Happy Winter Solstice. Welcome cleansing rain and quiet sacredness, in this moment before the next holiday and end of year celebrations. It’s interesting to notice how it can feel as though the darkness of Winter comes so quickly on the heels of Fall. In reality, the dark has been gradually increasing from the point of the Summer Solstice in June, though in the extroverted and active months of Summer it’s easy to miss the slow shift towards decreasing light. At this point of the year, however, the dark of Winter calls for our attention. We may not have the same hard realities and concerns that Winter brought to many of our Ancestors. Most of us don’t face the potential of famine the way they did when their lands weren’t producing food. There isn’t a need to butcher livestock which might otherwise freeze in the Winter, or not have enough to eat themselves. Electricity and heating stave off the dark and the cold, at least for those who can afford to pay the cost of such luxuries. Yet, the stillness, relative quiet, and inward attention of Winter create a different kind of challenge in our era. Sometimes it seems as though our overstimulated, fragmented attention spans, accustomed to a bombardment of information, struggle more to align with the season of stillness. Perhaps that’s why there is such an outward embrace of the holiday season’s festivities. For generations these rituals have been a way to bring people together in community, creating a sense of warmth, light, and activity during these darker months. Winter Solstice, and Yule, however, give us a special opportunity to embrace the stillness and depth within that is the opportunity of Winter’s dreaming magic. We stop to find the light within, and we shape it with our intentions. This is our way of planting a seed that will sprout in the next cycle of growth and harvest in our lives.
Winter Solstice takes its name from the Latin words Sol, meaning sun, and Sistere, meaning to stand still. It is the day when the sun stands still, the shortest day of the year and the longest night. At the Winter Solstice, the sun appears lowest in the sky. Furthermore, the specific elevation it reaches at noon on this day appears to our eyes to stay the same for several days. To the ancients, this suggested a moment of gestation, a time when the sun both dies, after its gradual decline, and is born anew to the Earth Mother. From this point, the hours of light in a day will gradually increase by a few minutes each day. This allows our consciousness to experience a renewal of hope and anticipation for the emergence of Spring, both within us and in the world around us. At Winter Solstice rituals, the dark is honored with vigil, storytelling, and ceremony, and the light is celebrated with the presence of candles, a sacred fire, and the custom of singing up the sunrise. How can we honor the presence of stillness with the same reverence?
Stillness can be uncomfortable, as it encourages us to look within, to see what we prefer to ignore, and to hear our deeper thoughts. It allows us to feel what has been numbed or moved past too quickly to integrate. Stillness can also be deeply restorative. It allows the mind and body to realign and integrate the experiences we have lived. It helps us to regenerate and rejuvenate ourselves, emotionally as well as physically. It can help us to return home to who we truly are, without the distractions of our striving, our responding to stresses, and without the masks we wear for others. True stillness within can be hard to attain, but is an art worth practicing. It is the key that unlocks the door to most spiritual development and magical practice pathways. And, stillness is a luxury too. Sometimes survival, keeping up with the cost of living, and other pressures to succeed or take care of oneself and others, for example, allows for little rest and time alone beyond sleeping.
When we keep moving against the current of Winter, our physical and emotional health begins to suffer. If rest feels like a luxury life won’t easily afford you, what are the small ways you can align yourself with stillness? Would allowing your senses to take in the warmth, scent, and taste of hot apple cider, or the sound and scent of an early morning rain outside your window, be an opening into sacred stillness? What kind of non-productive, nurturing rest can you give to yourself this week? It’s not only rejuvenation that we gain. Stillness allows for more receptivity too. In stillness we create the fertile ground within us for dreaming. Stillness allows us to experience fascination and awe, to self hypnotize in a sense, so that we invite our dreaming minds to awaken. If we move too fast, we miss the cues in Winter that can help us deepen in this way and that give us the opportunity to plant our seeds of intention. We miss the invitation to co-create in our lives.
Maybe this is why people have honored the powerful presence of the evergreen trees during Winter rituals for centuries. Not only does the green remind us that there is life and growth, even in the darkest, coldest times, but they remind us to consider a different relationship with time altogether. The redwood trees outside of my home, for example, lived here for at least 100 years before I arrived, and they may live 100 years or more after I am gone. Their roots reach down to the deep, dark, earth places that pull and ground us all, branching out into the Underworlds, as described in many spiritual traditions and folklore. In the Pagan understanding, across cultures, this is often the territory of ancestral spirits, chthonic entities, and deities of initiation. Trees penetrate the mysteries of these depths and draw them into themselves like nutrients. Then they grow. Their branches and treetops reach up to the heavens, absorbing as well the higher realms of the celestial, the divine, and the cosmic forces. There they flower and fruit, bringing their gifts forward. The trunk of the tree is a bridge between the worlds, as are we. Trees are our sacred teachers and examples. They have the benefit of time, but we have to catch our moments, mirroring their stillness and cycles, so that we too can root deeply and flower fully in our lives and soul paths. This understanding is what makes the presence of the Christmas tree or the Yule log so significant during this time of year. Though we are decorating with lights or candles, among other materials, we are also giving our psyches a clue as to how to stand with the sacred stillness of Winter’s quiet dreaming.
How will you honor this time of year within yourself? Begin with just one brief moment of stillness and breath. Ask yourself what part of you is tired and in need of rejuvenation. Notice if you can feel your feet on the ground, connecting to the earth’s depths like roots. Feel into how far you’ve stretched yourself in the last year and what flowered in that journey. Light a candle or sacred fire to honor the light that is held within and that which will be reborn in the world this Winter Solstice. Gaze into the light with soft eyes. With your breath and intention, gently release the excess of activity, thought, emotions, or weariness, until you feel empty and ready to dream. Notice what arises in the liminal quiet, without having to do anything yet. This is the time to do nothing but invite the fertile ground within to renew.
May you find yourself in the quiet and stillness of the Winter Solstice, and may a new dream be born with the returning light.
In Quiet Communion,
the eleventh house
-This blog was written by Melusina Gomez. You can learn more about her work and healing practice at www.metzmecatl.com