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Dec. 20th, 2012 10:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
darchildreHappy Mothernight, everybody.*
Yule, we are told, is a time when the line between living and dead is thinner. Sometimes that's a good thing - that's why we celebrate Mothernight, to honor our disir, our mothers and grandmothers who watch over their children. Sometimes it's a scary thing - Yule is the time of the Wild Hunt, after all. And tonight is the longest night. I can hear the wind blowing outside and maybe it's blowing with the voices of the dead, the voices of the Grim One's host. Not a good time to be outdoors.
I'm not outdoors, though. I'm safely tucked up in my bedroom, all snug and warm, and I hope that you are too. I've just finished my Mothernight blot and I've got candles lit. They're bright yellow, for the sun. There's a part of me that wants to leave them burning till they burn out to keep the light alive till morning, but most of me is afraid of burning the house down and so I'll blow them out before I go to bed.
The thing I think about most on Mothernight is uncertainty. There have been a lot of jokes made in the last couple of days about the end of the world being scheduled for tomorrow. But, see, the thing is, that's the longest night every year. Maybe this is truly the longest night, the night that never ends. Maybe tomorrow the wolf wins. There's no way to know, nothing we can do to sway things one way or the other. We sit in the dark, we hold on to each other, we light candles. We wait and we are uncertain.
The sun will come up, of course. Tomorrow won't be the Ragnarok. (Probably.) But maybe it will. Godly time is not like human time and mythology isn't to be take literally. What I think is this: it is always, possibly, Ragnarok. And it is always, possibly, the time of creation, or the time of rebuilding. Balder is born, is killed, is come again from Helheim, maybe every day. Maybe I was wrong a paragraph ago and there is something we can do - maybe we get to choose, not just at Yule, but every day. We can say, "Today is not the wolf-age, today the wolf did not win." We can choose to build up, to "see the earth anew rise up all green from the waves again...the fields unsowed bear ripened fruit, all ills grow better." Maybe we can all be Lif and Lifthrasir, who come safe through the fire, striving for life. Maybe there is no golden age but the one we choose to build.
It's dark right now, but the sun will return. And she'll bring a new day, a new year. Every day, every year. Let's choose to make this year a bright one.
Glad Yule, everyone.
*Well, okay. Happy Mothernight, people in the northern hemisphere. Southerly folk, I hope you are having a happy Midsummer.
Yule, we are told, is a time when the line between living and dead is thinner. Sometimes that's a good thing - that's why we celebrate Mothernight, to honor our disir, our mothers and grandmothers who watch over their children. Sometimes it's a scary thing - Yule is the time of the Wild Hunt, after all. And tonight is the longest night. I can hear the wind blowing outside and maybe it's blowing with the voices of the dead, the voices of the Grim One's host. Not a good time to be outdoors.
I'm not outdoors, though. I'm safely tucked up in my bedroom, all snug and warm, and I hope that you are too. I've just finished my Mothernight blot and I've got candles lit. They're bright yellow, for the sun. There's a part of me that wants to leave them burning till they burn out to keep the light alive till morning, but most of me is afraid of burning the house down and so I'll blow them out before I go to bed.
The thing I think about most on Mothernight is uncertainty. There have been a lot of jokes made in the last couple of days about the end of the world being scheduled for tomorrow. But, see, the thing is, that's the longest night every year. Maybe this is truly the longest night, the night that never ends. Maybe tomorrow the wolf wins. There's no way to know, nothing we can do to sway things one way or the other. We sit in the dark, we hold on to each other, we light candles. We wait and we are uncertain.
The sun will come up, of course. Tomorrow won't be the Ragnarok. (Probably.) But maybe it will. Godly time is not like human time and mythology isn't to be take literally. What I think is this: it is always, possibly, Ragnarok. And it is always, possibly, the time of creation, or the time of rebuilding. Balder is born, is killed, is come again from Helheim, maybe every day. Maybe I was wrong a paragraph ago and there is something we can do - maybe we get to choose, not just at Yule, but every day. We can say, "Today is not the wolf-age, today the wolf did not win." We can choose to build up, to "see the earth anew rise up all green from the waves again...the fields unsowed bear ripened fruit, all ills grow better." Maybe we can all be Lif and Lifthrasir, who come safe through the fire, striving for life. Maybe there is no golden age but the one we choose to build.
It's dark right now, but the sun will return. And she'll bring a new day, a new year. Every day, every year. Let's choose to make this year a bright one.
Glad Yule, everyone.
*Well, okay. Happy Mothernight, people in the northern hemisphere. Southerly folk, I hope you are having a happy Midsummer.
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Date: 2012-12-21 05:43 pm (UTC)