Happy Winter 2022 Solstice!

Solstice morning (12/21), I went to write at a cafe and managed to snag a tarot reading.  The gist of the first half of the reading was, focus on one thing, prep for writing and be ready for the muse, but loosen up and try not to force things.  Also, cleaning up a work space is like unblocking congested feng shui.  The second half was set down the things you're doing, take stock, and choose the direction you want to take (and have fun on your Summer trip).  

I came away with a reminder that wands can symbolize fiery inspiration, which is different from the inspiration from the airy heights or the intuition of the suit of cups.  Also, when I attend Eugene Pride events, I'm re-telling myself the fifteen-year-old story of being the only gay dad at a Eugene community meeting of about two hundred.  

Mark was kind enough to purchase a Solstice Gift for me—a pierced gnomon pocket sundial. I had told him about it a couple of weeks ago with the caveat that it was "totally frivolous."  It has a latitude ring,  a horizon ring, and a calendar bridge that has a sliding pierced gnomon.  I'm waiting for a clear enough day to use it; right now it's leading a double-life as a Christmas Tree ornament.  It's very cool, and I need to find an effective hook near a window for it.

The day was mostly cloudy, but there was enough of a break in the clouds to allow me to focus sunlight onto a candle (okay, I cheat a little and hold a match next to the wick) and light it.  I honestly believed that it would be too cloudy to perform this feat this year.  I spread the flame to candles in the fireplace, and then to to the Solstice Spiral Lights event at the local UU Church.  

Last year it rained buckets and doused all the candles we put out for the Solstice Spiral.  This year was drier, but also windier, so keeping candles lit was sometimes a challenge.  It would be fair to say that this year the Solstice Spiral Walk was more of a folk practice and less a Wicca-lite ritual.  I think most people enjoyed walking the spiral.  Of course, after drawing a spiral and laying down fir boughs and sounding a tone drum for over an hour, I'm a little sore.  

Pre Winter Solstice Musings

It's the eve of the Winter Solstice.  In about sixteen hours the Sun will be the farthest south that it gets, and it will begin climbing more northerly.  The day afterward we'll have a new moon.    I'll be glad for the extra sunlight.  

Tomorrow I'll be laying out a spiral and holding ritual space for a Solstice Lights Spiral Walk.  The forecast is calling for more clement weather this year.  With any luck, I'll be able to ignite a candle with the light of the solstice sun.  Last year it rained and rained and rained, which made having an outside spiral walk with candles challenging.  This year we're a little more prepared for uncooperative weather with LED backups and more covered lights.  Also, we have an indoor Plan B if it looks like a Second Flood is going to happen.  At least a horrific cold snap, which I'd seen in a long-term forecast last week, doesn't appear to be happening.  

What the Winter Solstice means to me is that this is a time to examine the structures that sustain and renew us for the rest of the year.  That there's a New Moon about twenty-four hours later means that both the conscious, primary processing, and the unconscious, secondary processing modes are focused on the same inventory of systems of maintenance.  At the risk of sounding like Dion Fortune raving her herself, the deity that I associate with this time of year is the Castellan, who sits on the Inward Deosil Spiral between the Grid of Systems and the Tree of History. 

I believe this calls for a Tree of Life tarot reading with a yearly-planner and scones.

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Today I spent the morning in a Zoom conference writing with other writers.  I managed to polish and write a bit on a short story that I've been toying with for the last few months.  I've been discovering the plot as I go along, and the next step is to focus on what the main character's emotional stakes are—I've got all of the visual eye-candy and cool magical McGuffins in, so right now the story is functioning on a wonder-story level, but it needs more work to function on a "character dissatisfied with their situation" level.   

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.

Rainy Solstice Eve

It's raining.  Hard.  The back patio is flooded, which probably means water isn't flowing through the French drain as it should.  Neighborhood pines, firs, and oaks sway in the occasional squalls. 

It's also dark.  The morning sun is behind the clouds, and a wan, grey light comes through the back sliding glass door.  It reaches about a third of the way into the front living room, and the only light in this room comes from the steady glow of the colored lights on the Christmas tree, the small lights from a porcelain winter village, and the blue-white glare of a laptop screen.  The front window blind is broken and down -- Mark and I will fix it presently, which should admit more daylight into the room.

Next to me on the couch, the dog dreams:  paws curl and legs flex; her breath like the pull of oars deep into a strong current.  Ears, nose, and jowls twitch.  Barks, faint, seep from the dream realm into the dim room.  

I've agreed to help construct a double-spiral for a meditative walk at the local UU Church.  The last two years, I've facilitated a labyrinth spiral walk and Wicca-flavored ritual.  Inside.  This year, in consideration of COVID, the spiral will be a double-spiral, with an entrance and exit -- which technically makes it not a labyrinth --  and outside.   Without a ritual.  The plan is to have folks walking in and walking out with as little clustering as possible.  There's probably not going to be enough sunlight for Solstice Fire, and in any case, LED candles for outside use have been purchased.  

Yesterday I made a wooden anchor so I can draw circles and arcs with a length of string and some chalk.  I tested it out in the nearby intersection and the process worked surprisingly well.  And then the rains came. You could still see the chalk spiral yesterday evening, but I'm not sure how much of it remains after a night of pouring.   The plan at the UU Church is to lay out greens on top of the chalk spiral, only in the parking lot.  

With any luck, it won't be pouring buckets on us as we lay things out.