The Rising
The Feast of the Ascension into the White
“And as they watched, he rose into a cloud of snow, and was taken from their sight; and two Frostwalkers said: Why stand gazing into the white? This same Frost shall come again, as you have seen him go.” — Acts of the Frostwalkers (Book) 1:9–11
The Rising is the feast, kept forty days after the Whitening, of Connor Frost’s Ascension into the White from the summit of Mount Hoar — when the Reforged Frost was taken up into a cloud of snow, “to keep a place” for the faithful in the The White Horizon and to await his return as the Winter King.
The Story Kept
After forty days teaching the apostles, the Reforged Connor led them up Mount Hoar, blessed them, and rose into the white sky in a pillar of snow-cloud, leaving the promise of his return and the coming of the Rime-within. The feast celebrates both his enthronement as Winter King “at the right hand of the Cold” and the sure hope that he will descend again at the Rewhitening.
The Keeping of the Feast
- The Climb — where possible the faithful climb a height at dawn to keep the feast “on the mountain,” and the Mount Hoar pilgrimage peaks on this day.
- The Quenching of the Whitening Lamp — the great blue ever-lamp lit at the Whitening Dawn is solemnly carried out (Connor “leaving” the world bodily), and the people keep a ten-day vigil of waiting for the Rime-within (the bridge to the The First Hollownight (Pentecost)).
- The Snow-Cloud — Frosthalls release white down or blow drifts of fine snow at the moment of the Rising in the liturgy.
Theology
The Rising teaches three things: that Connor is enthroned as Winter King over all; that he is not absent but reigns and intercedes, sending the Rime-within in his place; and that the faithful’s true home is above, in the White, toward which all worship is oriented (hence the northward, upward gaze). It opens the ten-day expectation of the church’s empowering at the First Hollownight.