This year due to scheduling conflicts, we had Yule at Chris and Jack's house. (No worries though we will be back at
Life Force Arts Center in it's new location for
Imbolc!)
For the
ritual we did the same thing we did last year, we assigned each step of the ritual with a rune (after a bit of re-writing as some runes weren't really in the right places) and then had the participants place the corresponding rune ornament on the tree at the appropriate time. The tree this year was my sparkly one and I also added an excessive amount of tinsel so it looked much nicer than it did
last year.
Amazingly Chris' Odin plaque survived the
Great Flood of 2011 with minimal damage so it graced the altar and we now have the Heimdallr Bifrost
prayer beads to use as a symbol of Heimdallr (our Gatekeeper for Norse style rites) as well.
Overall the rite went very well. I did my
Norse Well Tree and Fire, everyone shared their Odin stories, we sang the
Snows of Valhalla and the sacrifice was made (
beer, lots of beer!) and the
Omens were good. We shared more beer for the return flow and for the take-aways Jack made Rune cards for each person to randomly select as a personal omen for the year.
The only major fail was my
Wild Onion Wassail song. I usually am not a huge fan of filked Christmas carols but this one seemed sort of appropriate for a reinterpretation and the whole
wassailing thing is pretty Pagan anyway. We sort of ran through it at the beginning but then sort of forgot about it. I had intended it to be sung during the return flow as we passed the wassail cup around, but that was vetoed and it was decided it would be sung at the end but by then I think everyone just wanted to go feast and we never sang it. Oh well there is always next year I suppose.
After the rite we stuffed ourselves silly with lasagna and garlic bread, a vegetable platter, a cheese plate, chips and dip, juice, beer, wine, eggnog, cookies, and homemade gingerbread, as well as stockings filled with treats and presents courtesy of Jack and Chris!
Imbolc is the next High Day and we will be honoring Brighid and making butter! We will also be resuming our work with the
Forest Preserve in February so keep watching this space!
