The Path of a Christian Witch by Adelina St. Clair Page A

Egyptian, or Celtic. Luckily, most Pagan celebrations are closely linked to Christian holidays, both in date and history. This is a legacy of the Church’s crusade to Christianize the world. In an effort to convert the common folk, Pagan celebrations were given a Christian twist so that people would continue to celebrate and be inadvertently brought into a Christian framework.
    The Druids portray a great example of the merging of the Pagan/magical system and the Christian one. Most of the early Celtic saints belonged to the privileged class of leaders, jurists, clergy, and scholars, part of the Druid caste. Being people of influence in their societies, these Druids preserved some of their magical traditions while living under Christian rule. The new religion (which was Christianity at the time) incorporated the celebrations and the holy sites by giving them Christian names. Saint Brigit of Kildare was raised as a Druid before she converted to Christianity. She founded her order on the site of a sacred oak and based it on oak symbology. She carried on many of the traditional Druid roles—such as healer, teacher, and clergy—while devoted to the Christian faith. In the Druid, we have the perfect example of the marriage of Paganism and Christianity.
    I have also witnessed the incorporation of Christian elements in traditional Cree rites of passage. The walking-out ceremony symbolizes the first steps of a child on the earth outside the tipi. The parents and grandparents take the child out at sunrise and make him or her walk around the tipi for the first time. At these ceremonies, I have heard the grandparents lead people in prayer, saying the Our Father and singing hymns. This is just another example to show that it is easy to include both earth-centered and Christian elements in rituals.
    The Wheel of the Year
    I visualize my practice on a spectrum with Paganism on one end and Christianity on the other. The rituals I build can be situated at any point on this spectrum, going from reading Scripture and centering on actual Judeo-Christian events to celebrating the greatness of God through the manifestation of nature. Most of the time, I situate myself in the middle and focus on the elements I find most important at that moment. As my family grows, we are also fashioning rituals that have significance to all of us, building in this way our own clan tradition.
    There are eight Pagan Sabbats (or celebrations) completing the Wheel of the Year.
    Yule —celebrated December 21st (the winter solstice). On this longest night of the year, Pagans celebrate the feast of light, encouraging the rising of the sun with fire and candles. This symbolism is closely linked to the birth of Christ, light of the world, celebrated on December 25th. On Yule, I light candles to symbolize light in times of darkness. This is my celebration of hope, one of the powers that fuels me in my daily life. As the star shone in Bethlehem, so does my candle dispel the darkness in my own life and lift my spirit to the hope of better days. Yule is a time of quiet joy, for though we are at the peak of darkness, our inner light keeps us strong. This light carries to Christmas a few days later, which is largely a family affair. We attend Mass, where children reenact the birth of Christ. Then, we eat to bursting and revel in the excitement of the children opening their gifts.
    Imbolc —celebrated February 2nd, commemorating the Goddess sleeping under the snow and the efforts of her God to wake her softly with gifts and flowers. We can still see this wooing at St. Valentine’s Day, day of lovers. But there is also another, very significant Christian celebration on this day. It is the feast of Candlemas. It is the feast of Mary’s presentation to the temple, where she was to serve and weave the temple veil. It is also forty days after Christmas, which coincides with the time when Mary, according to Jewish practice, would have been ritually pure following Jesus’ birth.