Thank Goddess

On the longest and, arguably, darkest and coldest night of the year, Cat Williford sat in a ceremonial circle of candles, conjuring up the Goddess in herself and two dozen other women attending a “rebirthday party” to mark the winter solstice.

“We come before you, Elemental Energies and Goddesses, to celebrate the completion of one more year in the cycle of our lives,” she said, as the women linked hands and closed their eyes.

The ceremony was supposed to take place in a backyard tepee, just a few blocks from the corporate headquarters of the Walt Disney Co. But the Santa Ana winds blew down their temple. They made do in the living room, on a hardwood floor amid walls adorned with Native American art.

Williford’s incantation continued: “On the longest night of the year, we make room for the coming light and the return of warmth to our planet. We acknowledge that we, as women, are the human representatives of the Goddess on Earth. And we behold the light within us and around us.”

The women, some of them self-employed, others professionals working for large corporations, had set aside families and public faces for a more private endeavor: gathering together and celebrating the power of their femininity.

They set goals. They spoke of Goddess jaunts to Mexico, the Grand Canyon, Lake Tahoe. But mostly, they socialized with others who share a bond of trust so deep they dare to state their most fervent wishes out loud, in front of one another. It’s the verbal equivalent of getting naked.

“I have a new car,” boasted one goddess-in-training. “I wished for one.”

“You know the pimples I had?” asked another. “Gone the next day.”

“I think I’m not asking right,” observed a third.

While others spent the weekend preparing for Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwaanza, fighting traffic, decking halls, baking goodies and rushing through malls, Southern California’s witches, pagans, Earth mothers and, yes, even atheists quietly rang out the old and ushered in the new with a smattering of winter solstice celebrations.

Covens in West Hills and North Hollywood on Saturday invoked Wiccan rituals, then schmoozed over potluck suppers. The Onion bookstore in Mission Hills threw open its doors for a nighttime solstice celebration.

In Hollywood, about 75 atheists attended a $35-a-plate banquet without ceremony at the Holiday Inn. Although comedians provided entertainment, no rituals were observed.

“We don’t practice any religion whatsoever,” explained Henry Farber, corresponding secretary of Atheists United, a Sherman Oaks-based group that claims 400 members across California.

“We don’t believe in anything--call us free thinkers, if you like.”

For people into mysticism or any -ism linked to the Earth and the cycle of its seasons, the winter solstice represents much more than a theme for New Age holiday music.

There’s the opportunity for some inner housecleaning to shake the cobwebs off the soul, mark the passage of time and set new goals. Rife with fertility lore and powerful female characters, it’s especially popular with certain groups of feminists.

In the Goddess, Wiccan, pagan and Celtic traditions, Yule is considered the first of eight yearly sabbats, or solar festivals. It marks a turning point--the slow return to longer days, a brighter sun.

Thousands of years ago, pagans on the British Isles spent the long nights of a cold and cloudy season praying to Celtic gods and goddesses for the coming of spring. Those same gods and goddesses appear again in the rituals performed by modern urban pagans.

Take Rhiannon, for example. More than just the subject of a Fleetwood Mac song, Rhiannon is the Welsh sun goddess whose birthing of her sacred son Pryderi predates the Christmas story.

Other contemporary rituals borrow heavily from Native American traditions, which also follow agricultural cycles. Sometimes the two are combined in a hybrid ceremony.

And so it was on Sunday night in Burbank, at the home of Barbara Schiffman, a self-described “spiritual alchemist” and healer who earns her keep as a writer and film producer.

Her friend Williford, the ceremony’s leader, is another thoroughly modern healer who coaches women to tap their Goddess energy for all sectors of their lives--including their careers. The “yup” in yuppies, in this line of thinking, could just as well stand for “young urban pagans.” More than one goddess Sunday night came to Schiffman’s home armed with a pager and cell phone.

“If anyone has a cell phone, be sure it’s turned off,” said Williford. “Pagers, too,” she added as two electronic leashes bleated just as the purifying sage was lighted.

The participants prepared yearly accomplishment lists to be burned during the ceremony. They brought pens and candles in red and green (red for the fire of rebirth and green for growth and love), set up altars and created sacred spaces around themselves, the perimeters marked off by votive candles.

Once the sage had burned, the women invoked the five elements--earth, air, fire, water and spirit--and their corresponding goddesses--Artemis, Athena, Pele, Kuan Yin and Persephone.

They read off their lists of accomplishments and let the old year go with a “detachment meditation.”

“Close your eyes, take three deep breaths, and silently acknowledge yourself for having lived one more year,” said Williford, a serene blond with corporate polish and carefree humor.

“Notice if your body is storing any energy about the past year. If you feel any tension, gently place your hands over that spot and send the light energy now dawning again on the planet into that area for enlightenment, healing and warmth.”

The lists were shredded and burned, and the rebirthing began with three more deep breaths.

“Become aware that you are surrounded by a safe environment where all is secure, loving and joyful,” Williford said. “You are in the womb, preparing to give birth to yourself. As you peer through the birth canal, you see radiant light waiting for you on the other side.”

The women brought their palms to their hearts, urged by Williford to hold themselves as if they were babies. “You are the Holy Child,” she told them.

Next, they stretched out their arms, as if spreading their wings, entering the new year. They chanted and rose up, Phoenix-like, and jotted entries in their Goddess journals in red and green ink.

Then, two hours after they began, they rejoiced with cheese, lasagna, rebirthday cupcakes (each with a single candle) and eggnog--to newly reborn goddesses, a symbol of mother’s milk.