With Yule coming up, my favourite holy day, it's just as well that my brain is working again.

I was thinking about the origins of beliefs.  there's a book out there called 'When Santa was a Shaman', and it's an interesting read, though it's been a while since I read it myself.  It lead me to think about a lot of things, pagan-wise.

And it came to me, a solitary eclectic who hasn't had more than a day of anything remotely resembling training, lol, that there's a second layer to what, or rather who, I honor.  (and yes, I've talked on this vein before).  Many of the festivities are to honor the changing of the seasons, which makes sense historically.  We honor, take notice of, and hope to appease, the world we live in, so that we keep surviving.  I imagine that in more perilous times (which still exist for most of the people in this world, unfortunately), surviving a winter was a miracle.  Each child born meant the tribe would live that much longer; that the memory and existance of one small group of people would continue.

But that doesn't account for all of the traditions and celebrations we have.  And I'm not talking about the ecstatic.  I'm not one hundred percent sure I understand that section of spirituality, so I'm going to ignore it for now, lol.  No, I'm talking about Craft.

Santa was a shaman.  To be exact, the person who brought us fire.  The lit tree is a tree on fire from a lightning strike.  It is an honouring of something that totally changed our existance.  

So I've often wondered about other such events; which were they, and which holidays have they been hidden within?  There's so many tantalizing choices.  Does Demeter represent the first woman to plant instead of gather?  Is Litha also a celebration of the wheel (the solar circle made real)?

Without the 'taming' of fire, where would humans be?  Ditto for the wheel, the lever, the spear, the knife, etc.  We honor the inventor and the invention together, because they made survival that much more probable.  Did the idolization of these people create new gods?  

And at the back of head, I hear a little voice saying, 'is this part of what they teach 2nd, 3rd level initiates? and if so, should I be screaming right now in frustration?'