My fave holiday has to be our Independence Day, May 17th. Not because I care one iota about the politics and history, and I don't have a single nationalist bone in my body, there are several other reasons. I fish. A lot. I also spend a lot of my spare time out in the wilderness or out at sea. Needless to say, that's not easy when you live on a reef where 8 out of 12 months is dominated by weather so foul not even the Romans bothered to invade or explore.
But in the middle of May, that's when Ultima Thule springs out in all it's splendour. The weather has become warm enough to bear camping in the mountains, the water is just the right temperature for insects to hatch and the trout to go "ka-blooey," and one can experience a small part of the planet and mother nature that is unique. So if the 17th is close to a weekend, it's perfect. I just make a 3-4 nighter out of it and go walkabout, while the rest of the vikings get sloshed and stuff themselves on charred hotdogs while listening to marching bands.
I am not young enough to know everything. - Oscar Wilde
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[QUOTE=Aegis]Halloween, as well. Simply because it's the only time of the year those around me will allow me to get away without wearing pants [/QUOTE]
Oh...that's...nice...
@ Z: AH!!! I didn't think of that. That's the best. Period.
I sincerely wish we could re-consider this plan from a perspective that involved pants.
I can't stand Christmas either, invariably an anticlimatic orgy of conspicuous consumerism which becomes impotent at the moment of possible human contact and empathy because everyone realises that they've brought $600 of presents for the boss of Debenhams ltd. and forgotten altogether about their own family.
Not an official holiday in this country, my absolute favourite celebration of the year is the Summer solstice, in which everybody I know and lots I don't congregate with the canal-dwelling hippy and drifter population to have a huge bonfire and music and dancing on Port Meadow.
It's very touching to the core, and has immense timeliness in it, and is IMO the time when one can most connect with the passage of time on a grander scale and the temporal transciency of friends, feelings and so on. You know that it is the most joyous point in your year, just because of how the orbit works, and that everything that you have been pushing to acheive in the year must be pushed as far as it will go, because from then on cycles all begin to diminish.
[QUOTE=frogus23]Not an official holiday in this country, my absolute favourite celebration of the year is the Summer solstice <snip>[/QUOTE]
In Sweden it's a public holiday. As you know it was an important ritual in Scandinavia in the pre-christan mythology, and it never disappeared entirely although the rites have changed somewhat. It's still celebrated in the traditional way by dancing around leaf-clad pole that is a combination of the German Maypole and the old Nordic phallos symbol that was connected to fertility rites. However, it is also one of the worst drinking-yourself-into-a-stupor holidays in Sweden, to I tend to avoid the Midsummer celebrations too.
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[QUOTE=C Elegans]In Sweden it's a public holiday. As you know it was an important ritual in Scandinavia in the pre-christan mythology, and it never disappeared entirely although the rites have changed somewhat. It's still celebrated in the traditional way by dancing around leaf-clad pole that is a combination of the German Maypole and the old Nordic phallos symbol that was connected to fertility rites. However, it is also one of the worst drinking-yourself-into-a-stupor holidays in Sweden, to I tend to avoid the Midsummer celebrations too.[/QUOTE]
There are similar holidays that many witches follow (well, when in like-minded groups, rather than solitaire), though typically without the endless drinking part. Jumping over a fire can have very negative consequences if you're not sober. Of course, traditionally Beltane is rather Bachanallian in any case, with a lot of making out going on--ostensibly to celebrate the fertility of the coming year. Some pagans have suggested that at one time there were an inordinate number of "Beltane babies" born 9 months later, but there are no records to back this up.
To the Righteous belong the fruits of violent victory. The rest of us will have to settle for warm friends, warm lovers, and a wink from a quietly supportive universe.
