Yuletide Thoughts

Ask a dratsi what does time mean.

Our sea furry mammals are oblivious to a watch… They nonetheless respond better to moon and tides.

Time for humans means something else. If you too obey timetables, you are shackled to a routine.

When school bells ring for a last time, you suddenly feel lost for words. Aye, no more alarm clock for a while! Yule has returned with its magic. Home is ready for the pagan and the scent of the pine tree. Cinnamon sticks and melting wax as darkness has reached its climax…

First day of freedom in the snow, as icicles graced the garden to my delight. It is a moment of reconnection with the natural world I treasure so dearly. Out in my Caribou snow-boots, I wandered off in the perfection of nature, feeding my dear garden dwellers and free water out of the ice.

Their constant presence feels my heart with so much joy, I owe them help for survival in such seasonal conditions. After all, why should we be the only ones to feast at Yule?

What is Yule without its cortège of hellery? 60N at a crossroads with the Nordic realm means everything.

Two mighty storms in between Hogmanay and now, have swept across geos and skerries…

Storm force winds swept the old year away, as one would sweep away old dust.

January welcomes brand new gales.

So I hold tight to candle sticks until the sky turns to bird tunes.

Tis nearly over, this Yuletide.

Nisse will return to the barn for a final bowl of porridge; tinsels and baulbs, back to the den… Blue mantelpiece back to candles without Yöl cairds…

But then, again, Nisse still smiles.

And Aa da best fur da new year.

Thanking you all for your presence, likes and contributions to Arcania.

Namaste 🙏🏻 fae da wild North!

Circles

Last days of term…

If seasons rule my homeworld here on the island, so does each school term. So much water in every burn, da Voar flew as fast as da Simmer… And in between, time capsules caught on microchip in an effort to celebrate moments of “now”.

Freedom regained today, with feet stretching once more towards the horizon.

More writing under way, now that “peerie spider of time” allows once more.

As we have reached Yule and rolling in its tide, time seems to wander around kelp.

2022 felt like lit powder and yet, each precious Time Capsule is treasured outside timetables. This afternoon, I was watching purple sandpipers, turnstones among avian favourites that belong to my seasonal sky – those intrepid survivors were fighting against everything: time, the ocean, freezing weather conditions… I remain in awe of them all.

Winter, the cruellest of season, duels with life and death, determining survival on Earth. We are all visitors on our planet.

As busy as we, humans, can be, our ability to reconnect with our world can only allow us to be at one with it all. I often missed out on treading on my favourite sand bridge this year… I certainly favoured other magic places on the island, yet Ninian Sands allows full cleansing of the mind and soul. Tis time I return to it before this incredibly busy year ends.

I owe it to my own happiness.

Ninian Sands between Samhain and Yule 2022.

Yule Verse

Is there a troll around tonight?

grateful

So little left of 2021, and yet so much achieved and shared!

I am grateful to your support throughout another challenging year driven by the imperative of a terrifying bug that keeps animating the human world…

Grateful to those who have given the poet’s work an extraordinary platform that has reached far further afield than expected – they know who they are, and let it be some of the those magic stepping stones to greater things.

Grateful to our planet for homing the woman in such extraordinary surroundings, as survival has remained de rigueur.

Grateful to my angels, whether on Earth or in the sky.

As our homeworld rotates with grace towards the dawn of a new year, I, like you, live in hope. Hope we can eventually free ourselves from this new form of biological terrorism; hope we can come to our senses (as a species) and start to look at ourselves as a wiser community coming to terms with our own paradox and allow both ourselves and our future generations to continue striving on Earth in a less demanding manner, and with so much more respect towards Mother Nature.

I am grateful to each sunrise glowing into my eyes – each turn of tide, seasonal return of our migrating avifauna and marine fauna.

I am grateful to be alive and walk the shore – marvel at the abundance and beauty of life. I am a mere visitor as the rest of the animal and vegetal kingdom. And yet, with so much joy I celebrate it all with either a pen or pixels…

Today, I once roamed the southern part of the island, and stopped to watch and wish – wish for a brighter chapter ahead.

Captured time capsules of the wild in my “little black box” and pray the island continues to home this sanctuary of life.

Strangely, some of our mudflats are currently homing species that should winter so far away from us… A sign of deregulation, change from our natural world. An unknown omen.

I can only hope for harmony to continue in the great cycle of life, and I wish for human wisdom to override that current state of selfishness.

I want to believe we can achieve this and more.

We owe it to the balance of life – that of the vegetal and animal kingdom to which we belong.

I am grateful to each and everyone involved in protecting our homeworld. If we too are adding our own stones to this great edifice, and are prepared to accept changes in our lifestyles, our efforts and resilience will pay off.

As I am striving to start assembling a new collection of poetry during Yuletide and ritual of passage to a New Year, let me wish each and everyone the very best for 2022 – good health (first) light & love, daily joys and happiness.

Life is short, precious and unique for each one of us. I, like you, am deeply grateful for it.

Let’s see what the New Year brings .

Namaste fae 60N 🌿✨

Wheeled to Life

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Hours away.

