Yule

At Dawn I will sing a song of victory.

The renewing begins — the Power of Light, the power of Life.

Let there be day!

I am the free ray of dawn, I am the laughter of morning.

Mountains buried in snow are my brothers, sisters, and children.

I am the spirit of winter.

Like the sun, like the wind, I am the dream of gardens.

Filled with waterfalls and forests — let the roads carry me away.

Let them carry me far away.

I am the roar of the sea, I am the howl of the wolf, I am the thunder of the heavens.

Like a moth to a lamp, I will fly at night, and again I will burn.

I will pass through winter air, through the cold of death.

Today I will repeat within myself the dream of creation and the tales of Yavi.

I am a snow whirlwind.

At Dawn I will sing a song of victory.

The renewing begins — the Power of Light, the power of Life.

And there will be Day!

On the longest night the year contracts to a point of singularity. The forest stands motionless, the snow lies level, and silence deepens, as if the world holds the last ember. This is Yule, when light becomes scarce, precious, almost newborn.

At this time the Sun withdraws into the depths of the Earth — into the primordial womb of the Great Goddess. There, beneath roots and stone, in the dark depths, forms ripen, sap gathers, and future days are conceived. But this depth stores the power of maturation. From it is born that which will later emerge to the surface and become time.

And then, in the midst of the winter wood, as if from nowhere, the Great Stag appears. His antlers are like the branches of the World Tree itself, reaching upward, outward, into the unseen, as if the forest itself had risen in search of light. His eyes are like bottomless dark water, where the stars are reflected. His steps are almost inaudible; but at his approach even the old trunks change their breathing, beasts lift their heads, birds freeze in the branches. The forest recognizes its Lord.

This is Kernunnos — God of the Forests, keeper of thresholds and circles, lord of the paths that open only at the right hour. He walks to the very depths of the Goddess, to where the Sun has dwindled to a spark and awaits rebirth. His Way is along the winter passages of the Earth, along the inner corridors of the world, through those spaces where time does not yet hold sway.

In the womb of the Great Goddess dwells the darkness of the soil — warm, thick, fertile. There lies the seed of light, there gathers the golden breath of the future. Kernunnos bows his head, and his antlers spread over the depths like a crown above a bird’s nest. He touches the world with his power, his spirit, his forest authority — as if a man touched fate to guide it.

And in response a first golden spark flashes in the Goddess’s womb.

It grows gently, like a young shoot beneath the snow, and becomes a little Sun — a solar infant, still so fragile, still unacquainted with the world and even with the warmth it will give. He emerges from the womb of the Earth like a fruit, like a seed, like the breath of morning that first tastes the world.

And Kernunnos receives the solar infant upon his antlers.

They become the first cradle, the first crown, the first support for the light. Between the branches of the antlers the golden spark finds its place. And with this the light gains a father: recognition, a name, the right to a way. Kernunnos — great power of life — becomes the father of the sun through acceptance and elevation. Fatherhood manifests as movement: to lift, to carry forward, to lead through thresholds, to hold the light until it strengthens.

The womb of the Great Goddess continues to nourish the light: with the sap of the earth, the memory of roots, the strength of wood, the warmth of the hearth, the blood of living beings. The whole circle of the year grows from her depth; each day bears her seal, even at the brightest noon.

Kernunnos rises toward the human world along winter paths. Where his way passes, the air becomes slightly lighter, as if the coming spring had been woven into it. The sun on the antlers is still small, and so the world recognizes it by subtle signs: by the change of light on the snow, by the barely perceptible tremor of the horizon, by the fact that the night no longer seems final.

And with the new dawn the day lengthens at first by a single breath. The world remains wintry, the cold remains biting, the snow remains dazzling. Within these familiar things appears a thin golden vein — a growth that has already begun.

They say that in the first minutes of the new sun at the forest edge one can see the shadow of the Stag between the trunks. His antlers hold a golden gleam, like branches hold winter frost. He slips back into the thicket, and the forest again becomes a winter tale. The solar infant appears in the world — born from the womb of the Great Goddess, acknowledged and raised by Kernunnos, having begun its way along the Wheel of the Year.