20/12/2025
❤️🙏🏼
On Saturday, December 20th, many will celebrate Modranicht* or Mother's Night.
Celebrated on the eve of the Winter Solstice, Mother’s Night is a tradition specifically honoring our female ancestors, the guardians of the home and family. As it is on Solstice Eve, this celebration also marks the beginning of the 12 night celebration known as Yule**.
Altars are adorned with pictures of loved ones along with offerings for these ancestors and candles burn all night in anticipation of the return of the sun. In these cultures, the sun is always considered female – with her life sustaining light – so this is an appropriate time to think of our mothers and our female ancestors. It is also a perfect time for the weaving of healing works and mending broken bonds between generations.
There are two different ideas of celebration shared below. One is a beautiful ancient honoring and while, specific to Asatru and the Norse tradition, it could be altered to fit any of our traditions.
The Second is a more modern idea.
Blessings to all on this Mother's Night 💖
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#1 - "Toast to the Mothers"
Hail mother Nerthus, Sacred Earth, you who nurture us. May you continue to uphold us.
Hail mother Fr**ga, beloved Great Mother of hearth and home. May you keep our household whole and safe.
Hail mother Freyja, Lady of the Vanir. May we receive prosperity in the coming year.
To our family’s Mothers, our Dísir, going back in a line to Elmbla,
You who have watched over us and loved us always. Bless us in the coming year!
We remember you with love and honor you this night.
#2 - "From Ozark Pagan Mamma"
On this Solstice Eve, it is with Deep, Deep Gratitude that I honor all the women who have come before me, all the women in my lineage, blood of my blood
Raising my Chalice, I drink a toast to them and to the amazing women who currently are on this Earth journey with me proclaiming…
Blessings to all on this the night of Modranicht, this night of the Mothers.
Blessings to all in this Season that is simultaneously a deepening into the darkest part of Winter and also a returning of the light.
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~Information compiled by Arlene Bailey, ©Her Sacred Wild
~Art from the "Alchemy 1977 Tarot Deck by Tarocchi Metafisici"
* Alternative spelling is Modranecht
**As Modranicht was celebrated on the Eve of Winter Solstice, there is also the idea handed down through the ages, that it was what became Christmas Eve when Yule became Christmas. Personally, in this time, I understand Yule and Christmas to be two different celebrations with different dates and different mythologies.
