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Tonight is the longest night of the year; Winter Solstice. Every culture that I am aware of has some sort of holiday around this time of year. Most with some theme of doing something to encourage the sun to return. Usually something involving light or fire, or bells, or evergreens, and gift giving for some reason. Some see it as the darkness and the light fighting, and after this night the sun will begin to grow in strength. Our own religion has a version of this in the Holly King and Oak King. The Holly King ruled the year until tonight, but he will give his crown to the Oak King who will rule until Summer Solstice. Truthfully, it would make more sense to Jon and I to crown the Holly King at winter and the Oak King at summer, but this was the tradition as I can find it written up. It’s the tradition that most Wiccans follow, but we are puzzled by it. If it makes more sense to us to have the Holly king crowned at Yule, could we do that, change it, or would that be not okay? I mean one of the pluses of having a new religion is that the rules aren’t set in stone. In fact, one of the things that most neo-pagans like about their flavor of faith is that it’s not a religion of the book, as they say. Yes, it’s based on old religious beliefs and customs, but modern Wicca really dates to Gerald Gardner. Good ol’ Uncle Gerry, is really the founder of our faith in many ways. We hold to festivals and ways of faith that are older than Christianity, but the way we put it all together is new. I guess our faith is like a marriage; something old, something new, something borrowed . . . okay, I don’t know where the blue comes in. I mean blue can mean healing, or Goddess energy, or both. Blue can stand for the element of water, or air. Blue can represent the God, as well, the blue of the sky and him watching over us. So, let it stand, something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. Keep the light shining, tomorrow the sun returns.