"The moon was created for the counting of days." - Hebrew midrash
Our new year rolls on. We now come to the second moon of the Pagan year, and the last of the calendar year. This is the year's darkest month, as we roll closer to the Winter Solstice on December 22nd.
The Anglo-Saxons knew this as the moon of Yule - Aerra Geoloa ("Moon before Yule") or Æfterra Geola ("Moon after Yule") depending on where it fell. To the Celts, it was simply the Cold Moon. Likewise, the Choctaw, Creek and Shoshone all called it the Winter Moon or Big Winter Moon. To the Zuni, this lunar month was When Sun Has Traveled Home To Rest.
My own coven takes a cue from the Comanche, finding meaning in an ancient symbol of the Winter season and the Winter Solstice. For us, this is the Evergreen Moon.
Read on . . .
"For when it's evergreen, evergreen / It will last through the summer and winter too" - Roy Orbison, "Evergreen"
Across the world, evergreens have been symbols of life and immortality. Celts, Saxons, Norsemen, and Romans all decorated firs and pines, or decorated their homes with wreaths or branches, as a symbol of rebirth and the continuity of life through the Winter Solstice. In many cases, the trees were decorated with gifts for the gods, or symbols of a petitioner's wishes for the coming year (e.g., coins for money, etc).
A fir cone topped the Greek god Dionysus' thyrsus. Osiris - the god of death and rebirth - also carried a pine cone staff, and there is even a pine cone on the staff carried by the Pope. Assyrian, Hindu and Mexican gods, among others, have all been depicted holding pine cones as symbols of rebirth, and it is a symbol of longevity in China. On my own household altar, a pine cone stands as the symbol of the God.
"Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them. For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not." - Jeremiah 10:2-4, KJV
Decorating trees for Yule was discouraged by the Christian church as a Pagan practice, but carried on and was eventually transformed into the "Christmas tree", with those small gifts and wishes transformed into ornaments. This was not a smooth road - Oliver Cromwell, among others, denounced the practice, and the Puritans at the Plymouth colony would have fined you for having one.
The first Christmas tree in an American church didn't happen until 1851 - Pastor Henry Schwan, of Cleveland, OH. His flock condemned him for it - but evergreens, after all, endure, and today you can't swing a dead elf this time of year without hitting a fir.
"'Allah il Allah!' he sings his psalm, / On the Indian Sea, by the isles of balm; / 'Thanks to Allah, who gives the palm!'" - John Greenleaf Whittier, "The Palm-Tree"
But there are more evergreens than just firs. The date palm is a tropical evergreen, and was sacred in ancient Egypt - associated with Heh, the god of eternity. Like many evergreens, its fronds decorated homes during the Winter Solstice.
An ancient symbol of victory and triumph, fronds of the date palm were given to Roman champions and heroes. Similarly, the New Testament accounts have them laid before Jesus as he entered Jerusalem. Among the Greeks, the palm was the emblem of both the goddess Artemis and the god Apollo. It was the sacred tree in Assyrian myth.
Date palm is one of the Four Species used in prayers during feast of Sukkot in Judaism. For Christians, the date palm was a symbol of immortality and divine blessing, often associated with martyrs and Christ himself. The first calls to prayer in Islam were from the tops of palm trees, and palms are symbols of hospitality in many Middle Eastern cultures.
"The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree: he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon." - Psalm 92:12, KJV
The cedar likewise has an ancient pedigree in religion. The Sumerians called the domain of the gods "the Cedar Forest". To the Cherokee, cedars housed the spirits of ancestors, and was hung at the entrance to homes to protect them from evil spirits. The ancient Egyptians used its resin in mummification, their ultimate expression of immortality and rebirth. Cedar is revered among the Ojibwe, honored as "Grandmother Cedar", and is one of the four sacred plants of the medicine wheel.
According to the Talmud, Jews once burned Lebanese cedar wood on the Mount of Olives to celebrate the new year. Cedar wood is one of the ingredients in the burning of the red heifer, a purification ritual. In the Gan Eden (heaven), two of the five chambers to house the different classes of the righteous are made from cedar, according to the midrash Konen. Cedar was the wood used for building the temple of Jerusalem.
