THESE NEW OLD TRADITIONS

INVOCATION
(to be said at the beginning of all New Old Tradition gatherings)

Some days and nights before our birth
A people lost their spark,
And with it lost traditions too
That honored both light and dark.

Tired from their jobs and war
These people just gave in,
And sold their fun to greedy ones
And lost what the Earth had given.

These greedy people came and bought
Each holiday for a buck,
And sold them back to desperate souls
Who’d fallen out of luck.

But other people took a stand
And listened to the Earth.
She told them, “Never leave my side,
If you’re to know my worth.”

Then they listened to the Sun
Who said, “Come celebrate with song.”
And when the Moon had heard them singing
She sang, “Let’s all sing along.”

So lest our children and our friends
Live life with no holidays
We started New Old Traditions again
To help them on their ways.

And with these New Old Traditions, friend
We’ll teach what once was taught,
And always try a few new things
So as to never get bought.

THE NEW OLD TRADITIONS THROUGHOUT THE YEAR
“The Story of the Sun and Moon”

The passing of time throughout the year may be understood as a story involving two main characters, the Moon and the Sun, who every year play out their comedic tragedy of life, death, and rebirth, providing a narrative and reason to gather for all people.

YULE: “A Sun is Conceived” (On/around December 21st)
On or around December 21st we celebrate the festival, or “Sabbath” known as Yule, which marks the Sun’s moment of conception. As the story goes it is on this day that the Moon and the Night, after a year-long flirtation finally took the plunge and ignited the Cosmos with a naughty sexcapade. So wonderful was this event, and so much did the Moon want to ravish the body of Night, that the Moon stretched the Night as long as she could just to have more to play with. It is in this way that we have inherited the longest night of the year, and it is in this way that the Sun was conceived. Yule is a time when the Moon’s guidance of the Earth into the cozy reflections of Fall and Winter culminate in a feast.

THE PUSH: “The Labor of Love” (Second to last weekend in February)
For those of us living in New York City, the period between New Years and Spring is a time to battle against the cold. Even with the Sun burning brighter, the air still becomes more frigid. Change can be difficult, and the bitterness we feel can be attributed to the birth pangs of a new time of year emerging. The Moon learns how to carry her child, while her child learns how to emerge from her womb. Both want to be simultaneously with and separate from one another. The Push allows us to help each other through this time.

SPRING EQUINOX: “The Birth of the Sun” (On/around March 21st)
The Spring Equinox marks the passing of the torch; the time when the rhythms of the planet are guided more and more by the Sun, for it is on this day that the Sun is born. (ALL: Hooray!) From now until the Midsummer night, the Sun will become the most prominent influence in our daily lives and will inform how we spend the next few months. The Spring Equinox is a time to celebrate birth, and is thus a time to honor what lives. So too is the Spring Equinox a time to celebrate equality, as it is on this date that the lengths of both day and night are equal. It is a time of blending and merging, of alchemical unions, and playful couplings. The Spring Equinox is when two become one.

MAY DAY: “The Joy of Beauty” (May 1st)
May Day is the New Old Tradition of celebrating full-blown Spring. As our story progresses we see the Sun grown into adolescence. Adolescents being the most wonderful of creatures to be around, The Sky and Earth act out in a symphony of emotions. The Sky dumps buckets of rain while the Earth shoots flowers from its soil. The Sky gives reflection to the Sun’s brilliance with a handful of glorious cool sunny days, while the Earth offers her green grass to whomever can find a plot. May Day is a day of revelry.

MIDSUMMER: “Moon’s Conception” (On/around June 21st)
Even with some of its best days still to come, at Midsummer the Sun has reached its peak, and thus marks the longest day of the year. Since its birth the Day had been courting the Sun with flowers, sweet rain, and cool breezy whispers. When the time had come for the Sun and Day to make the sweetest of love, the Sun, so taken with the Day’s offerings, refused to allow the Night to arrive lest its affair with the Day end too quickly, and so stretched the Day far into the Evening. By sundown the Moon had been conceived. In honor of this event we celebrate the beauty of Earth’s bounty. Merriment abounds.

SWELTER: “Change Can Make You Sweat” (On/around August 1st)
Sometimes a person can have too much of a good thing. Although the Sun shows humility in passing its influence over to the Moon, change often comes with difficulty and it is by way of this difficulty that we experience the sweltering heat of Summer’s end. So powerful is the Sun in its influence that even as the Moon begins to walk toward dominance, the heat grows hotter. Swelter is a time to celebrate what does and does not serve us.

FALL EQUINOX: “The Birth of the Moon” (On/around September 21st)
By nightfall we will once again celebrate a birth, the birth of the Moon (ALL: Hooray!) The Sun has finally made peace with its transition and has yielded to the power of its relative. From now until the Spring Equinox the Moon will begin to regain its influence over our days and nights. Similar to the Spring Eq., the Fall Equinox is a time to celebrate equality and re-establish our connection to the seasons.

HALLOWEEN: “Long Live the Dead” (On/around October 31st)
As we near the Sun’s death our attention draws toward taboo subjects. We celebrate the living by familiarizing ourselves with what has passed, in a tradition that is expressed in a myriad of ways by many different cultures united by a recognition that the veil separating the living from the dead is perhaps thinnest at the time when October leans into November. Whether it be expressed as Samhain, a Celtic holiday celebrating the final harvest of the year, or through the tradition of trick-or-treating, where the young rule the old, Halloween is an opportunity to embrace the inversion of life’s assumed norms. It is also a time to note the impermanence of physical life by honoring those whose bodies have returned to the earth, a practice many people before us have thought it right to do.

CLOSING CHANT

LOVE. HONESTY. FRIENDSHIP.
HURRAH!