Winter Solstice

Midwinter Solstice is the festival of the Goddess of Air in the Avalonian tradition.

I know this time of year is full of parties and shopping and mad feat cooking and hosting and late night emergency present buying on Amazon, but that’s just the human side of things. What is nature up to right now?

Nature is still and quiet. Everything is hibernating and empty – the earth is cold, the trees are bare, the animals are sleeping. It’s the resting half of the year for nature – there’s not much going on. In the UK this is the time of year we get storms, snow, bitter winds from the north and long, long frosty nights. We sleep with hot water bottles and drink endless cups of tea to stay warm.

The element we experience most fully at this time of the year is the air. We see it whipping through the skeleton trees, feel it biting our faces and making our noses red. Air is a tricky element to physically play with, because not only is it invisible we are totally immersed in it all the time. In winter, nature is still, so there is nothing to distract us from the crisp, clear, cold air.

I made this! Danu Painting by Rockstar PriestesssWe celebrate the ancient crones, goddesses who are so old they are almost on the other side of Death. We honour Stone Woman, Bone Woman, goddesses who are harsh and see clearly. We honour the ancestors and all who have gone before, and look to our spiritual lineage. We honour Danu, the great mother and ancestress of the Celtic pantheon, the Cailllach, the old woman of winter, and Arianhrod, lady of the stars in the icy winter skies.

Their powers are ones of stillness, silence, clarity and clear-seeing, meditation and surrendering to the present. Spiritually, this is my FAVOURITE time of year ever. (Although I am pretty sure I say that at every season. It’s a full wheel of excitement.)

Celebrating the sabbats can be tough to fit in sometimes, and it’s often hard to remember that there is more to honouring the season than performing some kind of complicated ritual. It’s a nature festival! You can keep it simple! So with that in mind, here are 5 simple ways to connect to the magic of this season.

Five easy ways to celebrate and honour the Winter Solstice.

Intention Setting

Remember, this is a true new beginning! I like to think of the time between Samhain and the Winter Solstice as the between time, neither ending nor beginning. A time for planning and thinking. At the winter solstice, day and night are equal and slowly we make the climb back to longer warmer days and shorter nights.

It’s lovely to think of a new intention for the new year. At the moment I am obsessed with Desire Mapping and Core Desired Feelings (currently playing with Creatrix, Mermaid, Flow, Limitless, Alive), which is where you pick feelings you want to feel and plan things to do that will achieve those feelings, rather than plan lots of stuff to do and hope it makes you feel good.

Pick an intention for the year, write it on a piece of paper, and whisper it to the sunrise.

Intention Destroying

In the same way that it’s the birth of the new solar year, it’s also the death of the old one. You can write down things you want to release from the last year and set them on a fire (especially if you have a hearth fire in your home!). I like sprinkling salt over a fire after I burn by Photophide on Flickrwitchy stuff (only on a hearth fire or on a fire pit, never on the earth) to cleanse away all the energy and crappy stuff I want to be rid of.

Feeding the Birds

Feeding the birds is a wonderful way to honour the children of the Air at this time. And they will love you for it! Do it with sacred intention and a little prayer for the birds and it totally counts as a sacred ritual.

Commit to a meditation practice

Nothing scary. You can honour the stillness of this part of the year by saying and deciding, “I will meditate for 5 minute a day for the next three days” and doing it. You are honouring the inward focus of the season and the wisdom of the ancient crone goddesses, who always advise going within and listening.

 Stargaze

Pop online to http://earthsky.org/favorite-star-patterns and read up about constallations, then on the longest night (or, just a very long non-clody night) pop outside and look for the patterns in the stars. Or, get a deckchair, a blanket and a hot water bottle, and make up your own constellations in the stars.

by Ólafur Már Sigurðsson