So far away from its power, and yet mighty for just hours, as night reigns as an empress. We are reaching the longest night as Yule prevails.

Yesterday’s walk around da voe, this inlet of water where birds and selkies venture for survival looked so magic at the golden hour.

Tis like a dream.

As long as light warms rocks and kelp uprooted by the latest storm, starlings and shore birds feast like kings.

Tis just magic.

They all fly in. Our homeworld feels so generous in such harsh times.

Within hours, gold turns purple as our star vanishes so fast.

Tis now the time for da haigrie to fish at dusk.

I watched it wade and stand solemn like a statue; a sudden flick of eyes and neck as it scanned all around its world in search of prey…

Then went the catch.

Night creeps too fast. Just around 4, p.m. that is… I had to rekindle head beams to trek back home.

Another day just gone to rust… Wheeled inside life and realm of death, Yule celebrates every lost soul. Time to reconvene with spirits, night, candle light so precious feels life of us all.

Tonight, my heart back in each voe where life is tied to ebbing tides; where selkies find respite out on boulders…

Tomorrow we cross the solstice, as mid-winter settles at last.

I hear the return of the snow, the longest night and the sweet smell of cinnamon inside my home.

Tis that moment when I reconvene with angels; freedom to wander through my world, in my own time and place.

Happy Yuletide to each and all!

archipelago

2021.

Twenty years ago, I heard the call from 60N and answered. I believed in the stars that showed the way.

Stars. A good trillion of them can’t be wrong. 27 is an odd number… I was gifted one at Yule, which made me feel like le petit prince… Another bears my name in the constellation of Auriga…

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My dear stars ✨

Here is a short piece I wrote at dawn this morning to welcome 2021. Like the rest of my community and humanity, filled with hopes.

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The island on 1 Jan 2021 during the Golden hour.

She ran to the edge of the land, where birds gather before each dive.

Her eyes searched for the faintest sight of stars. Winter has clawed her every breath, wrapped in that wind straight from the pole, she felt at one with her own world.

Circular beams from the lighthouse are reassuring in winter. She turned her heart to the ocean where tides collide and kiss at will. The taste of salt left on her lips reminds her of her sense of home. Home, where sea pinks thrive in early June; where each skylark sings in deep blue… Home, where time wanders inside rollers.

Home. The twigs she planted in the ground have grown to trees. She learnt the clicks of each starling, as she replenished hooked feeders on the tip of strongest branches.

Hame. her heart listened for brand new words she harnessed as her midder tongue. Her sense of belonging in her community nestled for the first time when she discovered wicks, holms and her taing of land, heartfelt welcome fae folk., peat fire in their hearth.

On the strange primal night, she looked up to the stars. She looked at them as her angels. The constellations of her heart, Orion and Andromeda, Aquila, Auriga and Taurus…. She finds solace, there in Lyra or just the Plough. She knows clouds don’t stay forever.

On the tip of her loved headland, she listened to wrath from The Roost. Each wave heaves kelpies and njuggles – awakes spirits from the water. Two footsteps back, she loved the safety of the stones an islander used for a wall like a jigsaw to guard against the Roost’s anger.

She remembered her own journey in between skerries at high tides, treacherous straits, hell from hailstorms… Yet she believed in her dear stars to find her archipelago.

This archipelago, her own world. She knows the lighthouse is safety.

© Nat Hall 2021

Thanking you for your continued support and wishing each and everyone the very best for 2021. Take great care and stay safe, wherever you walk on the planet.

Namaste from the island.

Jul, Yöl & Aa

Spirit of Yule

Yuletide is a magic, signalling a new life cycle start – a slow return to light, the sun, currently at 6.6 degree elevation at its zenith… And in those times of darkness, the faintest spark feels a treasure.

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The island, engulfed in some 5 and something hours of light on 21 Dec., is already scraping seconds away. Snowflakes dusted every inch of sand, heather and grass this polar felt 24 Dec. 2020.

Yule, Yöl Eve, julhaften, or réveillon, here comes two poems – one in Shetland dialect from Vagaland; the other, from my own pen.

Fae Mr Robertson, aka Vagaland,

Santie’s Reindeer 

Da Göd Man hings da starns 

Laek peerie lamps sae bricht,

Sae Santie Klaas can fin his wye,

Whin he comes here da nicht.

Dis nicht he yoks his reindeer up,

An drives dem trowe da sky;

Dan he taks on his muckle bag

An leaves his slaidge ootbye.

An, Maamie, whin you mylk da coo

You’ll geng an tak a 

O hey, or maybe twartree 

An laeve dem lyin furt.

Da reindeer haes sae far ta geng;

Dey’re maybe hed nae maet,

An he’ll be blyde if he can fin

A grain fir dem ta aet.

A’ll hing my sock apo da 

Jöst in below da brace,

An whin he’s trivveled trowe da 

He’ll aesy fin da place.

He’ll never come till A’m asleep,

Sae A’ll pit on my goon

An up da stairs ita da 

A’ll geng an lay me doon.

