Wheel of the Year: Thoughts On Rhythm, Tradition, and Rituals
Rituals. Traditions. The rhythm of the year. I am having issues with these. When I was young, my traditions were those of my parents. Unfortunately, they didn’t really jive with my values. My family’s traditions were deeply rooted in the consumerism cascade that started in my mother’s 1950s home and followed her into my 80s and 90s upbringing. There was no real nod to religion in our secular home, but easter meant overflowing baskets of summer toys and Halloween meant lots of candy, while Christmas brought on my mother’s competitive gift giving expeditions and odd need for “fairness.” (The value, amount, and physical size of the gifts my sister and I received had to be exactly the same. This meant we often received useless items in the spirit of being “fair.”) The lesser holidays were not as consumer driven, but I am not comfortable with patriotism bordering on nationalism or the overt racism that they embody. Thanksgiving? No thank you, we do not celebrate genocide or colon...