It was twenty-seven years ago today, on a bitterly cold Winter Solstice night, that I watched the paramedics roll my father out the front room door. He had lost his battle with cancer, and all I could think of was them taking him out into that cold dark night, I wanted to grab a blanket for him… Tis odd how the mind works at times like these.
So to help myself through this I went out to the woods, I walked about in that bone-chilling woods, and thought about how I could make sure he was warm. He was always buying warm coats, hats, and scarves for me, telling me, “You gotta keep warm.” And throughout my walk, it came to me. I began gathering pine branches. I got my sled and walked along the edge of the woods, gathering more branches and adding them to the sled. When I returned I started a fire, heated a warm spiced brew, and wired together a pine branch blanket in the silence of that long dark night.
So now every year on the Winter Solstice the very first thing I do is to go out to the woods and gather pine branches to make my father his pine blanket and take it to his grave. Pine’s magickal properties center on protection, purification, strength, and enduring life… and that’s what it’s about for me.
Thoughts of a wood witch. �❄️
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