{"id":271,"date":"2016-12-19T13:08:07","date_gmt":"2016-12-19T21:08:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/tempest\/?p=271"},"modified":"2016-12-19T13:08:07","modified_gmt":"2016-12-19T21:08:07","slug":"feeling-around-dark-witchs-solstice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tempest\/2016\/12\/feeling-around-dark-witchs-solstice.html","title":{"rendered":"Feeling Around In The Dark – A Witch’s Winter Solstice"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

For years, I have written some meditative and inspiring pieces about the transitioning energy of the Winter Solstice. \u00a0How to guide yourself through the darkness, to see it as a metaphorical womb for the rise of new art and possibilities, to use it as a time to reflect and replenish.<\/p>\n

Y\u2019all, I\u2019m just not feeling it this year.<\/p>\n

\"collage
collage by the author<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

You could blame the tire fire that was 2016, but that\u2019s not quite it. \u00a0Sure, it was a horrible mess of a year for the country and for many folks I know. \u00a0Heck, I started the year off with a non-consensual full-body cleansing (flu or food poisoning), and am finishing it off with the cold that stuck around for 4 weeks. \u00a0And I have a great deal of anxiety for what\u2019s to come socially, politically, nationally, and globally. But professionally for me, it was a year marked with success and achievement. \u00a0I made and sold a lot of art, I finished my first book, got a contract for the second one, and grew my career. \u00a0I\u2019m pretty good at finding the bright spot in the darkness.<\/p>\n

I even solved the problem of holiday lights. \u00a0I love tiny lights, especially outdoors, but our house doesn\u2019t offer any easy or safe way to power them outside. \u00a0Then I looked up LED solar lights, and ordered some. \u00a0They came the other day finally, and the boxes are still sitting in my studio. It\u2019s been cold, and I wasn\u2019t feeling the drive to put them up. \u00a0I also considered the amount of sun the front yard gets here in Seattle in winter and pondered the success of solar lights.<\/p>\n

\"Sam\"<\/a>
Sam, the Shitrocket, gratuitous cat photo<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I put a wreath of greens on the front door, but the decorations don\u2019t extend inside. \u00a0Mainly because of this face here. \u00a0Sam is essentially a goat in the body of an extremely agile cat. \u00a0There\u2019s nothing he can\u2019t scale, try to eat, or destroy. \u00a0And I love him dearly. \u00a0I also sold off or gave away nearly all of my yuletide decorations when I moved to Seattle from Providence over 4 years ago. \u00a0Minus the owl ornaments. \u00a0But look at that face.<\/strong> \u00a0That\u2019s a face that would gladly take down ALL THE OWLS.<\/p>\n

But my lack of engagement with the holidays isn\u2019t Sam\u2019s fault either. \u00a0(And if I could, I\u2019d hang those owls all year round\u2026)<\/em><\/p>\n

I think the root of it hit me the other night. \u00a0Christmas is my Grandmother\u2019s birthday. \u00a0Nearly 4 decades of equating Christmas with Grandmom. \u00a0And now she\u2019s gone.<\/a> \u00a0Not just far away in physical miles or the distance being trapped in dementia creates anymore, but gone from this world. \u00a0Truly, it was a relief when she did finally pass this summer, and it warms my heart to think of her reunited with Grandpop. \u00a0Yet this time of year has been intricately wrapped with her existence for my entire life. \u00a0I think that\u2019s going to take a fair bit of unpacking to sort out.<\/p>\n

The other tricky thing is that right after Christmas last year, while I was half the world away on a family trip, I received a phone call from an old friend. \u00a0She shared the news that my ex-husband had died. \u00a0I wasn\u2019t surprised, even though I hadn\u2019t spoken with him in 3 years. I had spent pretty much all 15 years of our marriage expecting it. \u00a0He was both physically and mentally unwell. \u00a0Both of those conditions made for a barely-behind-doors existence of near-constant verbal and emotional abuse. \u00a0I felt sadness because it had sounded like maybe he had finally started to figure out how to be happy. \u00a0But I was mainly overcome with relief and a release of anxiety I didn\u2019t even realize I still had in me. \u00a0That I would never run into him again, on this plane at least. \u00a0Still a whole lot of overhead baggage to deal with though. \u00a0But is it a root or a bramble? How many times can you set it on fire?<\/p>\n

Fire is a thing you must work gently and respectfully with. I simultaneously want to light candles to honor the memory of Grandmom and I want a bonfire to burn down and purify the past. \u00a0I want to celebrate the returning of the light and there are some things I want to bury deep in the dark, where the light will never touch it. \u00a0But nothing remains buried. \u00a0It becomes the soil and<\/em> the seeds, it forms roots and pushes above ground. \u00a0It takes in the light and changes it, taking on new forms.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m standing in the Garden of Winter, feeling the frost-covered earth under my feet. \u00a0It\u2019s dark here, and the roots to be chosen for the year to come need the darkness. \u00a0They need to be selected without the benefit of light. \u00a0They need to be touched, their rough surfaces\u00a0untangled by searching hands. \u00a0The roots need to sorted out from old branches with thorns, masquerading as roots. \u00a0Everything needs\u00a0to be felt and recognized. Old growth we don\u2019t need anymore, that won\u2019t grow anything else in this form. \u00a0It needs to be burned and returned to the earth.<\/p>\n

But first, time must be spent in a dark garden, making choices with inner sight.<\/p>\n

I guess I wrote a Solstice piece after all.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For years, I have written some meditative and inspiring pieces about the transitioning energy of the Winter Solstice. \u00a0How to guide yourself through the darkness, to see it as a metaphorical womb for the rise of new art and possibilities, to use it as a time to reflect and replenish. Y\u2019all, I\u2019m just not feeling […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2676,"featured_media":274,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,13,14],"tags":[151,92,148,150,7,4,149],"class_list":["post-271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-modernpractice","category-myth-and-folklore","category-tradition","tag-death","tag-memory","tag-solstice","tag-winter","tag-witch","tag-witchcraft","tag-yule"],"yoast_head":"\nFeeling Around In The Dark - A Witch's Winter Solstice<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I want to celebrate the returning of the light and there are some things I want to bury deep in the dark, where the light will never touch it.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tempest\/2016\/12\/feeling-around-dark-witchs-solstice.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Feeling Around In The Dark - 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