“Love is like the wild rose-briar; Friendship like the holly-tree. The holly is dark when the rose-briar blooms, But which will bloom most constantly?” - Emily Bronte
Holly is another evergreen that was frequently brought into the home - especially in ornamental wreaths - during the Winter Solstice and its younger protege, Christmas. It was so tied to the holiday that some areas once simply called the plant "Christmas", and in England prior to the Victorian era it was a holly, not a fir, that was referred to as a "Christmas tree".
Romans gave boughs of holly as gifts during Saturnalia, which began around Dec 17th. Holly is associated with Thor and Freya, and believed in Europe to both repel evil and protect a nearby home against lightening. Holly brought into a house is believed to guard against evil fairies and improve relationships with the good ones.
In Shinto, Holly is also believed to provide protection, and sprigs are hung on the door to keep away devils. A holly leaf and skewer - representing the holly spear of the Buddhist monk-god Daikoku - is a popular New Year's charm. And the clown-god Uzume danced around a holly tree to lure the sun goddess Amaterasu out of her cave to start Spring.
Among some Native Americans, holly was grown near homes for protection. Sprigs of it were attached to warshields. In parts of the Southwest and South America, holly or a cousin of it were used to make powerful emetics for ritual.
In some Neo-Pagan traditions, an Oak King and Holly King battle for control. Each rules over half the year, with the Holly King's peak of power at the Winter Solstice. As a gendered plant (those with super-pointy leaves are boy-hollies, those with berries are girl-hollies), the holly is particularly apt as a symbol of the God/Goddess duality.
LAUREL, n. The laurus, a vegetable dedicated to Apollo, and formerly defoliated to wreathe the brows of victors and such poets as had influence at court.” – Ambrose Bierce
The laurel was associated with the Greek god Apollo, and a wreath of laurel was given as prize at his Pythian Games. Laurel wreaths became a widespread symbol of achievement and victory in Greek and Roman culture, filtering down to our modern society in phrases like "resting on your laurels" and words like "laureate".
Chinese myth told of a great laurel tree on the moon. When a man, Wu Gang, sought immortality so fervently he neglected everything else, the gods punished him by telling him felling the moon-laurel would bring him into their ranks. The evergreen laurel, symbol of immortality, could not be felled, and regenerated every time it was cut - a parallel to the unending labor of Sisyphus.
"And the message of the yew tree is blackness - blackness and silence." – Sylvia Plath
Like most evergreens, the yew was a symbol of immortality and rebirth - so much so that it led to an oddly contrary association. The yew is startlingly long-lived - some are believed to be two thousand years old - and is the longest-living plant in all of Europe. Because of its strong association with immortality (and because its toxic leaves discouraged grazing cattle), it was often planted in churchyards. As such, it has largely become a "cemetery tree" in Europe, and the dark-leaved tree became associated largely with death.
Yew was one of the five sacred trees brought from the Otherworld in Irish mythology. The home of the ancient Norse/Germanic god Ullr was called Ydalir - "yew-dales". Though Yggdrasil, the world-tree of Norse mythology, is most commonly believed to be an ash, it is portrayed in the Eddur as an evergreen, and some scholars suspect its name may actually be derived from igwja-dher ("yew-pillar"). Tradition says the cross of Jesus was a yew-tree.
“It is only when the cold season comes that we know the pine and cypress to be evergreens” - Chinese proverb
While there are a number of traditions and beliefs about the various evergreens, one common thread runs through them all - life and rebirth. Ancient peoples around the world marked these plants as special during the Winter season - and through the longest night of the year - because did not "die" as all other trees did. They endured through the dark time - and our ancestors used them in their myth and their magick in an attempt to bring that strength into themselves.
The Evergreen Moon is a time to find that strength. We stand at the last few days before Yule, when the world turns through its longest darkness. The evergreen is our reminder that life endures through that darkness - as it can through all the dark times in our lives.
Blessed be.