Yule
December 20-23. Winter Solstice.
From this moment the period of waning of the Fire element begins. On the longest night of the year, there is another turning point that sums up the results of all that has been done. Yule is the end of the battle and its outcome – whose victory is it?
The waning of Fire is a period of relaxation and rest for those who were going through the tests of loyalty and endurance, who have held a defense shoulder to shoulder with the gods and heroes of the past, with their brothers from different worlds, united by a common froce – the power of love for the Mother. The end of this battle is announced by the horn of the god Odin (Votan) – the leader of the Wild Hunt.
To see or hear the Hunt on the days of Yule is a sign that your fate will undergo significant changes. But in which direction, for better or for worse, will be determined by the outcome of your inner Ragnarök battle, your test of endurance. Only truly brave people survive when the Hunt passes them by. The weak and spineless, the ones who have betrayed themselves and their power without even trying to enter the fray, the Hunt destroys immediately. The right to punish the betrayers and praise the heroes is a sacred right of the gods on the night of Yule. The great cavalcade of horsemen rushes through the air, and the black dogs, heart-renderingly, proclaim its approach while choking on their own barking. It is not only Odin and the gods of his pantheon who are involved in this race. Now you can see all those who have been betrayed by those they trusted. The gods who have given people honors and knowledge, who have given them protection and strength, on that night call to account those who not only failed to save and multiply the gifts of the gods, but also gave them away to the invaders voluntarily. On this night the Ancients come to take what is theirs, and no one can deprive them of that right on that day.
According to tradition, the Yule lasts 13 nights. This is a sacral period during which there is nothing familiar. As if by magic, many days of tension disappear, enmity and rejection of reality evaporates. But the will, compressed like a spring, while being released suddenly on the force of resistance, rushes forward and upward as far as its compression allows. This ‘leap’ of consciousness is the indicator of strenght of the spirit, and the higher it will be, the greater the rights will be granted to the one who has withstood. A sudden moment of extinction of Fire – and now the mind flies, joining the cavalcade of the Ancients. While returning to their worlds, the gods give the last knowledge, ‘if the god was killed, it does not mean that he is dead. Things can be changed, made different this time. After all, there will be another battle, and the result may be quite different. It is extremely important to live this year correctly.
The Fire has falen asleep, and now these 13 nights are the sovereign dominion of the goddesses of fate, those who determine the personal vird of each human. Norns, Moirai, Parks, Makosh, Dolya and Nedolya, the Great Spinners who launch their spindle on those nights have multiple names. They weave a canvas of destiny all the way to Imbolc, but it is in the days of Yule that they lay the canvas of the future reality, where each thread is the time allotted to every individual for their personal vird. Someone is destined to be the primary pattern on the canvas of the upcoming reality, and someone’s thread will be cut without hesitation if the Wild Hunt marks this person as unworthy of power and time.
People are afraid of Yule but wait for it. If you survive this dark night, the next few days you may begin to breathe with relief. Once the Hunt has passed without punishing you, then there’s still a chance to correct the mistakes, rewrite Vird, pay back the debts.
There is another great truce between Light and Dark, but now the Light will be waxing and the Dark will be waning. On this particular night people burned the Fire, gathered together trying to somehow feel protected. During the new period of the new god, the old men strictly forbid the youth to leave the house on that night; no one was to be left alone so that they wouldn’t find themselves by accident in the way of the Wild Hunt. All these beliefs appreared in the Christian era when the knowledge of the old times was finally erased from the people’s minds. There was only fear and burning guilt, but no memory of what was the reason for that.
The pagan worldview of our ancestors didn’t let them sit behind stirdy walls on that night, as if hens huddled together on a roost. They went to freedom where in front of the idols of the gods in the glade, the volhvs had already built a guiding fire in honor of the god Znich – the god of knowledge – the spark of indestructible Fire that lives within everyone. During this period of ‘anarchy’ when all elemental forces are at their minimum, the volhvs turned the eyes of every person inside himself to see if the spark of Kupala had faded away.
During the night of Solstice the god Kolyada, the spark of Kupala fire, was honored. According to the legend, he always appears when it is necessary to save the children of Svarog from spiritual degeneration. Long time ago he did the following: when he came into this world, he gathered 60 wise men from different nations and taught them ancient knowlede, he taught them how to think and understand the essence of things. He is the bearer of the primordial spark from wich a new Fire can be kindled.
Koliada was often depicted with a sword in his hand with the blade of his sword facing down. This symbol is carried by all the gods whose birth is referred by legends to the moment of the Winter Solstice, as well as the gods who enlightened the people, the striking representative of which is the legendary Prometheus who brought a spark of Fire of the Gods in the stalks of cane to the downtrodden and disgraced cowardly humanity.
This little spark isn’t enough to invoke action but it’s enough for understanding, And until Air awakens and is able to ignite this inner fire with the current of knowledge, it is necessary to find in yourself the only source of power that will constantly feed the spark. It is a chance for rebirth of the spirit, a chance to start everything all over, and a small spark of the soul will sooner or later lead to the great Fire of its god, tawards its power. This will be that fire bridge that the god Ovsen is building in the soul of every descendant of the Ansients, it is the way for Kupala, the son of Simargl, to return.
Extract from the book by Ksenia Menshikova “Health through the power of the Elements”
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Other pagan holidays of the Weel of the Year:
1 Imbolc 2 Ostara 3 Beltane 4 Litha (Kupala) 5 Lughnasadh (Lammas) 6 Mabon 7 Samhain 8 Yule
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