(no subject)

Things:

- We did get to the Revels last night and it was awesome. I mean, it is always awesome, but this year it was especially good. They did what I'm thinking of as Downton Abbey Revels, set in an old English manor house in 1925, but the house was haunted and so all the old songs were sung and danced by ghosts. I got to sit next to a couple ladies who'd never been before and they were so enthusiastic. I think this was the best mummer's play I've seen them do - the dragon was hilarious. And they did the Abbots Bromley horn dance, which they've left out of a few recent productions and is always my favorite thing, so I was happy.

- There was a really beautiful moment that actually made me cry, too. They always sing Dona Nobis Pacem (and the audience joins in). The ghosts invited the father of the modern-1925 family to join them in singing a prayer for peace, and that was the first thing he participated in, saying that he had seen the horrors of a world war, and may it never happen again. And then I couldn't sing because I was crying.

- Today is my last day of work before my Yule vacation! After today, I off until the next Thursday! Hurrah!

- Also, I have the best thing in my lunch today. I made couscous to put in my lunch, as I often do, but to jazz it up a little today, I added ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon, a little sugar, and some tiny cut-up pumpkin pickles. Between the pickles and the spices, I think this is the best couscous I have ever eaten.

(no subject)

Happy 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.