Longest Night ~ Winter Solstice Eve
20 December
third night of Vetr-Naetr
Winter Solstice eve is the Mothernight, a new year is born on tomorrow’s dawn. The Yule log is lit, we wait together to ensure the passage.
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Hel, the goddess of wholeness contains myriad polarities. She has several faces of her feminine-light-carrying self. One of these is Ellen-Soft radiance. Ellen has been carrying the light through the underground since the Autumn equinox, protecting it as a mother would her child. In the silence of Vetr-Naetr, she has arrived at the gate. Ellen is first of the thews, Courage is another of her names. She waits on the edge of timelessness for the dawn when she will pass the light into the waiting arms of her twin-flame Tomas.
In the Scandinavian north Sun is feminine, it is a soft and nurturing force unlike the searing heat of the South where Sun is regarded as masculine. Ellen embodies soft radiance and the electro-magnetic energy of autumn. She begins her journey through the underground 21 September, namnsdag Ellen. When she arrives at the end of the Ullr bridge she is known as the Dark Mother. Elder, Elderberry tree, Alder, are all words which relate to myths of light and memory held through the dark journey.
On the reservation where i grew up, I knew this wise Dark Mother, Elder woman as “Grandmother”.
God Vintersolstånafton
God Jul
