I’m really a better pagan than I am a Christian. All of the things I do to express my faith are rather pagan-y. Its popular now in Christian circles to call these kinds of practices Celtic. But really, they are just pagan. Advent wreaths, evergreens, the holly and the ivy…we’ve copped it all from the pagans.

Me, I love building altars out of rocks. I think priestesses are beautiful. As far as I’m concerned lighting a candle with a real match is a thing of beauty. (Please leave those butane candle-lighting thingies at home. Ritual people, rit-tyoo-ahl!) Oh, and there’s nothing I like better than a good celebration of a seasonal change-over. (I call as a witness the 40 some odd people jammed into my house for chili on the Fall Equinox.) So, you can imagine my delight when I walked into the Winter Solstice Feast on Monday night. Oh holies of holies, I’ve come home!

The Winter Solstice Feast is held in an old Safeway building in the Ballard Neighborhood of Seattle. You know you are close when you see people in glow-in-the dark turbans… and/or wings…and/or fur trimmed renaissance gowns…and/or togas…you get the idea. The feast is held on the longest night of the year and it’s primarily a time to celebrate the return of the light. For the light came into the darkness and the darkness could not overcome it…and we beheld its glory…. This particular solstice feast, thrown by the Fremont Arts Council, is especially stunning in that it hosts 700 people for a sit-down dinner and it’s done entirely by volunteers. Can you imagine? This would never ever happen in any of the churches I’ve attended. We’d rely on the clergy. That’s what we pay them for isn’t it…to take care of things? Anyhow, I’m telling you this shin-dig was insane! I mean, prior to Monday night we had gone to a headdress making workshop and decorated the space with some evergreens…but I had no real idea of the scope of this event!

We walked into the building through a gorgeous metalwork arch which read “Try Another World.” (Seen here at it’s orginal site…Burning Man 2004. Artist: Rodman Miller) Greeters helped us choose headdresses (handmade party favors crafted from recycled beads, ribbons, and tochkes.) There was a bucket for donations, and everyone brought a dish to share, a mug to toast with, and a bottle of wine. Inside, the main part of the room was ringed-in with screens made of salvaged tree branches. There were rows and rows of green-lined tables. From the ceilings hung rough-wrought chandeliers made of scrap lumber covered with evergreens and rimmed in hand dipped pillar candles. (Candle making was one of the in-advance volunteering options at the warehouse/art studio called the Powerhouse.) Labyrinths and mandalas were painted on the cement floor (no elevated stages here…everyone, even the “entertainers,” were on an even playing field.) At the end of the main aisle was a huge disk of ice, rimmed by metal arms, dripping into a glass bowl etched with gold runes– an hourglass of sorts, counting down to the return of the light. Someone made an announcement and hundreds of people gathered round a loaf of bread. A woman’s voice started a low humming which soon crested into a sort-of roar. (It was a little unsettling.) The loaf was passed and everyone took a piece. Then the feast began and people ringed the buffet tables. We would pour red wine! We would eat roast beef with our fingers! We would scrape pomegranates with our teeth! (And, unfortunately, eat a tofu-based vegan brownie.) The opening feast was my favorite time of the night…watching 700 people create a communal meal. I kept thinking. “The church doesn’t know how to do this.” (Lindell reminded me that the church would largely screw something like this up, because they would just extract one aspect of it and use it out of context in an effort to be cool. “We would take the girl in the fur bikini over there and decided that our worship bands should be dressed like that. Then we would just keep playing tunes from the Vineyard Music Group.” Such a cynic…but you know what? He’s right.) Have you ever been to the wedding of a pal who was broke…one of those events where everyone just pitches in and it turns out just wonderfully? Well imagine that…only with ten time the guests. The kingdom is a colorful party, come on in.

After supper we wandered through the cavernous space. Can you imagine doing something like this in a big grocery store? It’s like throwing a party in an airplane hanger. But the designers had carved out rooms and hallways so that the event was on a human scale. My favorite section was set-off by an arch made of two dyads or angel-like figures, their twisted wooden arms reaching up to suspend a star overhead. Through this arch you entered a mysterious, restful world, moving under gnarled root-like structures to find a heart-shaped pond made of grey and blue stones, glowing orange lights like eerie dinosaur eggs, fabric draped cushions in candlelit coves.

Another place frequented for long periods of time by my daughters (ages 4 and 6) was the white-draped walls of the belly-dancing “temple” The girls lounged with Tonya and I on Turkish rugs and rolled pillows, while dancer moved on and off the stage. As one woman danced her controlled undulations on the stage, four other shadows danced along the walls, silhouettes from a secret world beyond the screens. Though the dancers’ costumes sometimes teetered on the brink of decency, I was still glad the girls had a chance to see women moving with such confidence and beauty. (Side note: This is a world where women “minister” and move better then men. Christian men, a large percentage of whom are s*xually addicted or a least mildly plagued by internet p*rn obsessions ,can’t move very freely in this artful, pagan, seeking realm. There’s just WAY too much skin. Here’s the new frontier of the woman pastor!)

But perhaps the best zone was Cameron’s beautiful silk-strewn peace corner. Three columns of hand-died silk set this space apart. Each turned like a prayer wheel when you walked through them. Past a sign requesting silence, you walked into circular hallways of blue silk walls – an abbreviated labyrinth. Beneath you lay cedar and eucalyptus branches so that each step on the footpath released their scent. The final turn brought you to a pool of light within the curving walls. In the center of this circular space a column of white silk, lit from within, stretched to the ceiling. At it’s base small shelves held a piece of coral, stones with water-bored holes, a conical shell, a sea glass orb. White sand covered the floor and people sat cross legged, dragging cedar stems across it to make a wavelike patterns, drawing pictures in the sand, or writing and erasing private words. The children were there too, playing and chatting. My Eden sat next to Cameron’s Eden and compared dresses. (“I am and Indian princess!” said the not-my Eden.) Cate sat next to a “nun” and made indentations in the sand with the corral. “Guess what my sentence said?” Eden demanded, having erased all trace of her new-found skill of spelling “It has three words and it’s not about a holiday!” The nun laughed. On my way out, as I ran my hands along the rippling silk walls, someone else’s palm touched mine in passing. Another wanderer on her journey in. And the people who dwelled in darkness saw a great light…and we beheld its glory…

Now, to be utterly fair, there was plenty of cheesiness too: a tunnel to walk through in order to “activate” your unused DNA; a play consisting primarily of women spinning with colorful scarves; a room full of sofas and cushions filled with cuddly nineteen year olds and piercings. Mostly we, the recovering evangelicals, we laughed at ourselves. Look! A DNA tunnel…or a “Ring of Fire” prayer circle? A bad street play about pagan beliefs…or a YWAM performance? Some ritual with bread that we can’t make heads or tales of…or Communion? A club hoping youth staging a love-in….or the youth group on a retreat weekend? This must be what Christian culture feels like to people who didn’t grow up inside the bubble! We laughed at ourselves, sheepishly and with some amount of built-in repentance—a sort of nervous, unspoken request for forgiveness for being so weird. Still, it comforted us a little to know that every religion is capable of incredible feats of cheesiness. It redoubled our efforts to want to do good art.

In the end, I think the Fremont Arts Council really found their way to what the handmade (handmade!) invitations called people to do:

You are warmly invited to attend
the Feast of the Winter Solstice…

Come prepared to renew your spirit
as we welcome the return of the light.

And the people who walked in darkness beheld a great light….a light came into the darkness and the darkness could not overcome it…and we beheld it’s glory…glory as only begotten of the Creator…full of grace and truth….