From: howardk@aa.wl.com
Subject: Yule Ritual Meditation
Date: 14 Dec 93 17:31:49 -0500

In the course of preparing for our Yule ritual, I wrote the following
meditation.  I offer it as a gift to any who might find in it some
joy.

May your groves be ever peaceful.

				Walking a gentle path,

						Jaguar  =^^=

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			Yule Ritual Meditation


Settle yourself.  Close your eyes.  Feel your body relax.  Feel as the
tensions drain from your face, your neck, your shoulders, your arms,
your torso, your legs.  Sense the whole of your body, calm, heavy in
its relaxation.  Center yourself.  Feel for that calm, comfortable
center, in which you are whole.  Ground yourself.  Extend yourself
into the earth, your mother.  Feel as your roots grow into the ground,
as you find your connectedness with her again.

This time is the time of Yule, the Winter Solstice, when the sun
clings most closely to the horizon.  It is a time for rebirth.  While
many months of winter still await us, the days now begin to lengthen,
holding behind the hoary frost the promise of the gentle breath of
Spring.

Exentd your senses beyond the walls, to the world outside.  Smell in
the crisp cold a hint of snows yet to come.  See, in your mind's eye,
the clear clean air.  Old dry leaves, long fallen, rustle as they
tumble around, caught finally in the tangled stems of dormant
shrubs. Bark cracks in the hard frost, and breaks away, falling
unnoticed to the earth.

The last of the fall berries dance and sway in the wind, the wind that
moans through black branches, crooked fingers that rip the bellies of
low heavy clouds.  Snow swirls silently into the frozen tracks of
squirrels and foxes, rabbits and racoons, revealing their secret
paths.  Jays call raucously, as sparrows fluff their breast feathers,
puffing up and huddling close to conserve their meager heat.

The fields lie bare, the harvest of wheat, pumpkins and corn safe in
the barns.  The crows scavenge for stray grains which escaped the
harvester's blade.  The orchards are empty, their leaves tossed by the
storms, their fruit deep in the cellars.

We - we are snug, cocooned in the warmth of our homes and the warmth
of our kith and our kin.  The winds will howl with the wolves as we
remember the harvest just past, and we rest and regenerate as we look
to the rebirth of life in the Spring.  For now the sun is returned,
beginning his slow journey, regaining his ascendency, as the wheel
turns again.

Now, rouse yourselves, and join us, and dance and sing, and celebrate
the birth of the sun!