Good Yule And Happy Solstice To You And Yours: My Mother's Night Blot

Part of my ancestor altar in honor of my grandmothers. Credit: P.J. Deneen

Good Yule to you and yours and Happy Solstice to you all. I walk a blended path, and I begin my personal twelve nights of Yule on the Winter Solstice. Others start to celebrate in January.  On this night I will pour a blot to my disir, aka female ancestors. This is called Disablot by some heathens. I don't have a group that I celebrate with, and right now during a pandemic, I wouldn't do so anyway. So it will be a solitary rite. 

I'll light a candle and say prayers in their honor and make offerings that I believe they would have liked in their material forms, i.e. tea, butter cookies, Coca Cola, and a cigarette. I believe our most recent ancestors are the closest to us in terms of spiritual connection to our deeper ancestral line which connects us to the ancestors of all creation.

This is not what every heathen or pagan believes. That's okay. Others celebrate the Winter Solstice as being the longest dark night of the year that gives way to the return of the light. My goal is to post for every day of Yule, but I won't promise that I can complete that goal due to other obligations. If I don't get back to you, have a blessed holiday season no matter how you celebrate.

Hail the Disir!

*Photo description: Sorry about the quality of the photo. It includes pictures of my grandmothers and things I relate to them: Rosie the Riveter print as my northern granny was an original Rosie at the Willow Run plant in Michigan. An angel with a cross-stitched Kentucky cardinal for my southern granny, perfumes they both wore, and little Dutch saltshakers, a theme my southern grandma collected which also relates to our shared heritage.

© Trish Deneen