The Seventh Day of Yuletide

From the Asatru Folk Assembly:

I sometimes think that the Yule season's time-transcending quality derives from nothing more than its regularity, and that almost any other yearly date, if we had strong and pleasant memories to mark it, would serve the same function. I can remember my early childhood - how the tree looked, what my brother and sister were doing, the paper candy cane I gave to the repairman who came to fix our (now) old-fashioned, cabinet-style radio. I know that those things happened at just about this point on the Wheel of the Year, and somehow that gives me comfort. That moment half a century ago is now not so long ago, or far away; I could turn a corner any moment and find myself there again. Somehow, it all touches.

The Wheel is, of course, central to our understanding of Yule. When Nietzsche conceived the Eternal Return, was he intuitively tapping into a substratum of ancient lore? Only, we might say that instead of a wheel returning to the same point, it is actually a spiral, deviating from its unchanging course by the power of our Will. The spiral nevertheless connects all times, all events, and gives us a
glimpse of eternity.

Tonight we light a candle for Community, and think on the cohort of kith and kin that give us love and merriment through the years, as we journey on our endless gyre.