good morning welcome to change is the program on sustainability i'm suzanne gregory the coordinating producer of the show and today marjorie stewart is going to lead the conversation good morning we're very running here we are heading description of your role with the unitarian fellowship and i will let you in probably a secret that is clear to everybody who knows me which is that i didn't want anybody who was to engaged with traditional religious practices because while i have nothing against the practices there's more to what we're doing than that today so the role of the unitarian minister well let me tell you a little bit first about the first unitarian fellowship of started actually in the one nine hundred fifty s as a reason ult of a small discussion group reading a book and i can't remember the name of the book right now and it grew fairly rapidly with fairly high numbers and there was a change in governmental policies which was the biodiversity it's on the way up to hammond bay it's environmental biodiversity the biological station that closed in with that a lot of people left who were with our fellowship our  numbers ok the biological station didn't close but some part of it something must have closed in the fifty's and rearranged it self because the biological station and when of the two federal posts when i'm not talking about a few and number of years later yeah ok so we existed in relatively in people's homes a small group discussions we had a very large religious education program at one point they met on a sunday morning with people meeting in the evening the parents meeting in the evening to have discussions circles and eventually ten years ago out of twenty nine members we had twenty one contribute enough for a mortgage for us to own our own building and so we're five ninety five town site which is the corner of town site mill stream and we just celebrated ten years in the building and very excited to have done that so my role there is in the middle of a three year contract with them helping i'm called a developmental minister which is helping them to achieve certain goals that they're working on and we're will re evaluate that contract next year and see where things are happy tween us oh ok thanks very much for that and like bring your mind back to very primitive agrarian societies where the bulk of their year spent on farming and really pulling in the harvest and the soul stillness was this fear of the sun disappearing from their lives and they depended so greatly on the sun for their livelihood that they would gather together and eventually they realized over time that there was this day where the sun was the shortest and so they would of ancient ancient peoples would gather and actually spend the whole night keeping vigil waiting for the sun to rise because that was the big celebration of the time so it was a gathering of people it was a celebration when the sun finally returned and they knew the days would be getting longer and so it was a time of celebration of feasting and people gathering in community during those dark dark days and the roman notion of looking to waste comes in there too because you're looking at how to manage through the darker period and how to be sure that your harvest is sufficient and well looked after and it's one last chance to have a great big feast and before you enter into a sort of belt tightening period absolutely absolutely and it was a time where people would actually cook their finest meals because they knew that as the sun would be returning that they could make those plans that their stores would be replenished so with that it was also that time period as well so this must have been happening all around the world and i'm aware that there's also some cells to us there is and the same thing happens in reverse in june which is in my mind like what it must be like in what my niece was recently in australia and she backpacked all over australia and i was thinking about what that must be like for her entering a time period of summer and then there she is flying back to she lives in edmonton flying back to edmonton and what a contrast that must have been for her so here we are looking at the shortest days with our days getting shorter and shorter and in australia you know south of the equator their days are getting longer and they're waiting for the longest and it must be hard for them to turn up a selves around if they animistic our indigenous religions here we are at this moment when we're thinking very seriously about actually about her survival through the dark times and we're coming together and we're celebrating together what are some of the celebrations is a grown out of the souls to us christmas is obvious but christmas also has different components to it doesn't it christmas is a lot of different components to it i mean i'm right now sort of thinking about right now in this month of december our lady of guadalupe is a celebration that is celebrated on december sixteenth in mexico from that you've also got s nicholas day which is celebrated in europe on december sixth those are all celebrations that are associated with christmas but not necessarily christmas celebrations i was fascinated when i looked up the origins of christmas and realized that there was actually a decision made in the fourth century christian church that the the bishops so got together and they decided to december twenty fifth would be celebrated as christmas and nobody knew when the birth of jesus christ was but the reason was because this was when a lot of solstice celebrations already to place so christians can't claim to have invented christmas that her piece of the winter celebrations at major piece in our culture yeah and you're absolutely right nobody knew when jesus was born we still don't know when jesus was born  it's sort of a political decision that had to be made well if you're thinking about if you are trying to spread your religion and you look at what are the practices currently being practiced in a community in which you're trying to spread your religion it makes sense that if they're celebrating the return of the light in the return of there was also this battle