Winter Solstice: A Goddess to Balance the Sun; Making Masks and Dragging the Yule Log

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Two flat paper cut out masks, coloured with oil pastel and coloured pencils. On the left is a sun disk with curved rays and a bit of blue-gold sky between them (I didn't design it well and needed a bit more coverage than just the rays would give!) It's cut out a bit poorly- again because I was trying to keep some coverage.. The other is a sort of human bird hybrid- dark colours ranging from blue and green to violet and black, meant to suggest the irridescence of a raven. Feathers go around from the sides to top and top centre are 4 green birch leaves. The forehead has a red band and the face comes down to a beaky point. The details are meant to suggest Ragana Goddess of witches and wild places able to appear as birds and animals- I suggest a tie to ancient Bird Goddess- the red band from anicent figurines- and give a nod to her connection to birch trees.


At the time of the Winter Solstice, we think about the gradual return of the sun as days  begin to lengthen, but I think it's always important to look for the beauty, strength, lessons in *today* not only waiting for tomorrow, next month, next season! Darkness has its own beauty and value- besides getting out and enjoying the days (as I like to do all year), winter can also be a time to enjoy cozy and intimate times indoors, time to rest, to think to learn, to grow. Darkness is also the place where life begins, in blood, in womb, in soil, in seed. Give the season its full due.
Short video in the woods on the farm as we approached Solstice. (This is YouTube; as usual, Spectra/Peertube links will be at the end of the blog).



Many traditional European cultures have customs involving harvesting, dragging, rolling, burning a special log around the time of the Winter Solstice, which is the time of the New Year in some of the old calendars. In the Latvian traditions I take my inspiration from it is bluķa vilkšana -something like 'log pulling'. (The practise has come to be associated with Christmas in  some places, since of course that is positioned just after Winter Solstice, by no accident).
The central idea is that this log which is often dragged or rolled through villages, farmsteads etc, draws to it all the bad events, thoughts, acts, energy from the past year. The log is then burnt to get rid of all of that negativity. (There are lots of variations in details, these are the basics I've based my practise on.)

Short video: in the woods getting some firewood, branches to cradle the Yule Log, selecting the log and then pulling with masks (more on that below).



In my case, rather than having a bonfire outdoors, I use the wood in my indoor wood burning stove. I spend a lot of time and energy harvesting firewood, so I have a hard time thinking of burning it outside rather than heating my house! That being the case, I don't want my log covered in snow as it would be if I dragged it with ropes, so instead I pull it around on the sled I use to bring wood from the bush. I chose a section of a poplar that fell in summer winds, in the bush outside the acreage. I'd already harvested some of this tree previously, I just had to cut a chunk that would fit on the sled.

I stand, hands in pockets, an old guy in black insulated hoodie, hood off and open at the collar showing tan faux wool inside. I have a blackish winter hat with ear flaps, loose heavy black jeans and black winter rubber boots. My face is mostly obscured by a paper mask with a bird-like look (there should be alt description of that if I post a close-up of the mask later on) darkish yet strong coloursof blue, red, green. The ground is snowy and just behind me a mixed wooded area starts with lots of spruce trees. We can see through them to a near sunset sky just faintly coloured. I'm holding the cord to pull a bright orange sled which holds a roughly 4 foot long chunk of poplar log, resting on spruce branches.


Masking/mumming is also often a part of Solstice/New Year customs- often with the intent to scare away evil spirits/negativity. This year I decided to make paper masks but rather than 'scary' ones, I chose to use the Goddess Ragana, associated with the Solstice as a balance to the power of Saule/Sun, and Saule as well-- so the masks represented the balance of Darkness and Light- both essential parts of Life.
(I've talked about Ragana often before- an ancient Baltic goddess, likely with associations going back to the ancient pre-Indo European nature deities, perhaps even Bird Goddess herself. In latter times relegated to wilderness and witches, I think she should more properly be associated with the power and cycles of Nature, the balancing of too much light with nurturing darkness, of too much growth with death/decay/regeneration. These ancient truths would have been kept alive by the grandmothers, the wise women/witches, thus the dismissisive or fearful relegation/diminution by Indo-European and Christian patriarchies. In this context I treat her as a partner to Saule/Sun, two vital aspects of continuing life. Ragana is at her moment of greatest strength on the shortest day/longest night.)

An artist's temporary workspace on a vintage faux marbre countertop. There is a drawing on white paper on top of a sketch book with a blue cover, surrounded by a package of cheap oil pastels, another of cheap pencil crayons, an open red and clear plastic case with various better quality pastels, pencils etc, and several disposable coffee cups repurposed as pencil/coloured pencil holders, thickly painted with leftover acrylic paint in various colours. The drawing is a bird-like face inspired by ancient Bird Goddess designs. Large blank (to be cut out) eyes are set in a face that tapers to a sharp beak at the bottom, in dark colours of blue, green, violet and black, loosely coloured with the pencil/pastel strokes visible. Around the face is a frame of 'Raven feathers'in the same colours but more black, and on top of the head a row of green 'Birch leaves'(these represent Ragana's possible history as Bird Goddess, shapeshifting, association with nature and with regrowth/regeneration and the Birch tree) At this stage of the drawing, I included throat feathers, but they didn't make it to the final cut.


Short video showing the stages of the drawing and preparation of the masks of Ragana and Saule/Sun.



I made these improvised paper masks- drawn with coloured pencils, oil pastels etc on semi-stiff paper. My measurements could have been better (especially for Saule- I realised the coverage was not enough, so I had to cut her out poorly to make her a bit wider! plus the eyes were poorly placed..lol), and ideally I should have used, or attached them to, a heavier card stock. In any case, the symbolism still stands- welcoming the light while embracing the nurturing darkness (remember: this darkness does not mean evil- as stated above, it is the darkness of blood, womb, birth, soil that nurtures seed and root, etc). Anyway, I'll have some good ideas how to proceed next time I make masks!

A snowy view with mixed woods to the left, mature Aspens in front with light trunks marked with dark branch scars etc., some small snow covered spruce farther in. To the right is an open snowy area with scattered small poplar suckers showing through the snow. Farther away across this small field is another strip of mixed woods with many spruce, and the winter afternoon sun is just above these trees making a large golden white area in the blue sky and scattering small round rainbows of light over the shadowed trees below it. The image is framed in a dull gold border folded at the corners like ribbon, and the words 'Blessed Solstice!' appear in bottom left in a golden yellow handprinted font with light black outline.


Here are the Spectra/Peertube video links (like Mastodon and other 'Fediverse' platforms, this is an alternative to corporate controlled sites like mainstream social media and YouTube; the files I load also tend to be a bit smaller unless they were already tiny!)
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