Some folks who have celebrated Yuletide with us may have been surprised to see we also sing carols at this seasonal gathering and may be wondering, “What’s that about?”

Happy to bring a different perspective if you are open to hearing one. This delves into how we in our Ced Tradition understand our Craft and the Legacy from whence it comes originally. This is not to negate other Traditions or practices, but to explain how we work, here in this time today, looking to mediate the Legacy of our Past into something upon which we can build our Future.  

In the Ced Tradition we work deeply with what the old-world Witches call ‘The Sight’ or ‘Gifts’.  You could say it is the drinking from the Ancestral Well of Legacy, the mediating and the working of that Legacy and its occult gifts in a manner that is potent and appropriate to the times we live in today. This Well of Legacy, or Witch Stream within the Ancestral River of Blood, as some call it, is the same source from whence our kind has always received our living Legacy.  You could say our Book of Shadows is quite literally written in blood!

When working with the Ancestral Witch Legacy, we recognize we hold a familiarity of memories back through the centuries. The enormity of everything that river holds, is overwhelming. But we seek a specific quality of being, of insight and perspective. That being those kindred Witch ancestors, who are sprinkled like stepping stones of light, throughout our history. 

The language of mediation of all they can offer us cannot be in their tongue or even of the world as they experienced it.  Because we are of this time and the world today is nothing like what the subjective experience of theirs was like. For us to see them as ignorant or simple, would be arrogant and stupid of us. It would negate what we believe Witches throughout time have understood. The reality of the interactive living world of Spirit and Soul, that moves and shapes all things in the corporeal world the profane eyes see as reality. Witches live in the world of Magic, which is kindred to a world of Arte, a co-creative reality that we navigate by our born gifts. And the people of the past were more plugged into these relationships between the realms, than many of us here today, where our intellect and fixed-reality culture have us blinded.

What we believe is that the real world of the Witch has always been the hidden occult reality of Spirit and Soul and the interactive entangled relationships between the three primary realms, or if you prefer, dimensions. This is where we hold the ability to commune directly with the Gods, with the Spirits, and this makes us Heretics. And as Heretics, a threat to established religions, whose business is to be mediators between the Gods or God and the congregation. So as the Children of the Moon, we stay hidden within the popular culture of the times. We work with the cosmologies and the religious systems that are accepted by the populace. But we work with those systems as Heretics, understanding the Truth beneath the forms. To us, Cosmology is a Language of Spirit to be used by the culture and religion of the times and people. And the language of one religion verses another is like saying English verses French or Spanish. The Cosmology as a language is a form. But the truth is what only those with the eyes to see can comprehend. And that Truth for us is always the same, regardless of the forms, religious or cultural.

So, when we delve into our Witch Ancestry, we feel the presence of those Witches who lived in oppressive Christian times. And if asked, they would not have called themselves pagans. Pagan as anything positive, is how we identify ourselves now in these modern times. Those Witch Ancestors, living in exclusively Christian times, would identify with the popular religion of their time. Being a part of the society, as much as they could or wanted to be. But to those close or trusted, they would be known as the cunning folk who knew the old ways, had the Gifts or Sight and to whom you could turn if you needed help. A lot of the old world folklore has been entangled with the mishmash of rural spirit practices and superstitions with basic Christian references. And yes, as part of their social community gatherings, they would sing Carols.

A Witch knows that Christmas is just another Mythic retelling of a much older Legacy, designed to inspire and mediate a Spiritual Insight. While others fixate on a myth about the birth of a Son of God, we understand the Solstice and the qualities of Spirit associated with that. So why would we care about what language was used to express it? English or Spanish, Egyptian, Celtic, Christian, Norse or any of the many Pagan forms?  None of it is literal, the real Legacy of Spirit being worked is not literal, not historical. We as Witches embrace the spirit of our collective community, many who have fond memories of the spirit of this time, in the popular language of our time. And we sing carols with ALL our Ancestors, as we do with each other, in the spirit of Community.