YULE: The Seed of Life

“After the twelfth Yule festival Irtha gave birth to three maidens: Lyda out of glowing, Finda out of hot, and Frya out of warm dust. When the last came, WR-ALDA breathed His spirit upon her in order that men should be bound to him. When she was full grown she took pleasure and delight in the visions of WRALDA.

They received WRALDA’S ‘seed’ into them, and so they each bore twelve sons and twelve daughters; twins each Yuletide. All of mankind has come from these.”

– The Book of Adela’s Followers

SACRED SNOWFLAKES

December is upon us, the winter solstice is nearly here, as is the time known as Christmas or “Yule”. And regardless of how one feels personally about this time of year known to mass society as the “Holiday Season”, there are nevertheless certain things that are almost unanimously associated with it. Things like holiday parties, Christmas trees, Santa Claus and of course, snow.

When you spend fourteen years of your life living in Maine, you tend to get a little tired of snow, particularly as an adult. However, even at almost forty, there is still something about walking outside on the night of a first snow in Maine. The quiet stillness of the night air. That temperature that’s cold, but not “too cold”. And of course, the iconic and almost mandatory catching of snowflakes on one’s tongue that brings me back to the playful wonder of childhood- even if just for a moment.

There has always been some kind of magic about snowflakes, and perhaps there is nothing more truly “magical” than the way they are shaped; or rather, the way the are designed. As children, we would create snowflake designs out of paper, making elaborate designs and hanging them on our walls. However, even our most spirited and elaborate designs inevitably pale in comparison to the masterful design work of Nature.

If one does an image search online, for “snowflakes under a microscope” you will find numerous different elaborate designs- many of which look just like the decorations that we make to adorn our walls and Yule/Christmas trees.

Now, while they say “no two snowflakes are alike“, there is a general form and structure that they typically tend to have in common. One major common element that snowflakes tend to share is a generally hexagonal shape.

Hexagons are found all throughout Nature, from crystals to honeycombs to insect eyes, to conjoining bubbles to the north pole of Saturn to bonding carbon atoms; it would seem, as an article out of Nautilus suggests, that “nature prefers hexagons“.

The scientific explanation is a simple matter of conserving space and energy:

“Why hexagons, though? It’s a simple matter of geometry. If you want to pack together cells that are identical in shape and size so that they fill all of a flat plane, only three regular shapes (with all sides and angles identical) will work: equilateral triangles, squares, and hexagons. Of these, hexagonal cells require the least total length of wall, compared with triangles or squares of the same area. So it makes sense that bees would choose hexagons, since making wax costs them energy, and they will want to use up as little as possible—just as builders might want to save on the cost of bricks. This was understood in the 18th century, and Darwin declared that the hexagonal honeycomb is ‘absolutely perfect in economizing labor and wax.‘”

Although typically balked at by mainstream science, the area of study known as “sacred geometry” sees the hexagon as a sacred structure from which the Golden Ratio; the mathematical formula from which “Divine Proportion” or perfect balance derives throughout both the natural world and in the world of men when it was crafted by master masons.

Returning back to the snowflake, we see contained within the hexagonal frame, a “skeletal” structure of six spokes, which then branch out into more elaborate and unique patterns. This six-spoke wheel pattern also shows up in sacred geometry in multiple ways outside of just being the framework of a hexagon.

One of these is a symbol known as the “Seed of Life“. Although the symbol itself has been around for millennia, the name itself, along with that of the “Flower of Life“- a symbol comprised of multiple “Seeds of Life”, is a modern invention. The symbol itself, resembling something akin to a six-petaled flower, and is typically created by seven overlapping circles of the same diameter.

And while the specific original meaning of these symbols, appears to have been lost, they appear throughout the ancient world much the same way as the swastika (the symbol of the polar navigational stars rotating around the Axis Mundi) does. First documented in the second millennium BC, these symbols appeared to have three major applications:

“1: A Flower: As the name rosette (French, “little rose”) implies, the figure resembles a flower. A tradition of using geometrically stylized flowers, leave, and branches as decorative elements originated in Mesopotamia and continues to be used today.

