Modraniht by Barbara Ardinger, Ph.D.

December 24

Modraniht

            If we have Mother’s Day in the springtime, it seems only fair that we should celebrate Mother’s Night in the winter.

            We get the term Mothers’ Night from the English monk, Bede, who said that the Angles began their year on the night of December 24–25. We don’t know if he was reporting on a custom that honored three goddesses called the Mothers or referring to Christmas, newly arrived in Germanic lands. In 706, the Church forbade believers to follow the old Roman ceremonies honoring the confinement of the Mother of God, which included the distribution of cakes called placentae (the Divine Mother’s afterbirth). Christmas Eve became the night of the Virgin Mother.

            Tonight is probably the night we go home to our own mothers. (If I were cynical, I’d add, “… at least if we want our Christmas presents.) Reader, I’m guessing that your birth family is not pagan. I’m guessing they don’t understand what you’re up to with your talk of solar gods and solstices. I’m further guessing that Mom and Dad still invite you to go to the midnight service with them.

            Go to church with them. Your mother has cooked for you. She’s shopped for you. We pagans are pantheists and panentheists. We see deity everywhere. Why not in a Christian church on the night their god was born? Go to church and enjoy the ritual and the singing. Don’t argue theology. Don’t announce that Jesus may be mythological and if he was a real person, he was probably born in the spring or in the fall between 7 and 4 B.C.E. If we can agree that other pagans can celebrate their gods in their ways, why can’t we extend that privilege to Mom and Dad? Keep peace in the family. Go to church with them.

Barbara Ardinger, Ph.D. (www.barbaraardinger.com), is the author of Pagan Every Day: Finding the Extraordinary in Our Ordinary Lives (RedWheel/Weiser, 2006), a unique daybook of daily meditations, stories, and activities. Her earlier books are Finding New Goddesses, Quicksilver Moon, Goddess Meditations, and Practicing the Presence of the Goddess. Her day job is freelance editing for people who don't want to embarrass themselves in print. Barbara lives in southern California. To purchase a signed copy of Finding New Goddesses, just send Barbara an email at bawriting@earthlink.net.