Rituals for the Rough Nights

Lights in the Dark Season

photo credit: Mike Labrum on Unsplash

The future is completely open, and we are writing it moment to moment.

〰 Pema Chödrön 〰

Celebrating Kiva at Christmas

Twenty four years ago we were introduced to the indigenous ways of celebrating the seasons by a friend who was training to become a Medicine Woman. She was staying with us over the Christmas period and offered to lead us through a Kiva Ceremony.
Kiva can be summarised as an invitation of the Wisdom Keepers to review your life over the past year and prepare for the new. It is a quiet and contemplative ceremony. Since our initiation in 1999 we have held our own ‘Kiva’ every year, usually on one of the nights between the 26th of December and Epiphany, the 6th of January.

Kiva is believed to be a Hopi word. It is used in various First Nation Languages of America and carries various meanings. Kiva can refer to a round building or space ~ often underground ~ used for ceremonial purposes. It can be used for the dark season we call winter. And it can mean the winter ceremony itself.

In the Christmas story, three Wise Men from the Orient follow the ’Star of Bethlehem’ to pay their respects to the newborn child, presumably hoping to receive some guidance. They were skilled in reading the stars and foretelling the future from what they saw. 

In Kiva we dive into our own inner wisdom to honour the new aspects of ourselves ready to be born. We also cast the spotlight of our mind back over the year gone by and say good bye to aspects we might choose to leave behind. Instead of looking for wisdom and guidance from external sources, we practice listening to our inner voice.

Kiva is also Mother Earth. As we enter the ceremony we return metaphorically into the womb of our earth mother, with the intention to go through a mini gestation period, and give birth to the new version of ourselves.

Kiva is a gift we give to ourselves each year, away from the Christmas circus and overindulgence in food to assault our health. During Kiva we make a prayer stick, focusing on all the things we intend to release or leave behind, and a Kiva bundle, containing all the intentions we set for the coming year. In our experience and  practice Kiva is a gentle yet powerful ceremony to focus our attention and energy for the New Year ahead.

Some readers might object that celebrating Kiva as a European is an inappropriate appropriation of an indigenous tradition which doesn’t belong to our culture. If ‘appropriation of indigenous traditions’ is causing concern or offense, let's take a look at the celebration of Christmas. Contrary to a hypothetical assumption that Christmas has been celebrated since the birthday of Jesus Christ 2000+ years ago, the rituals and traditions around this feast are less than five centuries old.

The Christian calendar emerged gradually over hundreds of years. Some sources claim that the date for Christmas ~ December 24-26 ~ was chosen because it falls roughly into the same period as the indigenous celebrations of the winter solstice. This synchrony made it easier for the early Christian missionaries to endear European pagans to the new religion imported from the Middle East via Rome.

The word Christmas [from Christ = the Anointed Messiah + mass = eucharist service] was introduced into English in mid 14 c.

Father Christmas was ‘born’ in the late 15th century. The character is effectively based on identity theft of St. Nicholas of Myra (270-343). The Christian saint and early bishop is celebrated in Holland, Germany, Switzerland and other countries on December 5th/6th (the day the real St. Nicholas died). The Germanic Santa comes at night, bearing gifts for children as a reward for good behaviour. His mode of travel can vary. Sometimes he rides on a horse. But he never travels alone.

Santaclaus always has a companion too::: Knecht Ruprecht (= farmhand Rupert) in Germany, Zwarte Piet (= Black Piet) in Holland, Schmutzli (= Black Face) in Switzerland is Santa's 'helper' who carries the large and heavy sack stuffed with gifts. On the morning of the 6th of December 'good children' find sweets and presents from St. Nicholas in their shoes. For the 'bad children' Rupert might leave a bundle of brushwood (traditionally used for whipping ~ in 2023 the practice  of corporal punishment in schools is still legal in parts of the United States).

In America the Germanic St. Nicholas custom morphed into 'Christmas stockings' hung near the fireplace ~ American Santas were known to enter the house via the chimney.

Christmas presents became popular since 1769.

The Christmas-tree was introduced in America in 1835 by Gustav Körner, a German lawyer and friend of Abraham Lincoln. In Germany the tradition had taken root in the 16th century, based on the ancient symbolism of the Tree of Life.

Christmas elves ~ 'Santa's little helpers' ~ didn't star in the show of Christmas until the 19th century. In the Middle ages, elves were condemned and demonised as Satan's helpers. To include them in the Christmas celebrations would have been heresy! The idea to bring them back into the Winter celebrations might have come from Iceland, the traditional home of elves, or Huldufólk.

Icelandic Christmas traditions have 13  Yule-lads, each of them with their own name, character and role. Like the Germanic St. Nicholas, the Yule-lads leave gifts in the shoes of 'good children', but if you've been naughty, you might get only a potato. Other elves and related 'hidden folk' from European folktales predate the Christmas elves by several centuries.

