i see christmas as one of the many solstice celebrations, and not the other way around.  the word "yule" comes from norse "jul" which means wheel.  as the darkest day of the year, winter solstice marks the turning point for the great wheel of seasons. as the wheel spins, the light returns, and then disappears again, in an everlasting cycle.

i'm looking forward to the solstice party tonight - it's a party that my parents' friends hold every year, and it's done the nordic way, with fire.  we light a bonfire at the first friend's house and have snacks and drinks there, and then take a torch from that bonfire and carry it to the next house and light a fire there.  this method is guaranteed to bring back the sun, and has worked every single time :)

the only thing is, it's going to be below zero tonight in our north-central wisconsin township of little black, and i'm getting some sore throat symptoms. not a good combo.

mari boine, singing above, is a sami woman, one of the indigenous people of northern norway and sweden.  in their homeland, winter solstice is true darkness, since they are above the arctic circle.  when my mom, my sister & her husband, and i were bike touring northern norway, we went to a sami museum, which was fascinating.  sami music, called "joik", was was banned in norway well into the 1900s, along with sami language.  today sami people are fighting like so many indigenous people to undue this cultural destruction and erasure.

lyrics to "voui voui mu" translated into english:

Vuoi Vuoi Me

Vuoi my little yellowbird
Vuoi my summernight bird
cuckoo and eagle
Vuoi my swallow
with nest under riverbanks
Vuoi nighttowl
with limitless vision
Vuoi vuoi me

Vuoi vuoi joy
with hearty laughter
Vuoi sorrow
with oceans of salty tears
Vuoi vuoi frost
winter and cold
Vuoi summer with burning hot days
Vuoi vuoi me


mari boine on the sami music ban:



what does this have to do with solstice? well, indigenous religion is where solstice celebrations originate, and that album is called "in the hand of the night." but i came up empty-handed on my original search for a youtube video of my favorite solstice song, "darkness cover me," by sara thomsen.  . i saw sara thomsen perform it at a solstice concert in minneapolis a few years back, and it was wonderful. i like the idea of the seed "deep in the dark soil of the earth." the idea of the solstice symbolizing the potential of the seed that is planted in the "womb of the night."

on another tangent, when i couldn't find sara thomsen and was looking for traditional norse music for this solstice post, i kept coming across edward grieg, tho i was looking for something older.  i came across several versions of "in the hall of the mountain king"  and it reminded me of the time when i was an assistant teacher at  pre-school in maryland, we had a norwegian day, and i read a story to the kids and we played "hall of the mountain king" and we all hid and started creeping out like trolls.  it was pretty fun, but i guess i got a ghoolish look on my face and started clawing my hands a little too much, because the head teacher told me to tone it down, i was scaring the kids.

anyway, for some not-so-traditional norse music, here is another version of "in the hall of the mountain king" by apocalyptica.  i think one of the guys in this band is a little overly full of himself, but these boys sure can play 'em some strings.