2: The Sun: The rosette has been used to represent the Sun, with the petals as rays. The Sun has a close association with the number six. While it has four stops during its daily motion (east at dawn, south at noon, west at dusk, north at night), it has six on its yearly journey. It rises and sets at its furthest north during July solstice, furthest south during December solstice, and rises due east and sets due west during both equinoxes.

3: Spiritual Protection: Several cultures believe the rosette is apotropaic, used to avert bad luck. The central six petals signify blessings in Pennsylvania Dutch hex signs. Likewise hexagonal geometric figures, including those we call the Seed of Life and Flower of Life, were used in Eastern Europe as “thunder marks”. Associated with Perun, the Slavic equivalent of the Norse Thor, they were carved on homes to protect from dangers like lightning.”

Top row, left to right:  Variations on the central rosette on 17th century BCE Greek coins, an early 15th century CE Arabic tile, and the Gundestrup cauldron of Denmark. Bottom row, left to right:  Examples of the rosette net pattern on a 1stcentury BCE mosaic in Israel, a monastery window on Crete, and a sketch by Leonardo da Vinci. Courtesy of https://blog.etemetaphysical.com/seedoflife/

Many contemporary sacred geometry practitioners and enthusiasts see the Seed of Life as being representative of the Seven Days of Biblical Creation and the origin of all things:

“The Seed of Life is a stage before the shape known as the Flower of Life which produces the ‘Fruit of Life’. The Fruit of life is the blueprint of the universe; it contains every atom, molecular structure, life form and eventually everything in existence. Therefore, all things existing can be built from the shape of the seed of life.”

HEXES AND YULE:

Another place we find this “Seed of Life” design commonly used may seem somewhat strange at first, as it is routinely used in the designs of the barn stars or “Hex Signs” of the Pennsylvania Dutch. These barn stars were and are painted within a circular boarder and were commonly hung on the outside of barns, but were also present in various other places throughout the homestead and made up an integral part of Dutch/Germanic folk art.

And while the tern “hex” tends to conjure images of witch curses and things of that nature, these Hex Signs were used to provide protection and bring prosperity and love to those that used them. In fact, the word “Hex” actually just means the number six, rather than some sort of magic spell:

“Like other immigrants, they (the PA Dutch) brought their old world language, dress, traditions and art to their new home.. The “fancy” (non-Mennonite/Amish) farmers also decorated their large German style bank barns with colorful geometric patterns. Six-pointed star designs were very popular. The German word for six, ‘sechs’, sounded like hex to their English-speaking neighbors. In time these “hex” patterns became commonly called hex signs. This custom persists today.”

The “Hexologist” sees each piece as a “painted prayer“, and uses an array of colors and designs, each one having specific meaning and function:

“These bright, colorful designs had meanings or legends. Families selected a hex sign based on color, design and its meaning. Some of the more popular symbols included: hearts for love, birds (called distelfinks) for luck and happiness, tulips for faith, and stars for good luck. The colors used for painting were also carefully chosen because of their added meaning. Blue conveyed protection, white purity, green abundance and red strong emotion.”

But like many European folk remedies and traditions, these Hex Signs became associated with idolatry, black magic and witchcraft- things that were violently persecuted at times in the Old World as well as Puritan America. However, that these symbols were seen as “un-Christian” by anyone, would not be an incorrect judgement. Like a great many things in European folk culture, the symbolism of the Hex Sign has its roots deep in the archaic past- long before such a thing as “Christianity” existed.

We already saw that the “earliest known” depictions of this symbol dates back to the second millennium BC, but myself and others would argue that it goes back even further than that, and its origins are indeed, quite “Dutch“.

