[Bit]

{{{{{{{{{{{{{{Daryn, HotProf}}}}}}}}}}}}} Welcome, welcome, welcome!

Daryn, I hope you might be willing to share a little about your path and the take your Tradition has on the holidays, because I've never researched that. *pretty please?*

HotProf, darlin, you ask all the questions you like! That's what keeps a thread like this active, people having questions and concerns, yanno? And I am always happy to talk, but what I love even more is when everyone talks cuz then I learn a LOT!

Originally Posted by foxyshaman

Good Morning Miss Bit!!!

Good mornin', darlin! Even if it is another day midafternoon, lol... still, hello hello! And btw, thanks for checking on me. I'm okay, just tired from housecleaning and frustrated cuz the work doesn't show the way I thought it should.... lord love a DUCK this place needs work (twas vacant for eight years before we bought it). And we have company, so I haven't been online so much, but hey, I'm back!

Originally Posted by foxyshaman

I am always interested in reading other thoughts and ideas on Santa and how the traditions all started. I have found over the years that there is always an excited audience when we begin to discuss our holidays and pagan beginnings.

I've been searching for our Pagan beginnings for YEARS, yanno? I didn't find much at first, then I found books like the one I read on Santa being the memory of Shamans, then I found some things online. I think overall the thing which most influenced me was the realization that the Romans celebrated "Christmas" the same way we do here in the US (and presumably the rest of the Western World, lol, but maybe not to the same excess) long before there was anything known as Christianity... Saturnalia was a commercialized Mid-winter Festival held within a week of Solstice with obligatory gift-giving, loving gift-giving, huge traditional feasts, holidays from work, "mandatory" Temple celebrations---and lots of people bitching about the over-commercialization of the holiday.

Originally Posted by foxyshaman

Right now I am preparing a Winter Solstice ritual called Dreaming the Dark. I did it in 2007 and have had requests to do it again this year. There are three parts to it, drumming, aspecting and joiking.

For those who don't know, here are some links to joiking.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoik

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaitEJidUs0"]YouTube- Sami Joik[/ame]

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzupjHuvACk&feature=related"]YouTube- Yoik'n Roll - Yoik/music[/ame]

Now, my dear Foxy, tell me please... what do you mean by aspecting? *eyebrow waggle* love learning new things!!

Originally Posted by foxyshaman

Now I won't have amanita muscaria for this, although they do grow where I am. I have seen them but never ingested them, I have heard they make you very sick, very sick indeed. But then ayahuasca made me very sick, and I knew that going in and it did not change my resolve to try it.

Whoa! You are braver than I, Gunga Din....

I have sometimes wondered if the utter disruptions of the electrical system one experiences with fibromyalgia might mimic some of the altered states one achieves with drugs....certainly not ayahuasca or amanita(!!) but maybe some of the milder drugs that are used in shamanism.

Originally Posted by foxyshaman

Anyway I am getting off track.

Nope, actually, you are right on track. This is all part of Paganism as far as I'm concerned, anyhow. To me, Pagan is a big umbrella term that encompasses all the nature-based and psychic-based spiritualities including Shamanism, and I love it when you share your experiences with us because it broadens my knowledge, gives me new things to try and new ways to look at the world. And isn't that what it's all about?