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Yule Most North Americans will probably tell you that
Christmas is a Christian holiday. They’ll decorate trees and go about
caroling, not realizing that their decorated fir trees and singing of carols
(we Wiccans call this singing Wassailing) are ancient Pagan customs that we
Wiccans still practice at Yule, the Winter Solstice. For
us Wiccans, Yule is a festival of light, since Yule marks the longest night
of the year. Yule commemorates the Goddess as Mother giving birth (once
again) to the Sun God. At Yule my coven used to sing up the sun in
celebration of the returning light at Blackie Spit in South Surrey. Some
years I have participated in public Yule celebrations in which a ritual drama
is enacted to represent the Young Lord or Oak King (or the waxing year)
emerging victorious over the Old Lord or Holly King (the waning year). Those
of us Pagans with fire places burn decorated Yule logs to burn away the old
year, lighting this year’s log with fragments of last year’s. Those without
make do with decorated bayberry candles. Recently we’ve been gathering at
Yule to participate in the evening parade of lanterns at False Creek in
downtown Vancouver. Morris dancers,
pyro-dancers and musicians accompany the parade. The finale involves the
lighting of a huge rising sun structure on the hill on Granville Island. Being
a Wiccan, I don’t celebrate Christmas: I’ve worked Christmas Eve, Christmas
and Boxing Day, covering shifts for those police officers who do celebrate
these days with their families. As I celebrate Yule, my mind often dwells on
what I will be doing at work between Christmas Eve and Boxing Day a few days
hence. Most people associate Christmas with peace, fellowship and goodwill.
They visualize a cozy family dinner or children opening presents on Christmas
morning. This may be the experience of many North Americans in this festive
season. Yet working a police patrol car on these Christmas holidays allowed
me to see something quite different. That is why I don’t exactly relish
working on these particular holidays, even though I make a lot of overtime
working these extra shifts. In
the last issue of Dispatches I discussed how so many people in Western
society associate the Wiccan festival of Samhain with mayhem. The same
citizens of Western society probably wouldn’t associate Christmas with
violence and lawlessness. Yet mayhem is what emergency services personnel
typically experience around Christmas. The Christmas holidays are the time of
year when people who haven’t seen each other for a long time get together and
have a few drinks. That is when they remember the reason that they haven’t
been in touch: They hate each other’s guts. Police officers and paramedics
then get to attend the scenes of the resulting drunken domestic brawl and
pick up the pieces. As a child abuse investigator for VPD, all of my records
for the number of children removed from violent homes in one day were set on
Boxing Day, December 26 (11 children). For
police officers, the Christmas holidays are a season of property crimes: One
investigation after another involving burglars making off with all of a
family’s Christmas gifts. The thieves often wait until the family has had the
items replaced by the insurance agency and break in again in the New Year to
steal the replaced items. I recall one Christmas Eve when thieves mimicking
the Grinch made off with a single mother’s entire store of presents for her
children in a burglary on the southeast side of Vancouver. These thieves even
took her family’s Christmas dinner. The patrol officers on my afternoon shift
took a collection and went to the supermarket to replace it. This
property crime, as well as the financial pressures of all the
commercialization of the Christmas season, generates a lot of mental health
calls for emergency services personnel too. The resulting stress depresses
some people to the point of suicide. Police officers and paramedics send a
lot of suicidal people to hospital in December and January. To
further illustrate my point, here is a sample of what I encountered at work
around Christmas since I joined the Vancouver PD: Christmas Eve 1977: Investigated a person
threatening family members. Arrested a person for refusing to pay for a cab
trip. Found a man suffering from depression: We sent him to the hospital as
he was incontinent and hadn’t eaten in 4 days. 1978: Two threatening investigations, one domestic violence call, one assault
arrest, one arrest for impaired driving. Later that evening we had to return
to the scene of the earlier domestic violence call and revoke the father’s
parole. 1979: Working in the jail guarding drunks. 1981: Driving a police wagon transporting drunks to the aforementioned
jail. 1983: Police Constable Dale Hemm and I investigated an attempt suicide in
which an intoxicated person slashed her wrists. Later we arrested a person
stealing someone’s car. 1985: Investigated a break
and enter to one residence. Took a report at another from some home owners
who had some thieves uproot their shrubbery and carry it away. Arrested an
impaired driver. 1992: Investigated vandalism to a bakery where the front window was smashed.
Investigated a break and enter to a residence where all of the owner’s video
equipment and videos were stolen. Broke up a fight amongst drunks at a motel.
Investigated an assault. 1997: Arrested a male who beat up his family and ripped the phone out of the
wall (but not before someone managed to call 911). |
Yule
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Dispatches: Volume 1 No. 7 Yule/Alban Arthan/Mean Geimhridh/La
Ceimbroadh 2006 |
