Hello!
I just couldn't wait to share these photos with you. It was a really hard photoshoot and it took me a whole day to make the kolovrat and take photos (I needed to make them in two rounds) but I am so happy how they turned out.
You can probalby see that I attached two versions of one frame - I just couldn't pick which one I like more, so please help me with that. I picked a cat for a reason but will tell you more about it soon!
In just one week, my favorite Slavic festival - Kupala Night - will take place. I’ve written about it many times in my posts, so you probably already know how important fire was during this celebration.
The Kupala fire differed from an ordinary bonfire. It was associated with life rather than death. The fire lit for Kupala was called a “living fire” and had to be kindled by rubbing wood against wood. This ancient technique required both effort and time, and involved, among other things, turning a wagon wheel mounted on a pole.
Another common motif of this special night was setting fire to a spoked wheel fixed to a tall pole and then rolling it down a hillside.
In the lands inhabited by the Eastern Slavs, the Kupala Night celebration began with lighting a fire around a pole on which a wagon wheel or a horse’s skull was placed.
The practice of lighting bonfires on the shortest night of the year may have been closely connected to the ancient perception of the world and the people immersed in it. Time was not seen as moving forward irreversibly; rather, it was believed to move in cycles, with natural phenomena repeating themselves again and again just like a circle.
Anna Stasiak, "Słowiański Przewodnik po Świętowaniu".
Hope you enjoyed this little background for my photoshoot. Can't wait for the Kupala Night's celebrations!
Love, Erinthul.