I've had this blog for several years, but I never really did anything with it because I never really took the my spiritual side seriously-- or, more accurately, I never paid much attention to it. But recently, suddenly, it has become a big part of my life. How I got to this point is something I'll discuss in a hopeful future post, but for now, it's Winter Finding!
From what I've gathered, Winter Finding is essentialy a heathen Thanksgiving, a blót (sacrifice) to celebrate the first harvest of the year. (For those confused, as I was, as to why it is Winter Finding and not Autumn Finding, Vikings only had two seasons: Summer and Winter. Spring is lumped in with summer and autumn with winter. So harvests take place in winter!) So I held my first blót today, with my sister and bff in attendance.
I've also seen Winter Finding called Haustblót or Fallfeast. And with feast in mind, I cooked a special meal for today! I made chili. Why chili, you may ask. A blót usually includes some aspect of ancestor veneration, and my beloved granddaddy, who passed away in May, was famous in my family for his chili. Plus, it was super convenient because I put it together last night and let it cook in the slow cooker while I was at work today! An easy and delicious meal. We had some side dishes and seasonal cupcakes for dessert but it's not that important. Also, chili is kind of season to autumn, isn't it? We're going with that.
For the actual blót, I recited the Hallowing of this ritual . I didn't do the whole thing because I am a bad and lazy heathen it summed it up pretty nicely and I didn't want to keep my sister and bff captive while I did a whole ritual. I think for my next blót, I'll look at some rituals for inspiration and write my own Hallowing/Invocation/Prayer. I literally learned about Winter Finding last week and threw together this feast in 5 days. I offered the gods a complete meal of chili with sides and dessert, and poured them some special mead I bought just for this occasion.
Honestly I feel like it went really well and I get the sense that the gods and Frigga especially (Frigga is my patron goddess) are pleased with me. It was really important to me to have a Winter Finding blót to thank my deities for everything they do for me. My heart is filled with such gratitude on a daily basis for their presence and it was nice to have an outward expression of it!
I intend to write more posts exploring my spirituality and how I relates to the gods and do this whole religion thing. I'm going to tag these posts as #Heathenry For Beginners
