiger, bear.

💎 Crystals & Stones: citrine, diamond, emerald, garnet, labradorite, snowflake obsidian, moonstone, bloodstone, clear quartz, ruby.

🕯️ Scents: cinnamon, cedarwood, clove, ginger, peppermint, myrrh, frankincense, pine, juniper.

🌿 Herbs: rosemary, chamomile, thistle, ivy, peppermint, winter jasmine, bay leaf, yarrow, sage, evergreen, mistletoe.

🌲 Trees: Trees resistant to extreme and severe cold, such as holly, fir, birch, oak, chestnut, cedar, apple, pine, yew, and juniper.

Yule - Food & Drink:

Typical winter foods and drinks.

🍮 Dishes: Gingerbread cookies, fruitcakes, Yule logs, roast meats, ground beef, fondue, candied and/or dried fruits, dried nuts, baked goods, figgy pudding, cheeses, panettone.

🍷 Drinks: Hot chocolate, cider, brandy, mulled wine, wines...

🥬 Vegetables: Root vegetables (potatoes, cassava, yams, carrots), fruits, grains, almonds, peanuts, hazelnuts, chestnuts, macadamia nuts, walnuts, pistachios, pine nuts.

Yule Sabbath - Astrology and Rituals.

Yule - Spirituality and Energies.

🌞 Deities: Apollo, Balder, Freya, Mithra, Odin, Sol, Invictus, Woden.

🪐 Astrology: Northern Hemisphere; Capricorn, Aquarius. Southern Hemisphere; Cancer, Leo.

🌟 Intentions: Abundance, joy, self-knowledge, spiritual growth, healing, gratitude, enlightenment, inner peace, renewal, and rebirth.

Yule - Typical Rituals:

🧘 Contemplation: Contemplating the darkness, contemplating the fire... 🔥

🎄 Art: Making candles and gifts for loved ones, decorating trees, carving sigils into candles.

🦋 Transmutation: Creating prayers in motion, clearing what no longer serves, reflecting on life, taking stock of your life.

🧙‍♀️ Thali's Sabbath Tips:

Take advantage of the Yule Sabbath period to introspect, recharge your batteries, get to know yourself, and thus reconnect with yourself — with your triad (psychologically (mind), emotionally (heart), and spiritually (soul & spirit), your darkness/shadows, and your light.

Remember that the Sabbaths can be celebrated throughout their entire period, considering that the first three days are the most magically powerful, as they represent the beginning of the respective magic.

The choice of the geographic hemisphere to follow is personal. One can be in the NH and celebrate according to the SH, and vice versa. It is only important to remember the antagonism of the seasons — while in the NH it is summer, in the SH it is winter, and so on.

What matters is the practitioner's intention toward Nature (all types), the Universe — what is in their heart, soul, spirit and mind. That's where true Magical Power lies. ✨

...Blessed Be...

...Opttchá...

👽 AUTHOR'S NAME: Thali Sampaio 🛸 ON INSTAGRAM: @Thali_Sampaio 🛸 ON QUANTIC SQUAD: READ POSTS