Dear Friends,

Tonight I have had the privilege of seeing the Waning and Waxing Crescent within hours of each other.  The chill night air and the Moon in the sky dancing with the shadow of the Earth.  Strange to watch this celestial dance and think of how they and we are all, somehow, the stuff of stars.

Thou art God, Thou art Goddess, we and They are all one and many and interconnected and miraculous.

There is wonder in this old Universe yet!  Once more the Child of Promise is stirring, as the Crone and Maiden and Mother dance in the jewel bedecked halls of Night.  The Miracles of the Solstice are nigh, my friends, and we will welcome Him back into life and light soon.  Solstice Eve tonight (21st) and Solstice Day in the morning (22nd), and we shall welcome a New Year round soon.

I have always related to the Solstices and Equinoxes as major occasions, a natural result of an Alaskan upbringing when the Winter Solstice shall see 4 hours of daylight if the sky is not blanketed with thick gray clouds.  The Winter Solstice is the turning of my spiritual New Year, followed shortly by the Calendarical…

Drink deeply of mystery and wonder and poetry and promise my friends, drink deeply of mulled wine or sweet Sangria and Breathe deep the Breath of Life and sing and hope and dream and smile and laugh and feast with friends.  Whether you huddle round a bonfire in a chill night or spend the night bbq-ing with friends, or savoring stew cooked on the stove of by the fireside.  Light Candles and kindle fires and stare deep into flames listening to the wisdom from the flickering tongues that whispered to our ancestors oh so ever so long ago.

There is wonder and power in any Winter Solstice, and this one is more precious still for the overlapping of the Eclipse…  and yet one of the lessons of my own journey that I am filled to overflowing with this year as I feel the strange alchemy of the Solstice tide turn what had been a sense of stillness turned to stagnation and a spiritual bleakness cracking open to the wonder and possibilities and hope of this time of year; one of the lessons I have learned and should like to share is this, there is wonder and magick and Mysteries and power and possibility in our simplest acts if we open to it.

I am reminded of this, especially this time of year as I watch so many people get caught up in the mad rush of days, indeed a dear friend, who lives in the North East U.S., expressed exhaustion at everything that needed doing this Holiday Season… and some part of me began to flow with the first stirrings of the Solstice miracles…. I wrote to her…

Breathe the breath of life, Inspire, draw in life giving air, life force, and Spirit, take a step and feel air and blood and magick flow. 

Know the simple blessing of breath and movement and magick. Feel the blessed benediction of the bloo…d in your veins. Where there is soreness then stop for a moment, stand and breathe into the pain… sending air and energy to whatever needs strengthening and balancing loosening the pain and repositioning your body until it moves from “ow” to “ah, that’s alright”, then stride forward once more with grace and ease.

Movement is more purposeful now, more the prowl of a panther than the leap of a gazelle, but every movement and every breath and every conscious action is a blessing and benediction unto ourselves and the world.

If we remember the powers of Air and the benediction of breath.

~~~

Light a candle, or pour a hot toddy, take a moment to warm yourself by the wood-stove or the fire or simply with hands clasped around a cup of strong black tea with cinnamon and citrus rind…. take a moment to breath in the fragrant steam, take a moment to lose yourself in the candles flame.

Look inside yourself and seek your spiritual fire and inner light. Take a breath and send air and energy to your personal fires, take a breath and open yourself to the Light of Lady and Lord, to His Light, to The Light of which we and They are a part.

Remember the blessings and benedictions of Fire.

~~~

Bundle up and take your freshly poured tea outside a moment. Look at the snow and ice around you and realize that one of Mysteries of Water is that it can be so many things…. It can be hard enough to scour the mountains to fine fertile dust, in can fall and fly crystalline and wind borne, it can flow along the earth, it can fall warm or cold from the sky… We are also capable of many things and forms in our emotions and our ways of acting and reacting…

Make a snowball and throw it at a wall, how does it react on impact? How are you reacting to the impacts from the mad rush of days?

Take a likely icicle and stir your tea with it, cooling the overheated liquid until it is drinkable, turning a burning liquid into nourishment, Transformation…

Go inside and mix salt and water and draw stars and snowflakes on your window panes… leave them a while and then when the patterns shine through later remember to yourself that you can transform you can choose how to react and what form your spirit and emotions shall take..

Take time for a hot hot bath, or a shower and a lustral bath, with soothing herbs…

Luxuriate in the Mysteries of the Waters…

~~~

Breathe in the fragrant scent of the pines, stir up a pot of stew on the stove, light a few scented candles in the rooms of the house and just take some time reveling in your home. It is a place of wonder and blessings and nourishment and nurturance. Determine to take 10 minutes to do nothing but sit in Your Spot and sip something and eat something and silently enjoy Your home and hearth and what health you have.

Bake something for your beloveds, go through the pantry and see what supplies you need to stock up on so that on the next expedition you can fill the pantry and plan something special for those you love and for yourself…

Savor the mysteries of Earth….
~~~