between the holly king and the oak king that happened at that time a year and one would die and one would naturally be one would be born the oking is born at solstice it's easy to look at that and go why don't we put it here it seems to fit nicely and it's a practice that is already being celebrated and there's been some tension i think i have a feeling that maybe the tension is subsiding a bit but we certainly experienced the tension a few years ago in and imo and we had some people who g very very hot and bothered about recognizing other religious celebrations mid winter i don't suppose you were here at the time so much i know i like i said i recently came to know and i'm about a year and a half ago but i expect you've met  that sort of fear of losing christmas but have for the me my facebook feed right now is it's full of two different kinds of celebrations of christmas there is one where it's but the christ back in christmas day i've seen imeem of that float around quite a bit and that is i think it comes from right now when i noticed it studying at vancouver school of theology there was this desire among the christian traditions to go back to the very early origins of what christianity was as reported by somebody going you know even going back before that like looking at the very very early  the very early christians who would not have even identified themselves as christians what was it that they practiced christianity is one of the few religions that have this idea of serving the other even though they don't belong to our community and that was actually what helped to spread christianity is they have that belief system and so they're moving back to that very early origin of who are we and what do we really mean when we celebrate christmas and i find that interesting too because i got a lot of background in history and having been brought up in the old country quite a lot by both study went and my early education and what i remember is that there was a disagreement between poland peter paul wanted to proselytize and peter wanted to say home and practice christianity i don't know where that story came from but as you've just explained it's obviously about choosing to spread the message and there are pros and cons to spreading the message i would guess that right now the anglican church in england has rather sorry that they spread the message to africa because they are having so much trouble with the african bishops who haven't caught up to this dimension for so there are all of these things that we need to be reasonable about to take account of what struck me about many of a wild crazy orgy but it turns out that it was also a time to be kind to slaves who were a common piece of the culture in their days and more than that during the period of the saturnalia the slaves were freed temporarily and treated just as free people so there has always been this feeling that in the winter solstice this deficient between light and dark we need to look after each other we need to be good to each other but for some reason we're not able to keep  common problem i'm sure you've discovered in your attempts to get think oh it's a common problem all the time i mean it's there's that whole sentiment around christmas time of why can't we keep the spirit alive every day of the year i sometimes think of that is too much of a good thing becomes normal well it's true and certainly with party food yes there are people who try to live on party food and it's making them ill but they don't know it yes especially if they're young and the recently left home and it's a competitive play a new thing in our defense where it'll help cheer the young people who don't really understand the realities of life can move out on their own and start stuffing themselves with food well some of that i think is also a little bit due in part of the way that you know adolescence is a relatively new phenomenon as you've sort of said you know this idea of oh it you know what we're going to treat you like a child until you hit eighteen and then when you're eighteen guess what you're an adult you get to make your own decisions and i did ministry before i became a minister and that's a very hard transition for young adults to many excited huge impact on our culture it really is but just to go back to this the question of the other stream the other stream is what ever it is you celebrate go in and joy that holiday time with your family whether it happens to be kwanzaa whether it happens to be hanukkah whether it happens to be sold as whether it happens to be christmas go celebrate be merry be joyful and enjoy the ones you love and support each other don't keep it out of the schools you see we lost a really good school superintendent on this issue oh did you for some reason a large number of people who were not thinking clearly or kindly decided the that message of being supportive of different celebrations said let's face it quite upset quite a recently invented one because one nine hundred sixty s have been so much interfered with they haven't had the chance to develop much in many cases so fair enough that's what they want  sounds lovely why no children know that this is what some people do but apparently some people really took us by it to the fact that she sent out a message to school saying go easy on christmas imperialism but she didn't use that word ok that was basically the message and also i sort of think the old guard had there no ifs and so i put it that way i have nothing to lose so we lost a good school superintendent and in this last election we lost a very good councillor fred patchy and i'm wondering if it wasn't part to do with the fact that the message over the leader of the back row in town got all confused with christianity and there are people who are very very simplistic in their thinking about what christianity is and isn't so how would you interpret the fact that somebody who was one of the most popular of our counselors suddenly came crashing down to defeat in the us tonight and there are a whole range of possible reasons i would say that there's more than likely a whole range of possible reasons the not one particular one and unfortunately i