Good Yule, everyone

[magenta]

And so the Shortest Day came and the year died
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive.
And when the new year's sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, revelling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us - listen!
All the long echoes, sing the same delight,
This Shortest Day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, feast, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And now so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.
- by Susan Cooper


Welcome Yule!


Prodea celebrated Yule last night, on a very cold and dark night indeed; we began, as always, with the poem above, recited in the dark. We lit the Yule fire, and candles from it. We sang, and danced, and ate kutya, the whole wheat and poppy seed pudding that is a version of the oldest sort of cooked food. We feasted, ending with a flaming plum pudding.

Then we woke before dawn, and went to sing up the Sun, this year in Powderhorn Park, because the Washington Avenue Bridge is closed to outside foot traffic. Then, breakfast. And now, home.

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[profmurphy.livejournal.com]

Good Yule! To you and all of Prodea...