Festival Of the New Year

Szczodre Gody, which can be translated as Bountiful Festival Of the New Year or Generous Feast, is one of the Slavic and Baltic most important celebrations within the Wheel of the Year – gody, from god – year, in ancient Slavic language means time of the year. The festivities take place on the night of the Winter Solstice (Przesilenie Zimowe) and last for 12 days. Since the ancient Slavic and Baltic people followed the nature-based calendar, their Wheel of the Year festivities were organized around the axis of Equinoxes and Solstices. Szczodre Gody begins when the first star appears on the sky on December 21st. It is the Star of the Rod, God of the family, ancestors and fate. With Rod’s Star we embrace the darkness from which the Sun is reborn. There was a belief in the Polish folklore that a new Sun was being born each winter solstice – the Newborn Sun.

That evening, a great vegetarian dinner is prepared and the souls of ancestors are invited. With the arrival of Christianity that custom was turned into the Wigilia (Christmas’ Eve) celebrated on December 24th.

Whenever the Slavic people honour their ancestors only plant based food is made.  While the male head of the Households (Gospodarz) sets the bonfire outside, everyone is looking out for the first star to appear, then the Female Head of the Household (Gospodyni) opens the door and invites the souls of ancestors: 

“Holy Spirits of Ancestors, our Grandmothers and our Grandfathers please join us at the celebrations”

The celebratory dinner must contain twelve vegetarian dishes each representing a different month, the festivities ought to be as joyful and bountiful as we wish the upcoming year to manifest. With the Christian influences, the fish was added as a symbol of new life. Dishes served during the feast consist of certain food products important in the Slavic and Baltic symbolism:

• honey – joy and abundance
• milk – cleansing powers, hope, love, and fertility
• poppy seeds – connection with the outerworld, fertility and immortality
• nuts – mystery, wealth, wisdom and fertility; they were also believed to protect from the toothache
• prunes – protecting from the evil forces, ensuring happiness and bringing a long lifespan
• apples – good health, also protecting from headache
• pears – attracting wealth and life
• grains of barley or wheat – symbolizing goods of the Mother Earth and the cyclic process of rebirth
• beans and peas – health, fertility and abundance
• mushrooms – outerworld, mystery and a sudden growth
• beetroots – blood of Mother Earth ‘given away in a gesture of love’, bringing a long lifespan, beauty and general wellness
• cabbage – strenght, life-giving powers, protection from illness (often used in traditional healing methods, along with beetroots)
• fish – fertility and a new life
• bread – in the Slavic rituals it’s the main component of the food offerings for the ancestors, symbolizing food in general (notion of ‘daily bread’ as a daily meal), abundance, prosperity, and fertility of the cultivated land

Holy Fire & The Tree of The World

Into the Holy Fire, gifts for the Gods are being offered such as herbs and dried flowers. The whole family gathers to dress up The Tree of The World with Rod’s Star at the top, and at the bottom where the World of Weles, God of Underworld and Wealth is represented, the presents are being placed underneath the Tree with his blessing.

Sczodre Gody is a time for family, magic and spell casting, but also a time of remembering the ancestors, when we visit the graves of the loved ones who passed away. 

Koliada / Kolęda & 12 days of spell casting

The Winter Solstice with the feast of Szczodre Gody opens the season of kolędowanie which nowadays is celebrated on December 24th on the evening of the Christmas Eve. Szczodre Gody last twelve days, each day corresponds to the next month of the year and represents a magical spell for that day. Observing the weather and the behavior of nature can provide us with the clues of what kind of weather shall be expected in each corresponding month.

This period is also called Koliada or Kolęda, a wide spread Slavic and Baltic winter festival when we sing songs about the origin of the world and the birth of the Sun. The word ‘kolęda’ meant originally a joyful New Year’s song. During these rituals groups of friends dress up in various symbolic costumes and stroll from house to house to sing carols in exchange for sweets, drinks or small money. The loud songs (often accompanied by bells, reels, drums, etc) and symbolic costumes are remnants of ancient Slavic rites acknowledging the cycles of nature and its hibernation during winter. These joyful rites were meant to celebrate the days growing longer and prepare the communities for the later celebrations of chasing the winter away before the arrival of spring.

Indo-European roots & the Vedic Sanskrit hymns of Rigveda

Since Sczodre Gody date to the pre-Christian, ancient past, the festivities share the same origins in all Indo-European cultures, for instance according to Rigveda, ancient collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns, the twelve days of New Year’s celebrations were the metaphor of the whole year.

With cosmic blessings,

Agni Jnana Yannanda
The One Who Speaks With The Star

Agni Jnana which translates from Sanskrit as Mystic Fire, is an astrologer living between the Shawangunk Mountains, as The Lady of The Mountain, Ninhursag, and the Mazury Lake District, as Jacwingian personification of PraSlavic JaDeive, Self-Proclaimed Goddess.