don't know a lot about the politics here and and i'm i'm just getting used you know settling in here so maybe in about five or six years i might have something different to say i don't know but at this point in time hard to say i mean i would say more than likely a variety of different reasons yes it's just so hard to understand how people suddenly decide on a single issue it's this business of single issue politics that i think it's bothering me and people get onto a single issue and they makes not judgements and this can have huge him it's well i find one of the things that i try and do in almost everything is to be inclusive of everyone in the room or and even to consider the voices not present in the room because often we forget to do that so when i talk about celebrating  holiday at this time a year i'm aware that we have a rainy and people in our communities that are celebrating the all the on the twenty first of december again which is a celebration of the victory over light over darkness there are people that are celebrating hanukkah there are people that choose not to celebrate christmas whatsoever in any way shape or form don't buy gifts don't decorate don't want anything to do with it and so part of my aim and whatever it is that i'm doing is i want every person to feel that what they are doing has meaning and importance for them i've come across that a few times recently too and it seems to take all the color and light out of our much needed winter festivities when people suddenly make this decision because of the commercialization of christmas they want nothing whatsoever to do with it is that something that comes up with your fellowship group or do they just rise above it i wouldn't say the fellowship as a whole but i would say maybe individual people more and more are choosing that we run a program that's called unplugging the christmas machine and it is a program a day long workshop where people come and have an opportunity to sort of reflect on those traditions that they were given in their childhood from their parents and their parents before them to say what has meaning for me who is it that i want to celebrate with at this time a year one of the things that are going to bring me meeting learning to let it let go of those traditions that no longer have any meaning and recreate new traditions for themselves and their loved ones in a way that brings them meaning joy and satisfaction there's this wonderful story of this family that every year for christmas they had h and they had to cook the ham the same way that grandmother did and grandmother always cut the ham into and so everybody for you know that whole thing only grew up having to cut the h instructions to the butcher i said please cut in half because i no longer have a large there you go so one of the things that certainly recognizes that christmas festivities can balloon out of all proportion and if you have young children and they're at home with you for year after year after year after year they have expectations and one of my discoveries has been you can always add something to christmas but when soup done that you can never say subtract it not while you have small children at home that much is for sure of these magical effects doesn't it it does it's amazing on my daughter's twenty two right now and i was a single mom raising her and i remember well remember the pressure that i felt to put on a christmas she watched television when she was you know what child and they start targeting children in september with the toy it's like if you watch television at all you'll notice in september the two yeah ads start increasing dramatically and from september through to december the increases magically almost so the children end up wanting and wanting and wanting and it's not any fault of theirs because the marketers are doing an excellent job well there's a price on everything there is so in order to do it you often have to spend a lot of money which can be a further stress for a family at christmas time so maybe later on we'll talk a little bit about some of the things that we couldn't do every year that don't involve a huge amount of stress and don't involve a huge amount of expenditure now we're welcoming supplant the litter no at this point she just wondered into our our studio and we had invited her to come and talk about a particular winter celebration as a representative of the port theatre give us some information so samantha good feel he figured out you have to share your microphone yeah it's all good yes so you want me to speak about the events whatever you like to speak about including the have him ok so i just cut part of the interview here so i'm wondering if you could just kind of what the theme was that you're speaking of we're talking about when to celebrations and in amongst the winter celebrations you have dear to your heart a very local celebration that you're going to talk about yeah what i like about we have a show coming up this sunday at the port theatre eight pm called winter harp and this show has been around for almost twenty years touring across british columbia and mainly western canada and the beauty of this show is it's not a typical christmas show it's very different it's something different for the holiday season and a great way to kind of start it it's it's really based in celtic and medieval and world music so it's a really engaging performance it's just something really unique to the traditional stuff that you see in the holiday season and i think opens up to a broader audience so what else can i say about it it's really breathtaking they put a lot of work into even their costuming with long velvet gowns the backdrops are absolutely gorgeous the set painting that's gone into them the way that it's lit it makes it a really charming cozy night at the port  hundred seat theater all of a sudden because extremely intimate in the way that they've set it up it's not just the music there's storytelling and storytelling of different times and times that have gone by and kind of pulling in that it's about family and friends and community so it's a very it's a very beautiful show and it has a lot of meaning for me because