In The Oera Linda Book; that controversial manuscript that came out of the region known as “Frisia” in the Netherlands; we find a symbol referred to as “The Yule“:

“Depicted above are the signs of the Yule, which is the primal symbol of WRALDA and of the potential or the beginning from which time came; the Carrier that must forever go around with the Yule.

From this Frya formed the set hand which she used for her Tex. When Vesta was Honorary Mother, she made running or continuous script from it. The Witking, that is Sea King, Godfreiath the Old made separate numbers for both set and running script. It is therefore not too much that we have an annual festival to celebrate it. We must eternally bring thanks to WR-ALDA that he let his spirit flow so strongly over our forefathers.”

The Fryans understood this symbol, the Yule, to represent the underlying structure; the Order from which ALL things in the world of men, from architecture to writing should be modeled after in order to be Truly representative of WR-ALDA’s Divine Laws.

However, to the ancient Fryans, Yule would have represented even more than just a celebration of Divinely-inspired ancestors; it would have been a celebration of the birth of mankind:

“Wralda, who alone is whole and eternal, created the potential. Time began and wrought all things; the very Earth herself. Earth bore all grasses, herbs and trees; all cherished and all despised creatures. All that is good and cherished, she brought forth by day, and all that is evil and despised, she brought forth by night.

After the twelfth Yule festival She (Earth)gave birth to three maidens: Lyda out of glowing, Finda out of hot, and Frya out of warm dust. When the last came, WR-ALDA breathed His spirit upon her in order that men should be bound to him. When she was full grown she took pleasure and delight in the visions of WRALDA.

They received WRALDA’S ‘seed’ into them, and so they each bore twelve sons and twelve daughters; twins each Yuletide. All of mankind has come from these.”

It is here we perhaps have the true origins of “Christmas” and the story of the Divine becoming man, linking back to this Fryan myth of the rather miraculous birth of the primary root races of humanity. And with the “binding” of man (particularly the children of Frya) to WR-ALDA through the Breath of Life is strangely reminiscent to the concept of a “covenant“- something which figures HEAVILY in the Biblical mythos.

Moreover, one can find traces of certain Western esoteric versions of the creation myth, involving the somewhat violent ‘shaping’ of the primal mists of Earth by Time or “Saturn“. A similar violence is found in the various Gnostic creation myths where it is the Demiurge, the creator of the material world, who in some stories rapes the Goddess Sophia or Eve, creating the world and all within in. This Demiurge is also portrayed as using the Power and Substance of the True Unknown God in order to create the world and claim it as his own.

In The Oera Linda Book, Time is not seen as this semi-demonic figure, but simply an element that came out or the Divine Creator which in turn, brought about the creation of all other things in the material universe. Oera Linda scholar, Jan Ott says this of the linguistic connections in the book, the figure of “Time” and the Yule:

“… Carrier (KRODER/-AR) and his Yule (JOL) or Wheel of Time. Related are the concepts Time (TID), the Beginning (T.BIJIN) and what I translate as the Potential (T.ANFANG, Dutch/German: aanvang, Anfang).

‘Kroder’ must be related to Krodo/Crodo, known from German-Saxon sources and Chronos from the Greek tradition. These were both associated with time.

‘Jol’, most well known today as ‘Yule’ is still the more original name for the traditional Northwestern European midwinter celebration. In the Scandinavian languages the word also still means wheel.”

The Yule is the Wheel of Time that allows for all things to manifest here in the world. It is ultimately not a curse, but a tool for evolution and unfoldment into greatness. It is the force that moves creation into existence- the Seed of Life.

This same “seed” lives within us and can be made manifest. It is the Self- the internal Sun.

This time of year is a time to reflect on the True nature of Creation. A time to reflect on the nature of the Sun/Son that gives us Life and Light as it appears to die and be reborn in strength. It is a time to connect with the Earth Mothers, our ancestors, the rhythms of Nature and the Divine Spirit of WR-ALDA.