photo by: Rose Conlon/KMUW

Orin Hart, a High Priestex of the Wiccan coven Circle of the Stag, holds a ceremonial dagger used during rituals.

At their home in Wichita, Orin Hart is preparing for Circle of the Stag’s annual Yule ritual.

Hart is a High Priestex of the Alexandrian Wiccan coven, which formed a decade ago. They held up a long braided cord adorned with wooden charms.

“We call it a cingulum. We wear it around our waist when we do any ritual to hold our spirit in to us, but also keep things from hurting us,” Hart said. “In a ritual, you could be in a … trancelike state. You don’t want anything to get you while you’re having an out-of-body experience.”

Wicca is an earth-based religion that focuses on a spiritual connection with nature. Circle of the Stag meets biweekly to hold rituals and honor seasonal festivals, called Sabbats.

Saturday is the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. Wichita will get around 9 and a half hours of sunlight.

In Wicca and other pagan religions, the day is marked by Yule, a holiday that’s a time of both reflection and celebration.

For this year’s ritual, the coven is joining with another local pagan group. Up to 30 people will gather around a fire. Rituals start with casting a sacred circle: tracing its outline with a wand or dagger and cleansing the space with smoke and brine.

“Once we’re in that circle, part of what we say is that we are in a place that is no place, and time that is no time, and we are between the worlds,” Hart said.

Through storytelling and dance, Hart and another leader will lead a reenactment of the Wild Hunt, a story about guiding souls who’ve died during the year into the afterlife.

“Sometimes we’ll do meditations,” Hart said. “This year, for this ritual in particular, we’re doing a lot of movement.”

An important feature of the ritual is the Yule log — a decorated piece of wood. Attendees hold pieces of last year’s log bearing symbols of what they wanted to bring into this year.

“And then we will put them into the fire to release the things that we got from this year,” Hart said. “Afterwards, we’ll make a new (Yule log) to take with us through the next year.”

Paganism is growing in the U.S, particularly among young people, according to Helen Berger, a visiting scholar at Harvard Divinity School who studies pagan communities. In part, Berger said, that reflects Americans’ movement away from organized religion and toward less-hierarchical spiritual practices.

“They feel that it’s not meeting their individual or personal needs, and they are discovering alternative spirituality,” she said. “We have a great deal of individualism in our culture, in our society, and here we have it within a religious or spiritual form.”

Many pagans, including Wiccans, practice magic and call themselves witches.

Berger said solstice is a pivotal time in pagan communities.

“We’re going into this really deep darkness,” she said. “But we need to start focusing on the fact that the sun will start, slowly but surely, coming back. So, there’s this outward joyousness about the light.”

In southwestern Wisconsin, the nature spirituality church Circle Sanctuary is preparing for its 50th annual Yule festival. On Saturday, dozens of members will converge on the church’s expansive nature preserve. They’ll gather around a bonfire and throw in a Yule log, symbolizing the returning sun.

Earlier this week, the church’s high priestess, Selena Fox, gathered members on Zoom to light candles and honor the season’s full moon.

“We draw down the power of the moon into this sacred circle, into ourselves, and into this season,” she said, before breaking into song. “Yuletide joy, Yuletide cheer, Yuletide spirit, welcome here.”

Fox is a Wiccan priestess, but the Circle Sanctuary includes a range of pagan traditions, focusing on a spiritual connection with nature. Amid the depths of winter, Fox said Yule is a celebratory occasion to plant seeds of hope for the coming spring.

“It’s really a powerful time for personal renewal, for renewal of bonds with family and friends, for humankind and for the planet as a whole,” she said.

Fox said you don’t have to be pagan to celebrate Yule. Anyone can commemorate the day by going on a walk in nature and taking in the beauty of wintertime.

In Wichita, after Circle of the Stag’s ritual is over, it’s time for a feast. For Hart, Yuletide joy is a time to deepen spiritual connections with themselves and each other — and celebrate the return of the sun.

“We are usually celebrating fellowship,” Hart said. “We’re trying to build that community space where we … take care of each other.”

— Rose Conlon reports for Kansas News Service.