A different Yule celebration

Blessings of the Solstice to you all.

Holloway House has not celebrated in the Pagan-traditional manner this year. There’s been so dedicated ritual, no bonfire. We didn’t see out the night and drum in the morning, welcoming the rising sun. We don’t drink, so no mulled wine.

We have been celebrating with smaller rituals that bring us joy over the last few days. We have other special events that we bring focus to in this house that have been forefront, that are very special to us.

Celebrating Yule through cooking amazing food, like these Rose Harissa and maple Dutch carrots, spiced crispy chickpeas, tahini lemon garlic yoghurt sauce with carrot top and spinach pesto.

“Old Me” would’ve marked Herne’s day – all of the above. I would’ve adorned antlers and my cloak, opened a circle and celebrated as I always have.

It’s been a bit of a mind-fuck over the last few years. While I am non-binary, I still have my ovaries and all the organs that announced me as female at birth. Despite this, as this blog can attest and Pagan-family can attest over the years, I’ve never connected with them. Before understanding the term “non-binary” it was always me and Herne, and I followed him around as his apprentice.

Once I began to chase the dream of a total hysterectomy because I’m finally able to achieve that for not-at-all-gender-based reasons (PMDD, adenomyosis, fibroids, possibly endometriosis, who knows, plus anaphalaxys to naproxan and NSAIDS) I haven’t been able to feel Herne around me. He’s there, but I feel my Oma and my female line stand in front, declaring (DECLARING) that this is Womens Business.

I’ve felt this before – at a ritual with my old Coven in Sydney as we began our Descent into the Underworld to speak with Erishkegal, many many moons ago. He had to sit outside the property line because it was made very clear by the spirits of those attending, that this was Womens Business and he had no business being there.

And so it is, that this Yule, this Winterzonnewende, the focus has been so incredibly celebratorily female. Because as I type I understand that this is my final Winterzonnewende with all “my bits”, it’s the final one of me celebrating this current form and preparing for my next rebirthing.

My total hysterectomy with bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy is less than 90 days away. I don’t believe that I’m feeling “more female” now because I’m preparing my body for this operation, I feel it because I have the support of every ovary-owner that has come before me. Every ovary-owner within my bloodline who has birthed and miscarried, cried at menstrual pain, cried with joy and pain and celebration of what their bodies were able to do.

Celebrating Yule through making an air-dried clay bust

It’s a head-fuck because I’ve never connected with myself like this. I’ve always hated being born with my reproductive system because it has always been a source of pain and frustration. Throw in the years of being told they don’t work (only to find out they very much do) and too late – it’s too much, and I need them gone. I can’t cope with the grief they cause me that is exasterbated by my AuDHD.

One aspect of Yule I have always honoured as been the celebration of the Oak and Holly Kings, and I feel as though my current story is, in it’s own way, acting out their battle. Some stories have the battles won and lost now, and the rebirth happening with the Equinox. My surgery will be days before the Spring Equinox in September – so close that I am missing out (again) on the Australian Wiccan Conference because I’ll be in recovery.

Holloway House has cooked amazing vegetarian meals. We have created with art – with watercolour, and clay, and collage. We have cleaned, and we will be celebrating again with cooking more delicious food. We have honoured our bodies and listened to their needs – with warmth, with food, with dopamine-filled endevours.

This is my final Yule as Herne’s Apprentice (in this form), and apart of that Apprenticeship might be accepting myself in his guise as the Oak King, but just a little “delayed” – I am regaining an understanding and acceptance of self now; I will be reborn at the Spring Equinox, and my power will be at its height (recovery will be well and truly done) come the Summer Solstice.

I can feel my Oma wanting to chase him around the yard for creeping in to what should be an act of womens business, but I can’t help but laugh because I have felt so incredibly disconnected from him for so so long, and here he is, laughing and slapping me over the back because I am so damn late to my own party.

But that’s me – I often am.