Hosting Mother Mary During Hledání Noclehu
This is the third night of a virtual group recreation of a Central European folk custom. The virtual ritual will end up spannning two continents and nine days with eleven participants (and some family members). Hledání Noclehu (Czech) literally translates as “looking for a place to stay,” and is very similar to Los Posados here in North America (some of the research I read even speculated that the custom actually spread from Los Posados to Spain and then into Central Europe).
Each participant is hosting Mother Mary in their home as she searches for a place to give birth to the holy infant. We are an odd collection of pagans, folk Catholics, and dual faith practitioners recreating a folk custom with next to no rules. As a solitary practitioner in the Bible Belt, doing something this big with a group is a major event and I’m so thankful to be a part of it.
Though I focused most of the imagery in my sacred space on the Virgin Mary, I included Slavic embroideries depicting older Goddess figures to represent Rozhanitsa and Deer Mother and The Mothers in general.
For my night with Mother Mary I focused on her as a mother, and as the successor of other Mothers. In many parts of the world Mary is a face that is worn by other, older maternal goddesses and practices. Though tonight I welcomed Mary as herself, I also welcomed her as Rozhanitsa, my Slavic mother goddess, and Deer Mother, who stands even further back in time behind Rozhanitsa. I also welcomed her as the face of my Grandmothers. Though I will still celebrate Mōdraniht as usual, tonight I think was the real deal for 2025.
A day time shot of the roses in good light, before I was done with the blue ones, and a photo at night upon completion.
I spent a huge part of yesterday preparing my altar. After pulling Our Lady of the Hearth from my Mother Mary Oracle deck (thank you @zucchinigal) I decided to go with one of the ideas I had been tossing around and used my Advent wreath as the focus (our “hearth” during Advent), but removed all the greenery and, hearkening back to a conversation with @jayeltontoro and @langlif-saga, decided to go with the tissue paper roses that Hispanic friends and I have made in the past for Los Posados. I remember one of them telling me about dreaming of making them for a week after she made them for a Day of the Dead float—I know exactly what she means now and I only made 18!
I chose to make blue, red, and pale gold flowers, as these are some of the colors most associated with Mary. I also put a blue candle (that I made at Hromnice/Candlemas) in the center, where the white candle will go on Christmas, to honor her on this special night.
The focus of the altar is the Our Lady of Perpetual Help icon. She has come to me in recent months both through my Granny Mary Lorraine whose rosary she adorns and through this icon which belongs to my Mother-in-Law (she’s southern Baptist; this was a souvenir from a Greek food festival we took her to). A powerful prayer to her came to me last month that tied together all The Mothers which I used tonight.
Above Our Lady on the second tier of the wreath is the Mezi MatičKama amulet bag that I made (inspired by @henbane-and-honeysuckle) during a time considered strong for collecting medicinal and magical plants by my Moravian babky—the weeks from the Assumption of the Virgin Mary to her Nativity. I embroidered it with a Marian cross on one side and on the other a magical symbol I adapted from a nineteenth century Moravian one. The bag contains nine dried plants I gathered during that time.
After I pulled together the altar I made oplatky—Christmas communion wafers, popular in Poland, Czechia and Slovakia.
Today I began by heading down to my altar stone at the creek with an offering for the land spirits to ask them for their acceptance and assistance in welcoming Mary into our home. When I returned to the house I made an offering to Děduška/Grandpa (our house guardian) and asked him for the same. I also gave the cat coterie a bowl of milk and the two pups a homemade pup cup and asked them to play nice tonight. I heated myself a bowl of the venison stew that I’ve been eating in ritual communion with Rozhanitsa/Deer Mother since St. Lucy’s Night (don’t worry I froze it).
@langlif-saga, who is a friend outside of the Hledání Noclehu group, was also on the schedule for tonight and she was doing her ritual a little earlier. We timed it so I could join her for a preliminary prayer. It was very powerful knowing that a couple states away a friend was doing work alongside me. After she posted I listened to some of her music to get my head in the right place, followed by Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles, Marian Hymns at Ephesus.
