The Lapwing, the Dragon and the Day After Christmas

There is a witch’s dilemma. There will always be a witch’s dilemma. People talk about blue Christmases, but the truth is that the actual blues do not set in until the day after Christmas, until the grand celebration is done and you are left with the prospect of your life as is and three months of a winter which, for the most part, has not truly even begun.

You had thought in pretending to disavowing the mainstream and Christianity that you would not be caught up in this, but the truth is you have simply traded in Christmas for a pretend ancient modern day imitation of it. Calling a Christmas tree a Yule tree or a Solstice bush does not save one from witch’s dilemma, predicament, problem.

In my personal practice, at certain times of year, I still do use the services and rtuals of the church I grew up in, the mother church of the west. The times when my old practice coincides with the new is a lovely return, and then time when they must separate is always strange and a little awkward.

This morning, after a beautiful season of Advent, I had the distinct sense that this was the last time I would do the Church readings in the morning or in the evening, that now that Christmas Day had passed, it was time to dig deeper and in other directions for the fulfillment of what I had seen on Christmas night, and worked toward (waited for) all Advent. Doing the same thing again and again was not the answer.

There is that childish place. Unfairly (maybe) I call it the Wiccan place, where you buy all your black and get a necklace and earrings shaped like pentagrams. You change the names of holidays and try to celebrate full moons, solstice, you know. But this is an external changing. This is not wisdom. The witchly change is one of perspective, understanding, being. It is not that the witch calls God Cernunnos instead of Christ, but rather that she recognizes the Antlered One even is she is sitting in a dull church with a friend. It is a way, a deep way, a hard way, a putting away of old conventions, a walking away, a deepening. And yes, it is magic.

The ending of Christmas is so tragic for the witch because, of course, we are always devoted to the Holy Child entering the world, to the Housle, to the incarnation of the divine in human living and not only the possibility, but the expectation of wonder. And it seemed, for a little while, the world around us was too. But in the churches, and certainly after, the wonder of the first 25 days of December is packed up for business as usual, and here we are, out in the cold again.

The lapwing is that symbol of the nature of Craft. The Lapwing is the guardian of it, but it seems to be pointing in the wrong direction and so, if we are not carefully while watching her, we can mistake the symbol for the actuality, the shallow dig for the deep dive.

At this time of year we are susceptible to the magic of Christmas, because we do not yet understand the word magic, or perhaps even the word Christmas. The warm feelings of endless possibility, glinting lights and childish joy, the general openness that touches more people than usual, the soaring idea that anything can happen, the childish wonder, the happiness—if one feels any of those—is a lapwing. Though we talk about blue Christmas, the blue return to actual life is the real bump in the road. During this time of year, everyone around is a little more willing to be open to magic, and that does change things, but that is only a face of magic. The actual magic continues today, when everyone else has forgotten about it.

The temptation of living so close to the rest of the world, religious and otherwise for a little time in the year is remembering that neither the church nor the life most people lead is the answer either. When we have come in from the cold to join the common life at Christmas, it’s hard to remember the common life is not necessarily our place, and to find our place we must return to the altar, and to the root and to the dragon at the root, and acknowledge all our strange fears and feelings and continue to offer them.