#ritual fire

[bernardgloom]

Badnji Dan is the Serbian Orthodox Christmas Eve, marked by the ritual burning of the badnjak—oak branches whose burning symbolizes the end of the old sun and the birth of the new. With the arrival of Christianity, this ancient pagan rite became part of Christmas Eve, the day before the Nativity of Christ, coming to symbolize the end of the old order and the beginning of a new one.

[johnschneiderblog]

Salvaging the ritual

We weren't home for the holidays and didn't put up a Christmas tree this year. Thus, we were deprived not only of its fragrant presence in our living room, but also of our official end-of-the-holidays ritual - the torching of the tree.

We made do Saturday with trimmings left behind from the trees we gave away. It wasn't the normal blaze-of glory send-off, but better than no send-off at all.

By the way, I was proud to see that both of our kids in L.A. put up authentic, live-grown trees. Firs, of course.

[gifts-of-heimdall-runes]

Source: Gwydion [newTumblr]

[girlwithwolftatoo]

Brownie lover

So today I wanted to cook some brownies and also was the “cleaning up the shrine” day (it should be on Wdnesday but I skipped because I had a lot of work to do). As I cleaned Loki’s pocket shrine I lighted some frankincense for Him and His candle and I said “Hey, gonna make some brownies this afternoon, want some?” (I read in a lot of lokean’s blogs that Loki has a thing for baked food). No answer. And then suddenly, as I’m doing my stuff on my laptop, I saw two flames coming from the candle (one of them was because a tiny stick of wood was sticked to the candle and it started to burn) and then ohhh the intensity! The two flames made the candle break in a half and drop a lot of wax over my desk and the shrine.

After blow out the candle I stared at the shrine. I mean, this probably was a way to say “Hell yes!” but Loki, my dearest, there’s a huge amount of not dangerous, flamable ways to inform you really want the brownies, please and thank you.

[ritualstephen]

[seleneblackwell]

[rosecoloredtarot]

Sacred fire tonight. Let’s gooooooooo!!!

[danskjavlarna]

Source details and larger version.

Newsworthy: a collection of weird headlines and book titles.