As the sun began to go down I donned my head shawl, a midcentury French filet crochet that my mother-in-law wore for one event back in the day when they were stationed in Europe, and that I had used earlier in the year for a spring time working with Morana. I had forgotten that it is covered in roses, but I also chose it to honor my French foremothers.
For me wearing the veil was a nod to all my Catholic foremothers, but also a signal to my brain, of going into a sacred space, much like the Siberian shaman and her cloak. I had been tossing around the idea of incorporating one for awhile and when @shtern-un-honik used one the first night it felt like a sign. I also wore my half-Scottish great-granny Hazel’s screw back (originally) white rose earrings.
To begin I set the table. Every dish and every edible had significance. The oplatky and honey were served on Granny Hazel’s porcelain, which I have documented elsewhere, has Marian significance for me. Muscadine wine that I fermented from grapes that I foraged in early autumn was served in the cut crystal wine glasses that my mother-in-law let us borrow on our wedding day and that we will inherit. The fruitcake was placed on one of her antique porcelain dishes featuring apples and nuts, both important in Czech Christmas celebrations.
I then lit the three red candles signifying the three Sundays of Advent that we have completed, the blue candle representing Mary, and frankincense incense.
I knelt upon an antique child’s pew lined with poinsettia decorated pillows and said my version of the Our Lady of Perpetual Help chaplet. This version came to me in a sleep deprived trance-like state last month and is a prayer both to Mary and all The Mothers.
An excerpt:
My Mothers have helped me, My mothers want to help me, My mothers can help me, My Mothers will help me.
I visited for a moment with Sister Margaret Mary (my great-aunt) through her bible, reading the Marian passage that she had notated as the most powerful statement in this particular translation.
After praying I offered Mary some of the fruitcake that is part of a year long working incorporating Three Kings Water (as an offering to the trees, not in the cake), resurrection salt, native foraged black Cherry cordial, foraged white walnuts, foraged trifoliate orange jelly, and foraged persimmons. I asked for her blessings on the cake which will be used in a wassailing ritual on New Year’s Day to complete that working.
I also asked for her blessings of the oplatky, garlic, honey, apples (that will be used for Czech Christmas divination and the New Year’s Wassail), and wine, as well as water that I gathered at the creek this afternoon after leaving my offering, and the Mother Mary Oracle deck gifted to me by @zucchinigal .
After blessing the Oracle deck I pulled a card. In keeping with tonight’s theme of mothers, I asked her how I can best mother my mother-in-law, without robbing her of her dignity.
My husband and I had a moment of silence and then took an informal at home communion together, dipping a wafer in the mixture of garlic and honey as is tradition in Czechia on Christmas Eve:
May you be as beautiful as bread, as healthy as garlic and as sweet as honey all year round.
My husband next cut one of the blessed apples in half as is traditional in some homes after the oplatky on Christmas Eve, to see if we have a good or bad year ahead of us. This is a very simple divination: a star shape means health and happiness, while a cross shape predicts illness or bad luck for the coming year. ⭐️
We then sipped the wine,
repeated the end of the Our Lady of Perpetual Help chaplet,
And ended:
Peace be with you
And also with you
And with that we left the blue candle burning and Mother Mary to her rest.
———————
Full disclosure: photos were taken the night before the ritual (except for tonight’s two divinations) and the majority of the post written this afternoon. As a former librarian and solitary practitioner I love to document (and probably over do it), but for bigger rituals I prefer to put my focus where it needs to be.
@varwlf @chronichlesofnillory @henbane-and-honeysuckle @lesorciercanadien @dvoeverie-stitches @zucchinigal @suterraintales @shtern-un-honik @luncheon-aspic @langlif-saga @this-lamb-bites
