Winternights

The Winternights, or Vetrnætr, is a twelve-day festival that begins on a night in mid-October, and marks the end of summer and the start of the winter. The name Vetrnætr (pronounced Vetter-natter) is Old Norse, composed of two words, vetr - meaning winter, and nætr - meaning nights. Vetrnætr is series of feasts and ceremonies (blóts, pronounced bloots) that celebrate the bounty of the harvest, and also honor the Disir, or female ancestor spirits.

2022 ofrenda

Vetrnætr is celebrated by the Ásatrú; Ásatrú is an Icelandic name, taken by the modern-day Norse and Germanic people who worship the old northern gods (such as Thor, Odin, and Frey) and goddesses (such as Freya and Frigg). Though its practice was interrupted, Ásatrú has been reconstructed as closely as possible to the original religion of the Northern European people, based on the surviving historical records. Ásatrú intrigues me, because it would have been the religion of my ancestors.

This month, Winternights festivals are held across Scandinavia, Germany, and New England and are marked by bonfires, tournaments, feasts, and arts and crafts vendors.

Agenda for today:

1. Ongo Journal

2. Set up my ancestor altar (ofrenda)

3. Disir meditation
4. Make more runes

5. Feast and blót

1. Ongo Journal:

I'm taking a 12-week non-violent communication class. Week five is about Core Beliefs, and our interpretation of those. "Our core beliefs began simply as a momentary expression of Needs from ourselves, our parents, our teachers, or the society we grew up in. ... these expressions may have been our own best attempt to make sense of the world around us or to find safety, love, or acceptance. ... The reason we are looking at them today is because we have arrived at a moment in our lives where we have outgrown some of these core beliefs."

The practice this week is to explore 5 themes:

1. Deficiency: "I'm not enough; I'm not loved; I'm an outsider".
2. Struggle: "Life is hard for me; it's easier for ..."
3. Suffering: "Life is fundamentally painful."
4. Danger: "People can't be trusted; the world isn't safe."
5. Dichotomy: "People are good or bad; choices are right or wrong."

2. Set up my ancestor altar (ofrenda):

The veil between my world and the spirit world becomes thinner at the start of the winter season. Since Vetrnætr is a time to honor my ancestors, this is when I begin to set up my ofrenda, or ancestor altar. 

An ofrenda is a special table for the Mexican Days of the Dead that holds offerings and decorations, such as arches, candles, incense, skeleton toys, marigolds, photographs, sugar skulls, as well as some of the ancestor’s favorite foods and things, and little gifts. I've been collecting and making things for my ofrenda for years. This week I've arranged:

• skeletons, to remind me that death is a part of life
• tree of life candles, symbolic of the creation
• photos of my grandparents, father, my in-laws, and dear friends.

I will continue to add to my ofrenda throughout the next week.

3. Disir meditation:

As I said, Vetrnætr is series of feasts and ceremonies that celebrate the bounty of the harvest, and also honor the Disir, or female ancestor spirits. Sometime around now, the Norse tribes held a dísablót (sacrifice to the Disir), but the Anglo-Saxons honored the Disir later, on Mother’s Night”, which takes place in late December.

The female spirits known as the Disir (pronounced DEE-sir) are an enigmatic group of beings in the mythology and religion of the pre-Christian Norse and other Germanic peoples. The Disir are my female ancestors - grandmother spirits and guardians of the household. They have special knowledge in matters of family luck, illness, childbirth, personal problems, and other everyday matters.

Today I will hold a personal dísablót - I will light a candle on my ofrenda and settle into meditation. I'll bring a picture into my mind of my grandmothers - those strong German, Dutch, and Anglo women who traveled across the ocean and the frontier. I read their names out loud, and picture them gathering around me. I ask my grandmothers to make themselves known to me and stand by me during the coming year, that I may face the demands of the world with the wisdom of my kin at my back.

4. Make more runes:

Runes are an ancient writing system created about 100 - 200 AD by Germanic tribes and spread all over middle and northern Europe by the migration of these tribes. The runes were used by the Germans, the Scandinavians, the Angles and Saxons. They are found inscribed onto stone, bone, and metal, and were used for poems and ornamentation, as well as divination.

I've been working on a set of runes, burned onto circles cut from a hazel branch, and usually I make new ones today, but I will wait this year.

5. Feast and blót:

The blót ceremony, which means “to worship with sacrifice,” comes after a feast. The purpose of the blót is to thank the gods for a successful end to the growing season, to share the bounty with the gods, and to ask for protection against the harshness of winter. The old prayer was til árs ok friðar, “for a good year and frith (peace)”.

In the old days the sacrifice would have been a blood sacrifice of a horse, pig, or cow, because they were farmers and had those. Today the Ásatrú usually substitute mead, beer, or juice (we will use fresh grape juice from our vines). The offering is made with a lot of ceremony, and those gathered can sense that the deity has tasted the drink. After that the group passes the drink around and everyone makes a toast and takes a sip.