So This is Solstice

The Winter Solstice sneaks up on me.

Maybe it’s because there isn’t snow where I live.

Or because I don’t seem to understand how to read a calendar ahead of time.

Or because I’m a freelance writer and time is irrelevant for the self-employed (it seems).

But before I know it, it’s time for the tipping back into the light for the northern hemisphere.

There is an audible sigh of relief that sings from my bones.

We made it.

A Spell for Remembering

Reflection, recollection, remembrance. These aren’t just words for ancestors or the past’s incomplete efforts and celebrations. They are also for this moment. Take this solstice moment of stepping between the spread of dark and the widening of light to remember.

Things you will need (and as with anything, if you know better, follow that instinct):

• Paper and pen/pencil/gel marker/special ink/paint
• Candles – one to light the way, one to brighten and reveal – white? green? whatever color feels like joy
• A space to be still and in shadow

To do:

Sit in the darkness with your thoughts, with your memories, with the fleeting knowing of where you have been this year and what it has offered to you. You might decide to create sacred space or invoke a deity. You might decide the silence of and your breath are holy enough for this moment.

Call into your body and being a few memories of this year that you cherish. These do not need to have the quality of ‘good’ or ‘better’ or another freaking learning opportunity. They can ‘just’ be things you want to remember. That left an impression on you, like the shadow of a leaf pressed into concrete by the storm. The moments that only you know and hold close to yourself.

Light one of the candles to see well enough to write down these memories. Or just one. Or hundreds. It’s up to you.

Once you are done writing, feel into your body. Name the feelings, sensations, and places of your body that change and tremble when you offer them such attention. Feel yourself filled with the light of awareness. Once this begins to grow, light another candle and see how much brighter things get. How much clearer your words become.

Allow your heart or your eyes to travel the space of your honoring. Maybe a word jumps out at you. Maybe a feeling or thought comes into your mind. Maybe you just smile with the understanding of what has gone before.

Let the glow of light continue to fill you.

And remember it all. Let the action of naming and knowing be a blessing in the growing light.

(And this can also be a summer solstice spell. Adjust as you like.)

Let the intention of remembering be what allows lessons and love to live on.

Let the action of sitting in the growing light to be the promise that you will continue to expand into your own being. You will stretch to fill the edges and surround the shadows.

You are the light as well as the dark.

Sit here as long as you like. Thank any that you invited here. Open circles and step out into your full self.

With your heart of knowing. With the blessing you are.