Christmas reindeer were added to the story around the same time as the elves. In Norse mythology Thor, the god of thunder, can fly across the sky in his chariot pulled by two winged goats. The image of Santa zooming through the Christmas heavens in a reindeer drawn sledge has all the signs of a copycat version of its Nordic ancestor.

Christmas cards were first designed in 1843.

The Christmas Business as a consumer extravaganza with a mix and match narrative of reindeer ‘borrowed’ from the Sami in Lapland, elves kidnapped from Iceland, Santa from St. Nicholas, a flying sledge appropriated from the chariot of Thor, and all other symbolic elements appropriated from pre-christian indigenous traditions, didn’t exist until Coca Cola planted the entire narrative as an advertising campaign in the 20th century. To this day, Coca Cola is on a mission to spread ‘Real Magic and human connection during the holiday season’ through its ‘Santa Stories’ (presumably AI generated in the transhuman post-truth era).

In summary, Christmas, the feast of light and peace was installed as the Christian ‘celebration of the birth of Christ’, appropriating countless elements of the pagan traditions, which the church had worked hard to eradicate with cruel means and brutal determination.

In the digital age, the word Kiva has been adopted by all kinds of individuals and organisations for all sorts of projects, allegedly in the ‘spirit of unity and cultural exchange’. According to blogger Gabriel Cruz “The adoption of Kiva as a name in other cultures shows a deep respect for the Native American heritage and a desire to honor their traditions.”

Why the Dead Days and Rough Nights are a Good Time for Fortune-Telling 

Initiated into the Kiva ceremony of the native traditions of 'all our relations' across the Atlantic, we were primed for the inevitable discovery that indigenous ceremonies related to this time of year have European roots too, albeit under different names, lost due to the ‘religious cleansing’ of pre-Christian traditions mentioned above.

Apart from indigenous Celtic traditions ~ revived over the past decades not only in the Celtic homelands in Europe  but shipped worldwide across the globe, now celebrated in America, Australia, and God knows where else ~ many lesser known mysterious customs lurk in the crevasses of the coldest and darkest season of the Northern hemisphere.

One legacy of indigenous Germanic culture are the so-called Raunächte = literally 'Rough Nights'. Due to the lunar calendar ~ according to paleolithic archeologist Alexander Marshack common in  Europe from around 30,000 BC onwards ~ a year of 12 months only had 354 days. The ‘missing 11 days’ were declared as “the Dead Days.” And the 12 nights between those days were the 'Rough Nights'.

Because this period existed effectively ‘outside of ordinary time’, our ancestors believed that the laws of nature were suspended during this ‘period between the years’ and therefore the boundaries to the other worlds vanished. The disappearance of such normal protective barriers meant that all kinds of spirits, ghosts and monsters were free to roam our human territories. Rituals for protection against impending evil (e.g. burning incense during the 12 nights) are related to such beliefs.

On the upside, the ‘thinning of the veil’ between the human world and the ‘other world’ also implied that this time period allowed glimpses into the future. Anyone interested in a prognosis about the year ahead, or any important turning points in life ~ such as predicting future weddings, births and other happy family events.

The custom of ‘molybdomancy’ ~ using molten metal for divination ~ is a relic still practiced in Switzerland, Austria, Germany, and other European countries as a fortune telling pastime on New Year’s eve. I remember doing it as a kid during our annual winter holiday by the Red Sea.

Fortuna, the Roman goddess of luck and destiny, must be the ‘guardian spirit’ of this practice. Fortune, the English word for chance, luck and fortuitous events beyond our control, is derived from her name.

Despite the efforts to banish Fortuna from Christianity by Saint Augustine (354-430 AD), a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin, the spirit of the goddess of fortune held her ground.

Fortunate, the quality of having or bringing good fortune, and being prosperous, lucky and happy has been a popular addition to the English language since the late 14th century. The sense of fortune as prosperity, wealth evolved in the 1600s. Fortunehunter became a ‘lifestyle choice’ in the 1680s.

Fortune Cookies were invented in 1918 by a Chinese immigrant to the US. And the most profitable American companies have been called ‘Fortune 500’ since 1955. No wonder we associate the word fortune with making lots of money and enjoying the generous side of Fortuna’s blessings.

Fortunetellers have been around (in English) since the 1580s. The tradition of ‘fortunetelling for fun’ on New Year’s eve is still around, although using poisonous lead is no longer popular (or illegal).

A contemporary variation of molybdomancy is the practice of waxpouring for fortunetelling. My daughter told me the other day that she's invited some friends over for New Year’s eve, and waxpouring is on the party program.