my background is i think celtic i remember saying once to west highland friends i think i'm probably a sassenach saxon because i come from the world and so they just looked at me with scorn and i said where do you think older children have go because of course that's what everybody gets into the big open centers i distinctly remember as a small child not noticing christmas atoll because all of the emphasis was on new year and new year's the same thing as with winter solstice isn't it it's the turning from the dark towards the light and realizing that last year is now behind you and you have to get ready and keep yourself fit for next year and then there's a yes everybody i think is in chanted by the her and the differen usually two to three heart in their winter her obviously the title went to heart and yeah they're gorgeous instruments to look at and also to hear and they just something about that sound really warms the heart rate it just i also wonder if you have meant to us this question of course were for women here meant to us this question of men but it's only little girls that fall in love with the heart but an orchestral performance and say i want to do that when i grow up and of course there's the tinkling grounding quality to it and that i will contribute one of the thing i know about celtic music after seventeen years of obligatory music lessons twice a and the time signatures two can be quite different where a lot of celtic or celtic music is written in six eight time a lot of the laments yes i know it's three six four time which makes it very different and counting in six eight there's something about it that makes it energy really taken off yet and i have you to get up and answer right away exactly so how long the performances when to her it's about two hours in length and they only here for the one night it's only one night this year so different than previous years where we've had  nice show and then an evening performance this year they're only here for one night the show does start a little bit later it's at eight pm as opposed to seven thirty pm so for all those people that have made this part of their way to engage in the holiday season and something that's a little bit different i would highly suggest getting your tickets quickly because there is only the one show this weekend and that makes a huge difference now i can visualize people from gabriel to starting to  intrigued by your mention when we were talking about coming in samantha of the medieval instruments and i was wondering how many people in the community are particularly interested in those old instruments because i look them up and i suppose they had a canadian instrument maker who has created the instruments for winter and one of them sent a museum of music and often they got him to copy it so that they could use it for their presentation is just fascinating and that's totally fascinating i was unaware of that that they were locally made well i wouldn't be surprised if there aren't people in the community if you remember the family used to do medival music and they had the medival instruments and they would put on  opportunity to see the traditional instruments but i just actually look them up and i say i finally found out wh it stands at the height of five feet and this is the imposing brass psaltery that is in the museum is the only one like it in the world but he made another one specifically for the winter which in winter harp on some  it talks about being made of cherry and sitka spruce thirty five string sultry featuring a gothic rose just scribe one of the instruments in the show it's really the so unique and it is there's this haunting beauty to it because these are really ancient instruments and they've gone after authenticity which they really have very important so many  youngest of us having been through this particular stress that falls on a mother christmas time to you i guess it can be stressful and you're not the best example because you like to make your hosts change by the yeah i think we have always tried to raise our child not to buy into all the consumerism of the christmas season and but i mean you know kids they see it everywhere ratio you can't take everything away no no a rebel that we don't need but i mean i think i'm open to that idea and we've never made christmas a big deal it's always about celebrating the holiday season with friends and family that we haven't unplugged unplugging the christmas machine unitarian phillip when you're doing there are there aspects in which lights are part of the discussion it's up to the individual as to how they make meaning out of it but you know lights are used at this time of year to remind us that the light is coming back and to remind us in this time of darkness that i think that light can be found within us and it's up to each one of us to let our light shine and to share that light with other people to create that warmth that him for that warm safe environment that we all want to be a part of i meditate every day and there's this one meditation i do in the fall and it's let me take in the colors and hold them deep in my heart so that on a dark winter day i can share my colors with all and i just love that sentiment for us at this time of year when it is so dark and dreary and like last night it was raining so hard and the wind and the wind and to remember that i have the light i have the could continue yes then there are a few things i could mention i mean that's a good idea to get the mentioned and then when we come back we can talk about other aspects of winter celebrations and ideas and things that have wear that we've seen look ok well ok we'll just remind our listeners that you're listening to c h o y i want to one point seven f m your campus and community station based in downtown and imo but of course we stream live at c h o dot ca as well and hello to anyone out there who may be listening from a far to our stream on the website we do have a few things in the one area land trust also known as no t live christmas trees for sale or rant at their office at one forty wallace street downstairs i believe it's number eight and you can find out more about that