Winter Solstice

The season of Autumn has demanded a process of shedding;
Of cloaks worn ragged by life’s relentlessness.

Cloaks that we have clutched desperately to our skin,
To avoid seeing all of who we are.
The tender parts that we cradle in the safety of the shadows.

And now we have arrived at the gateway of the Solstice;
To meet the watery depths of the Dark Mother.
Where we may now choose to courageously let the last shroud slip to the floor,
And step into her cauldron of transformation.

Here in the safety of her embrace,
we can gaze upon the truth of ourselves, through her eyes;
Eyes softened with compassion and untold knowing.

We can see the truth of what we’ve been hiding;
What we have been running from.
Truths that we can entrust to her,
To allow her work of transmutation

For Winter is the season of alchemy.
The season of Extreme Yin,
Which contains within it, the tiny flicker of Yang.
The pilot light that ignites the flames of transformation.

Think of the seed, that after lying in dark dormancy,
suddenly springs forth in germination;

That same unknowable force that sparks the beginning of a woman’s labour

It is this tiny flicker of Yang, that we are summonsing when we conjure the element of fire during the Winter Solstice – the longest night of the year.

Fire represents the spark of insight;
A tiny seed of light that can only be sewn in the darkness,
Where we must tend to it gently,
And patiently await its revealing;
Tiny shoots of renewed selfhood
Which will make a tender emergence in Spring.

If your psyche is dancing in harmony with these deep, seasonal rhythms, you may have noticed a mounting of intensity building around the Solstice.

In the weeks leading up, I encountered a couple of situations, which evoked an almost oceanic emotional response within. Feelings of such intensity that they belied the presence of something much deeper and older.

When we feel a strong, visceral reaction to something or someone in our everyday
- an upsurging of anger, fear, grief or shame-
It is because we have stumbled upon roots entangled deep in the past.

To truth of their origin isn’t always easily found.

To learn of and from these things,
it requires us to listen to the whispers of the Dark Mother.
We must be willing to extinguish the flames of our conscious, rational minds,
And linger in darkness for a little while.

It’s only there that wisdom of our unconscious self will speak.
And our tiny seed of light will be revealed.