You’ll pit da claes aboot me noo,

Becaase he’s gittin late;

An, Maamie, whin you mylk da coo

You’ll mind da reindeer’s maet.

Vagaland.

Hame, at Yöl.

And if Vagaland leaves food for the reindeers, I will gladly leave some for a Norwegian character…

Julenissen

Julenissen loves julaften,

smell of hot porridge in a bowl

somebody left right by the barn.

His eyes peep through

edge of his cap,

that long

red

stocking to the floor;

his dwarf-like

size nearly

makes him invisible,

scraping a living with a cat,

a vole family and

owl...

Julenissen loves his barn,

each farmer, child and animal,

yet hot oatmeal on Christmas Eve 

will bring favours to

humankind -

this hog goblin is a guardian,

he, safe-keeper of

men’s farm world;

windows will be dressed with candles,

decorated in his honour.

Oatmeal or porridge for an oath,

Julenissen feels generous, with

auroras above reindeers.

© Nat Hall 2020

Have a joyous, safe and peaceful Yuletide/holiday 🌲❄️✨

Jul, Yule an aa

 There is a date that rhymes with night

On my island, we call da mörkin, it signifies the darkness.

It is when night outweighs daylight so much our sun dares not elevate itself so shamelessly. And by the time we reach Yule, the Winter Solstice, it will just peep out by just a few degrees at its zenith. It will turn so lazy, it will just reach that “magic 5 degrees” and then returns to hide by ten to three.

Nonetheless, we now know we are on a high cliff face that will gradually hoist us back to light. This  word, da mörkin, derives from its Norwegian root, mørke. Like our  neighbours from the deep fjords, we light candles (though we do celebrate St Lucy’s) inside our homes and toast to Yule. A time of merriment around tables, trees and loved ones (for the most fortunates).

This year, I have adorned my home a little bit early to make sure I would be ready for Jul, Yule and aa.

With that cosmic slide into da mörkin, December deserves scents and lights, music away from gales, high tides hail stones and skelping rain that falls horizontal.

So I adorned my home with holly and pine cones to welcome Yule. Angels protect my home until Barbara and Conor decide to slip away from our shores. Like my good friends from the great fjords, I will celebrate on the 24th, with a good friend from Burra. And then repeat that Yuletide feast on the 25th in the comfort of my home, as my friend will join me in the afternoon… We shall sample a few goodies so seasonal and hope for both a little clemence from the sky. I know my Norskie friends will taste the same, as what they named Julestorm affect them too.We share that northern hellery after all… Just 24 hours delay between us.

Here,

my very best wishes for a peaceful festive season, less terror from a sickened world – light to those who need it most. Everyday I light candles to remember that darkness can be vainquished – that there is light at the end of tunnels.

And ultimately,

a piece for Jul, Yule an aa

God Jul på deg fra meg,

Godt nytt år,

og, så fint…

Eg drøymer om ditt land,

da cast iron stove at da farm, print fae da red deer ida snaa –

da peerie owl an blackie afore da day,

frozen apple fae dy gairden.

God Jul på dere fra

Shetland,

whaar da gale soonds a hellery, an

da spindrift flies juist laek snø

ida mörkin.

VENNLIG HILSEN fra

øy min.

 

In English, it notably translates:

 

Happy Yuletide from me to you,

Happy new year,

so fine,

I am dreaming of your land,

your cast iron stove at the farm, print from the red deer in the snow –

the small owl and the blackbird at dawn, frozen apple from

your garden.

Happy Yuletide to you all from

Shetland,

where the storm sounds so bad and vile, and

saltbuds flies like snow in

the darkness.

With all my love from this

island of mine.

 

© NatHall 2016

Passage

In between time, tides, meridians…

2014 had its magic moments – new friends, projects, travels, publications… Holding my breath when it mattered, smiled at the world without restraint, burnt my fingers, ego & pride…

Now my heart’s reconciled with each moment, I celebrate then & now.

Than YOU for being a part of it, wherever you are,
thank YOU for
your
kind eyes,
support and
help in any way
along this
path.

As we prepare for the next stretch, let me wish you the very best –
may 2015 fill your eyes & hearts with smiles, health, joys, happiness beyond desires.
Let it guide you towards success.

I love that word that means the world of boundless beauty inside out:

Namaste:-)

Yule

Yule, Mother Earth’s rite of passage towards the coming Equinox.
From 60N,
it’s impressive –

Night overrides shafts from a sun that barely dares getting aloft…
A few degrees’ elevation to be precise.

In other words, light from our great celestial star becomes precious.
Shortest day, longest
night,
as
sun eyes
directly into tropic of
Capricorn.

What
does it
mean to islanders
inside a storm?

Candle-lit world, cinnamon scented sanctuary as darkness creeps earlier than thought…
Time to
open tokens of love, and
reconvene with a few friends – enjoy the magic of powder propelled & sparked to light us up for a moment. Live music shared in between hail and rain showers… Then a hot drink before retracing our own steps.

Time to regain precious seconds and gaze at return of the sun.

Have a wonderful Yule, festive season, Solstice Day, whatever side of the Equator 🙂