by going to n a s b c dot ca or their facebook page or you can phone to five zero seven one four one nine nine zero next week december eighteenth at seven thirty artists in solidarity will be presenting pull together an evening of live music dance multimedia performance and silent auctions to raise funds to support first nations legal challenges against the enbridge northern gateway pipeline that will be at the harbor city theater formally and imo center stage twenty five victoria road co sponsored by the mid island chapter of the council of canadians and the mid island television society tickets are on sale now through the port theatre tickets center two five zero seven five four eight five five zero or port theatre dot com and someone who's in the room with us here will be heard or maybe you'll be dead that i understand and will mention this once again next week because it is thursday the eighteenth but they're anticipating that tickets will sell quickly so do check those out right away and don't you will not be able to purchase tickets at the door all tickets have to be purchased in advance so if you're coming to the event you need to get your tickets through the port theatre box office oh ok one headache on the night i just want to say this is a wonderful winter celebration for activists yes yes yes and a way of sharing and giving and making it meaningful and being a difference yes yes that's one thing that people do talk about is give a gift of something meaningful like that instead of stuff from you know the mall or whatever so something to think about maybe purchase tickets as a gift for somebody that might be easier to winter harbor or to pull together both of those would be very worthwhile so and finally just one last thing there will be a magic lantern festival on the winter solstice december twenty first four thirty pm at bowen park meet at the lower picnic shelter by wall street at four thirty am there will be a lantern procession through the park sounds like lots of fun luminary and yeah make a lantern and bring it or buy one there or just come along to experience the light and there will be a lantern making workshops for adults and children at iron oxide art supplies which is it number five victoria road in the old fire hall building there you can stop by there do inquiry about that or phone two five zero five nine one four seven six six for more about those workshops and there is a little bit of information also online about fellowship and some f l the tour no from the port theatre about holiday celebrations and different ways we're looking at them well now that we're talking about holiday celebrations  stream so to speak on changes it's connected with food i would really like to talk about food and festive foods and what we can do about people who don't have enough food aside from the obvious and i kicked this off by pointing out that it's not much help to just give at christmas when there are people who are hungry there and the best way to give to the soup kitchen seven to ten club or the food bank loaves and fishes is to give a small monthly donation so they know what they can manage to do throughout the year and if you talk to the price of what you might do as a big splashy gift then you would easily come to five dollars a month or ten dollars a month without any trouble or tow at the recent come to this because i just discovered that in huntsville where i live there is a food drive and the firemen to the local farkle at least one person within the fire hall has pulled over his peers into this and as i understand what's going to happen is that this coming saturday which i think is the thirteenth the firemen have asked if you have food to give away and they're asking for canned and dried because i don't know if people are aware of this most food for packages for people who might want to cook rather than be given cooked goods or kraft dinners at christmas and i've separated them into four packages and i think clip on to medical message saying for people who want to cook and two things will have recipes with them saying this is how you do it here are the spices in this little container together these herbs and spices gradually and since i'm in for happy christmas too i'm going to throw in some boo could see were sparkling there yeah you can often find recipes online where you can do soup in a jar where you you know it's really quite colorful with different layers of beings and things and that everything you need to create a soup is in that jar and you just throw it in add water cock it up and there you go you've got your soup good one well we've not been through that period of not having all the spices require a particular resident right and so i was thinking of people who have never had a bit of cooking never made that collection so obviously you have to give them a bit of a boost at this point and so what i'm doing is an indian it's the restaurant let's talk about christmas photo traditions what is this for christmas cake some people must of been subjected to some really nasty christmas cake but in our family christmas cake has one of the rich juicy sweet gorgeous tree it's so what have you discovered about people's attitude to christmas cakes and i well it's funny i was raised on the prairie xin christmas cake in scatch when i sask is almost everywhere i think it's it's almost regionally it was only when i moved to the west coast that i discovered people didn't like cake or christmas cake very strange when did that happen is it within living memory or well i mean i moved what i moved to vancouver forty odd years ago so it was there or that i first discovered it and funnily enough when i did my internship encounter he the calgary congregation they a christmas cake fundraiser and they have four very very good recipes of different kinds of christmas cake a whole team of people come in and for a solid week all you smell is christmas cake baking and they sell it and it's a huge fundraiser for them so samantha what are your memories of christmas cake yeah i like christmas cake the rest my family doesn't my mom always made it and i think maybe why some people don't like it is there are there is the