Destiny: Ellen Evert Hopman, Ancestral Celebrations, New Year's Eve

Summary

This episode delves into the medicinal and magical properties of plants traditionally associated with the Christmas and Yuletide season. It also explores the historical origins of the Christmas tree and Santa Claus, along with various festive customs and rituals. Host Ellen Evert Hopman shares practical guides to celebrate the Winter Solstice with crafts, recipes, and folklore.

Key takeaways

• 1Ellen Evert Hopman: Master herbalist and Druid, author of 'Secret Medicines from Your Garden'
• 2The ancient Romans shared gifts, especially candles, during the midwinter festival of Saturnalia.
• 3Celtic practices included gathering mistletoe for its medicinal and magical properties.
• 4Traditional foods discussed include Elizabethan gingerbread cookies and Wassail.
• 5The Yule Log was burned in Scandinavian and Germanic cultures as a celebratory tradition.
• 6Hopman is a founding member of the Order of the White Oak and the Archdruidess of the Tribe of the Oak.

Glossary terms

Source

Transcript excerpt

Welcome to Destiny. Now here's your host, Cliff Dunning. No more champagne and the fire your work. So through here you are me and you feeling. Lost and feeling blue. It's the end of the party in. The morning seems so gray. So like yesterday, now's the time for us, heavy new, heavy New. We are. Vision now and then of the world where every name is over, we are. Sound. We wanted to have one last podcast for twenty twenty five to promote the New Year's Eve, and this is it. This is our last podcast, and I think it's a good one because we are looking back at how our ancestors celebrated New Year's Eve. Would you believe it that it actually happened as far back as the Roman period. In fact, we think it goes back even further into deep history where the last day of the year was celebrated, which is New Year's Eve, with a number of pagan rituals, blessings and divinations. Now remember, divinations is working with ruins, working with special toureau, in some cases is working with astrology. But what we're talking about today are divinations that have been uncovered by a number of historians and also discovered in tombs, engraves and archives that show us our ancestors thought about the coming year, thought about finishing up and completing consciously where they have been and where they're going. Hey, this is Cliff your host of Destiny, and today we're looking at the return of Ellen Everett Hopman. She's written a number of books on ancient history, most notably The Sacred Herbs, Yule and Christmas Remedies, Recipes, Magic and Bruise for the winter season. ...

Excerpt from Earth Ancients, Dec 31, 2025. Rights remain with the original creators. Hear the full episode at the source.