Winter Solstice ~ Ørnulf Opdahl (Norwegian landscape painter) ~ Wardruna: UruR [Nordic esoteric]

Winter Solstice / Vintersolverv
Sun, Dec 21, 2025, 4 : 03  PM
In Norway Winter Solstice is named Vintersolverv, and is directly related with what they name Jul, or Yule, Norwegian words for Christmas. The days in Norway are, after Summer Solstice, on June 20, becoming shorter and shorter, till December 21, which is the shortest day. There are just 7 hours daylight where I live, in central Southern Norway, but in the north it is 24 hours dark. At Summer Solstice, in the north of Norway, the sun does not disappear anymore beyond the horizon. More details: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Yule...
Darkness and Light are also spiritual phenomenons and because of that, a solstice was and is still part of the folk traditions, world wide.
Christianity has connected the pagan habits with its religion. Christmas is the Christian celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, who brought Light into the Darkness. "But the darkness did not understand him, and did not accept him."

Today, we, humanity, go through a deep darkness, the downfall of western hegemony, and the unwillingness of the west to develop together with other nations, a multi polar world. There is not yet a new beginning of a new era, but the multi polar world is the future for all peoples, and also because of this I choose for the paintings of Ørnulf Opdahl, accompanied by the drums, musical instruments, and voices of Wardruna. Opdahl's words: "in the darkness is the light", are words of hope. The point of the deepest darkness in the night, is the exact moment when a new day starts. That moment is comparable to the winter solstice.
Winter is a time of going into the own inner world, to find the inner light. The Self. The Light-Being inside.

THE ARTIST
Ørnulf Opdahl was born 5 January 1944, in Ålesund, Møre og Romsdal, Norway.
In Ørnulf Opdahl's art, the landscape is a central theme. Despite different phases and motif circles, his interpretations of Western nature have contributed to renewing Norwegian landscape painting in the tradition of JC Dahl and Peder Balke.
Vintersolverv is the title of one of his paintings. In the video it is the last painting.
See also:
Kunstnerforbundet, Oslo, Norway / Ørnulf Opdahl
https://kunstnerforbundet.no/kunstner...
His book: I mørket er lyset ( In the darkness is the light)
https://kunstverket.no/kunstnere/oern...
Playlist:    • Ørnulf Opdahl ~ Norwegian Painter  

MY IMPRESSIONS of Opdahl's paintings: The landscapes Opdahl paints are unique, created with flair, guts, unprecedented honesty and intelligence, daring to express what he experiences in his own, unique way. When one has ever been to Norway, one knows that what Opdahl paints is the high awareness of a total of intense experiences of what is visible, what can be sensed by all our senses, of what is mystical, spiritual, what is mood, a deeply felt, strong self-connection with Norway's nature, its harsh weather circumstances, life-threatening severe frost, ice, snow, glaciers, fog, the enormous, vast, mountainous areas, huge rocks, granite hard, waterfalls, frozen in winter, and the shining of the white mountain tops in the darkness, the reflections in the water, during moonlit nights, both in summer and winter.
With this roughness, this harsh reality, this Norwegian Nature energy, expressed in Ørnulf Opdahl's paintings, fits Wardruna's UruR.

👉 Wardruna creates musical renditions of Norse cultural and esoteric traditions and make significant use of Nordic historical and traditional instruments, including deer-hide frame drums, flutes, kraviklyra, mouth harp, goat horn, and lur. Non-traditional instruments, like the Finnish jouhikko, and other sources of sound like trees, rocks, water, and torches are also used.
Website: https://www.wardruna.com

Song title: UruR
Lyrics:
Eg reiste i minnet
Tilbake til isen som fødde meg
Kjenner varmen frå pusten som
tødde meg

Translation:
I travelled in my memory
Back to the ice that gave birth to me
Feeling the warmth of the breath that
thawed me

Dutch:
Ik reisde in mijn herinnering
Terug naar het ijs waaruit ik ben geboren
De warmte voelen van de adem die
me heeft ontdooid

Note:
The Disney film: Fantasia 2000, with Igor Stravinsky's music from "The Firebird", starts with the birth of Spring, by the breath of a red deer.