The Winter Solstice today marks the beginning, in the Northern and Western European traditions which inform the most of my own magickal paradigm, of the Jól tide, and I would like to take this time to wish all of you, whether you observe the same traditions I will discuss below in this post, practice from different ones at this same time, or just spend the holidays enjoying the magick of your favourite brew around a warm fire - please accept my heartiest well-wishes for a wonderful midwinter to you and yours, and a new year leading to ever greater magick, growth, and wisdom!
For those of you who likewise gravitate to the Northern and Western European permutations of the Aryan (Indo-European, if you’re squeamish about identifying with words that translate as ‘honest’ or ‘honourable’ or ‘noble’) magickal paradigm, as well as the simply curious, the Winter Solstice today marks one of the most telling observations about the psyche and worldview of our forebears that can readily be retrieved from those records surviving the postclassical process of spiritual genocide. It is hardly coincidental that the early Xristling people-poisoners took especial care, no sooner than a given law-making body had been subverted, to redirect the soul of a people from this observance in particular, even contradicting the nativity observations of their own written account in order to celebrate their subversive mascot’s birth just after the Winter Solstice.
As the Xristlings’ sway grew, and their rhetoric turned from appeals for tolerance to the ruthless liquidation of any and all dissent, this celebration of Xristmas became mandatory within the infected counties. Among peoples already feeling the strain of transition from the organic tradition of tribal life to the increasing centralization and regulation of the emerging modern nation-state (which disintegration was actively sponsored by the internationalist edifice - and I do intentionally use the singular - of Church and Finance), the resources were simply not there to sustain two major celebrations, one of which would see you punished, enforced by your own bought and sold rulers turned against you, and one of which offered all the blandishments that an ancient caste of Middle Eastern monotheists could throw at their newest targets.
Often, the Xristling proxies of this divine tyrant’s priesthood would simply seek to replace the ancestral wholeness, corrupting ancestors and demigods into saints or building churches atop the rubble of destroyed temples. But something about the Winter Solstice remained too unsafe and incompatible with puppets and puppeteers of infected Europe alike. Simply celebrating the birth of Χριστός on the day of the Solstice was too near, still too dangerous: what if that very Iησοῦς, himself a dogged opponent of that demiurgic priesthood in his life before being successfully subverted and commandeered after death by the Pharisee Παῦλος - became himself ‘corrupted’ from the appropriation of his name through celebration timed with the Sun’s return from winter? This would hardly be the ‘resurrection’ that Παῦλος saw fit to promise the credulous nations.
So the Xristmas celebration was moved. It remained close enough to divert now-struggling European people from being able to celebrate both, but the new observance ensured an entire culture’s separation from their primordial sacrament - a flawlessly executed redirection of a people’s very soul.
And what is it that was considered so unconscionably hostile to the ruin of Εὐρωπία? The Return of the Sun, that regal and life-affirming (not death-worshipping!) principle promising the renewal of growth, once winter’s trials are past. The Light, that does not tolerate treason or falsity. Also, and here my observations will become less general for Aryan peoples at large and focus on the expressions of the Northern and Western Europeans whose folkways I am most conversant with, the return of all the ancestor spirits and gods with it.
This is what particularly marks this first day and night of what the Norse called the Jól tide. Just as the morning of the Winter Solstice sees the rays of the Sun find their way at last into position within the cunningly wrought passageways of the most ancient megalithic tombs of our predecessors, this waxing tide of solarity brings back the ancestral spirits, and thus brings back life anew to plants, animals, man, and all things drawing their life energy from the Sun.
This first day of Jól (notably, Óðinn’s day, one of whose many, many masques is Jólnir the Yule Lord) marks out nine days and nine nights intervening until the celebration of Ragnarök. Before that mighty conflict, however, the Jól tide is observed, starting today.
On the Jól eve, Heimdallr the watchman of the Bifröst bridge connecting the divine world of Ásgarðr to the median world of Miðgarðr made his journey amongst the traditionally observant people. He was the mythical ancestor of the three principle kindreds of the ancient Norse society, and thus his connexion to the ancestor spirits (the alfar, meaning the ‘white ones’ and cognate to the English word elves) for whose return Ragnarök would be waged was substantial.
From this Bridge, also connected to the shamanic concept of the World-Tree and of Îrminsûl whose axis was oriented to the star Polaris, Heimdallr would descend with the promises of battle-aid from the alfar in the form of gifts to their descendents (and, after Ragnarök, their ancestors in time gone round again). So persistent are these primal motifs, that to this day many with zero interest in Aryan myth can bring readily to mind the humorous after-echoing images of a man descending from the North Pole to deliver gifts from elves. But there’s more.
Heimdallr was the watchman of the gods for a very good reason. His eyes were so sharp, that from all that way above the Earth he could see the blades of grass as they grew. His hearing was so keen, that he could hear each blade of grass as it grew. Nothing could escape his vigilance, for standing ready for Ragnarök was the entire purpose of his ceaseless vigil. Heimdallr paid special attention to his children, men, greatly invested in their well-being and their preparation and fitness for the battle of Ragnarök.
On Jól eve, Heimdallr descended from the North Pole down the Rainbow Bridge Bifröst, said to be made of fire to destroy any attempting to cross to Ásgarðr with impurities remaining. The Jól tradition was to leave doors unlocked in welcome to the travelling god and ancient ancestor, and a bowl of porridge was left on the table to help sustain Heimdallr during his arduous night’s journey. A very special Jól fire would have been laid consisting of the seven woods corresponding to the seven classical planets, their seven days of the week, and the patron deities thereof. The Jól feast would consist of foods conveying renewal and fertility, such as the Jól boar, and afterwards the house would be decked with decorative foods such as breads and sweets, which were not to be touched as they were exchange-gifts for the visiting alfar. Likewise, the family would vacate their beds and sleep on the floor that night, giving up their beds to their honoured guests the ancestor spirits of the alfar.
As Heimdallr observed everything from his post atop the Rainbow Bridge, he knew the measure of each and every human child of the houses he visited. To the worthy children upholding the frið with the ancestors, he delivered the gifts of the alfar. To children who failed to measure up, he delivered ashes from the grave mound (from the Samain rite’s fire, to be precise) as a pointed reminder of the fate of the unworthy who attempted to cross Bifröst to the realm of the gods.
All of these, gifts and warnings, needed to be taken heed of, for once the Jól tide had begun it was only a matter of days until the yearly contest of survival that Ragnarök embodied.
I hope some of you will find something of interest in my waxing longwinded - again - about ancestral traditions. I am so passionate about them because they can be so very important in a person’s magickal development. And to those of us who are opposed to the machinations of the would-be μονόθεoς, ancestral traditions (whether European, Asian, African, American, Australian or whatever cultural distinction that dares to resist assimilation to Middle Eastern fanaticism) like these have been one of the infected’s greatest priorities to lie about, subvert, and ultimately exterminate: there is something here that old Jehovah is on record being very afraid of!
But with this insufferably long-winded Jól exposition winding to a close at last, I once again wish to re-echo my warmest wishes to all BALGers here during and beyond the holidays, whatever your individual or traditional celebrations or lack thereof. All the best, to all of you!
Wisdom,
Power,
& Beauty,
Claidheam