Winter Solstice Spiral

Winter Solstice morning.  The sun is actually shining through the clouds.  I've managed to take a beeswax candle, match, and really big magnifying glass and light the candle.  Granted, 9:30 AM is probably the earliest I've focused the flame of the Solstice Sun, but here in the Pacific Northwest, you grab your clear skies when you can.  Already as I write this, a grey blanket of clouds is passing in front of the sun and softening the definitions of shadows.   Luckily, I've got the flames ensconced in some fireplace candles and under a samovar filled with rooibos tea.

It's possible there might be a window of clear sky tonight between 5 PM and 7 PM which will allow for viewing of the Great Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, but I'm not getting my hopes too far up.

Last night's Spiral Walk at the local UU church went well.  It was raining off and on, but the storms paused long enough for me to draw out a chalk spiral.  Wow, wet pavement eats through chalk quickly; I went through four sticks before I was through -- during Saturday's practice on dryer pavement, I only used one.

Once the spiral was laid out, an army of volunteers laid down the greens.  My old landfolks procured a prodigious amount of pine and fir boughs, and everyone was so into the spiral that they laid out extra lengths of the arms.  I thought we were going to use LEDs, but blank, white Saints' candles in tall glasses appeared, and I placed them along the spiral in eight spokes -- the placement started out improvised along the north-south axis, which suggested the east-west axis and the cross-quarter axes as well.  

In consideration of COVID, we didn't want folks to congregate in large groups, so the spiral had an exit and and entrance; since it was outside, we forewent with altars at the cardinal directions.  The idea was the folks could appear, walk the spiral, and leave; so there was no formal ritual planned as there had been the last two years.

A little before 5 PM and it got dark, I made a circuit of the spiral and lit the candles, invoking the directions in my head.  Somehow, the spokes of flame running through the spiral worked as directional altars.  The landfolks had brought their old firepit -- there was a blast from the past -- and had a small fire going near the eaves of the church.

Folks appeared and walked through the spiral.  I sat a little apart and watched shadowy forms walk through the greens and candlelight.  Out of the east came the distant hinking and honking of geese.  The sound grew and several V's of geese flew overhead, like souls of the Wild Host, traveling, traveling, traveling across the dark sky while we were earth-bound shadows traveling through a spiral of light -- and I was put into mind of mist-covered ferry rides, and transformations,  and questers, and cohorts.  

A moment later, the fey mood was broken by the recollection of Mark sarcastically referring to the more unlovely honks geese make as "God's angels, singing," and a social media post about the supposed yearly ritual Canadians perform in February, where they go out at midnights and breathe all of their nastiness into sleeping flocks of geese.  My laughter rang out across the spiral.  

The experience seemed to be a positive one for folks, and people found the change of direction at the spiral's center meaningful.  In the past, the entrance and exit had been the same, and folks would light a votive candle from a central flame in the spiral's center.   The rain and COVID and having the event outside reduced the participants' number from about a hundred to maybe thirty.

I sipped some black tea from a thermos.  I missed seeing C.N., who has health issues this year, but has in the past done a titanic amount of behind-the-scenes-work to make spirals happen.  I wondered if I should have brought my harp and played it.  Later on, Saro, one of my former landfolk, asked, "What happens if I go through the spiral backwards?"

"Demons," I said, and we laughed.  "Actually, the way the spiral's built, even if you entered from the South, the direction of fire, you'd be going widdershins, symbolically banishing or releasing fire, until you reached the center, where you'd go deosil, symbolically summoning or gathering the energy of Earth.   Entering from the North, the direction of Earth (and midnight and Winter), the idea is to symbolically mirror what the sun's doing in the sky: banishing a decrease of the light, and turning toward an increase.  So South to North is sort of a statement of the moment right now, whereas North to South is more a continuation."

The rain started to fall harder and doused the candles.  Saro and I tried to relight them, but as more rain fell it got into the melted wax and the wicks and the candles sputtered out.  I wasn't wearing a waterproof jacket, and started to get cold.  This was near the 7PM end-time of the event, so we started to break things down.  I silently opened the circle as volunteers gathered rained-out candles.  The boughs were swept into a corner of the parking lot. 

When I got home, there was candle wax on my pants, my sweater was soaked, I had pitch on my hands, and my hair smelled like a campfire.  My eyebrows were not singed, but I'm pretty sure the spiral walk counts as a Real Ritual. 

And now there's a fine, silver mist falling out of a pewter and turquoise sky, which is casting a rainbow over the houses across the street.