christmas cake with the awful merry shino cherries so they have memories of eating that type of christmas the cake we ended yeah and that's never was what my mum made so i think that's partly where the fear of eating or even like you christmas cake may come from is the artificial stuff that's put in it but a traditional christmas cake that my mum would make would be with real dried fruit and she would have soaked it for a long time and good stuff and you know it was yeah it was very tasty it was yes and it's not just christmas cake i do remember awful experiences with wedding cake because there used to be a tradition which involved a huge amount for the bright and the bridesmaids in which hunks of christmas cake were cut into very small pieces and put into little cardboard boxes and mailed to people and by the time they arrived like cement so i'm wondering if people got christmas well there's also the sharon lois and bram christmas carol miss christmas cake and has that had nuts and all of the stuff in it and there's pudding is very important in our family and the reason it's important is because number one daughter was born on christmas under summer twenty fifth so all her life that's been her birthday cake dad would teach some liquor and porter to over and  match and the blue flame would flare up and she'd blow it out and she still thinks it's a birthday cake and she's nearly fifty so christmas pudding happens in our house and that's a big celtic tradition too because people didn't necessarily have the evidence and the plans that they needed for the kind of christmas cake we might make today and so they tended to get a big cheat to clean almost convincing stuff there's chocolate cake that goes with it if you get the complete package and you put your own vegetables in treats food a reason the dinner to european foods are full of her person spices is because they didn't have refrigeration and they certainly didn't have freezers and they weren't living in canada so they didn't have access to snow banks or ice flow so they had to spice things up in order to keep them healthy during the winter season and then this and that affected so the winter solstice actually affected colonise sation around the world because a lot of called an isolation when columbus set out he was looking for the west indies and what was he looking for there spices because that was that was before they found out the gold in the spices or the dutch to this day are heavily and volved and things and all things spices and gingerbread and stuff that came from the dutch colonial trade when they ruled the east indies so there were all of these for the for the northern scandinavian people i think it was very similar i think it's all the same kinds of spices so i just wanted to ask you one one last question at this point which is what do you think is the most important thing about this time of year and do you think it is only by christmas we already talked about christmas having snuck up on previous celebrations that already existed and being there for just our cultural stream of winter celebrations so the question was what do you think is the most important part of it and is it really only about christmas and christianity in the day that they chose in the fourth and i don't think so i think christmas is far more about or this time of year is far more about gathering together celebrating being in community feeling the warmth feeling the joy looking at spreading peace and goodwill not only to yours but to the community in which you live in and farther beyond it seems to be highlighted in many many different religious traditions as that's what's important definitely a time of giving yes it's a time you know people want to pull together and you know of course we've got this horrendous commercialization where giving has become about stuff and yet it's a self so what would you be telling your daughter of christmas samantha well  our daughter sort of christmas we talk a lot about the spirit of giving trying to promote that more monks are family and that that doesn't mean stuff like so what is giving and what are ways to give and what can you do so this year she's looking at baking stuff and putting it together is the president and giving that out and in that was her own discussion with me she wanted to do that instead of going to buy something i have a granddaughter about her age and i can tell you that there's one copy global village that's something you can buy in good conscience and use a lot yes and over again write a book and you can do good things with money yes yes yes i think yeah there's many things to donate to and what i wanted to also bring up is i don't know how many people are aware of this but at the port theatre we have a program called theater angels and we often this right now is the time of the year where we look for people to donate to theater angels you can donate all year round but what theater angels is is that we give tickets to various social service agencies in the community for people that access their services to be able to come and see a show at the theater so those that can't afford a ticket to the theater are given tickets that's brilliant yeah and the more we support the more mine i also want to lift up at this time of year that christmas is not all joy and laughter and celebration for many people and we're doing a celebration well a service at the fellowship on wednesday the seventeenth that seven pm called blue christmas and it's a service for those who might be grieving who might be going through a very difficult time who just find this time a year too overwhelming to deal with and so i looking at the blue of christmas in terms of the emotional aspect of it not the color of it and will it be some yes there will be some goodies there might be christmas cake but that is one way that we're looking at doing outreach and if you are interested in coming to a winter solstice celebration we're doing that on saturday the twentieth at seven pm as well and that is opened both of vents are open to anyone regardless of denomination thank you marjorie for bringing some i and some of it in and that's our show thank you so much for joining us