Yuletide is here!

With Thanksgiving (US edition) past, it is now officially the Winter Holiday Season (tm). I'm lucky, in that I've never had any real trouble reconciling my celebration of the winter solstice with family Christmas. It helps that my family has never had a religious Christmas and that most secular yuletide traditions are either pagan-based themselves or interface nicely with my spiritual leanings. Evergreen trees, stars, gift giving, eggnog, candles and cookies can all be nicely pagan without raising the eyebrows of more conservative family members!

It also helps that my husband and I have started hosting Christmas (which I am attempting to rename Yule, as no one present is celebrating the birth of Christ), which means that I am in complete control of the setting. I have the opposite challenge from most Neopagans -- my main struggle is not to break away from Christian traditions, but to be able to insert spirituality into the proceedings at all! I would never do any overt, if for no other reason than because it would be disrespectful of my guests, but I do like to make sure that everything is in line with my personal take on the season. For instance, my decorating focuses on greenery and candles/lights, and there will never be an angel topping my tree. In fact, I don't think there are any angels on my tree at all. I am not 100% sure about that, though. Almost all of my ornaments were gifts from family and friends, and thus serve the purpose of reminding me of my loved ones, so I don't particularly care what they are -- for me it's the memories attached to ornaments, not the ornaments themselves, which is most important.

I'm curious how other people merge Christmas and the Solstice? Or do you keep them entirely separate?

Stocking up for Winter

There's something very appropriate about stocking up for winter right now. Our first wintr share pickup was two weekends ago, so we have a ton of root vegetables right now. They'll last for a long time, of course, but not forever (especcially since we don't have a root cellar or anything like one). We spent most of today preparing things to freeze, such as roasted butternut squash, some pasta sauce (also made from butternut), rue for soup/stew, and pizza dough (to made pizza using the roasted squash -- we had a lot of squash!). In two weeks, we'll get another share. It's amazing!

Since I'm now unemployed, I'm looking forward to spending more time in the kitchen. I'm planning on making all of our bread and trying my hand at both crackers and tortillas. This seems like the right season to be spending lots of time preparing food, stocking up for winter. It's sort of counterintuitive, since summer is when there is tons of food available and you have to work hard to preserve it, but the early winter and late autumn are the time for puttering in the kitchen. Does that makes sense?

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I'd like to thank everyone who commented on my post about centering earlier this week. I can't believe that I hadn't thought to try various breath control methods! When I took voice lesson last spring the instructor had us try breathing in for 4, hold for 4, then out for 8. It's quite centering, really.

Black Friday shamanic circle

Through my experience at Twilight, I have become involved with a shamanic drumming circle in my area. Thankfully they decided to host a circle today, despite the holiday weekend. Yay! I woke up feeling decidedly cranky, and was not in a great mood for the majority of the day, so I almost decided not to attend. I'm very glad that I dragged myself out, though. I knew I would be. Getting out and journeying with people -- not to mention the drumming and rattling and dancing -- is a wonderful energy boost. And my two journeys, while brief and not very intense, were at least informative and helpful.

Group Cleanse 2008

I mixed up some sun water when I got up this morning (several drops of orange essential oil, plus a couple of drops each of lemon, rosemary, and geranium and two tiny amber beads in a small spritzer of water) and set it in my southernmost window to absorb the energy of the sun while I was out today. This was for use later in the cleansing I did as part of Sacred Susie's group cleanse for this new moon.

I started by turning off all of the lights and then setting a single lit candle in each room. After grounding and calling on the spirits I went through my apartment counterclockwise with a sage stick while chanting/singing* in order to get the stagnant old energy out. I made sure to get the smoke into all of the nooks and crannies and to linger in any spots that felt particularly stagnant, and I relit the sage at each of the candles. Many spots throughout the apartment did need extra attention. When I was done, I danced with the lit sage stick, watching the smoke billow around me in a rather serpentine fashion. Next, I went through clockwise, spraying sun water everywhere to fill the space with the power, energy, and joy of the sun. There was chanting in this round, too, but I'm not sure that I found the best possible chant and thus have not bothered to include it. I made sure to get all of the windows, so that only good energy can get in. Lastly, I went around (still clockwise) with my rattle to seal the energy in. No chanting this time.

I think I may make this my new tradition for the new moon. Who couldn't use a monthly cleansing?


*Watch it burn
Watch it burn and let it go
The fire frees us
Frees our soul

Thanksgiving 2008

US Thanksgiving is tomorrow, so I have spent this entire evening baking pies to bring to the family gathering (one pumpkin, one apple, one carmelized pear, if you were wondering). Generally, Thanksgiving is my least favorite required holiday (as explained in last year's post), but this year I'm not minding it so much. I couldn't tell you what has changed, but it seems more appropriate this year. Could it be the new moon? The fact that today was my last day at this job? The fact that I really like pear pie? I just know that it feels right to get together for a big dinner, and maybe even give thanks. I have an awful lot to be grateful for, after all: a wonderful husband, accepting friends, the health of those I care about, a burgeoning spiritual practice.... the list goes on.

Centering

It's amazing what a huge impact small actions can have, yet how easy it is to forget to do them! I know I've said that many times here, but it's something which I seem to rediscover again and again. I just spent five minutes chanting at my altar, and I feel so much more centered. In just five minutes! I've realized that singing/chanting is the single most effective way for me to center (possibly the only effective way for me to center, actually). On one hand, it is nice to know how I can center, since that isn't my strongest skill. On the other hand, it is not practical to sing or chant when I need to center myself in public! Does anybody have any suggestions how else I might be able to center myself, which might be more, shall we say, portable?

Listening to the Body

I was just thinking that I must be slipping into another depression -- I've been tired and listless and haven't been keeping up with any of my interests. But that's not actually the most likely explanation. I'm sick! I think I've been fighting this off for at least two weeks, maybe longer.

I've been trying to do some work with learning to listen to my body more. The original intention was to help me to cope better in our diet culture, but the lessons of Bear (the totem who has shown up to help me in this work) extend to other things as well. For instance, learning to realize that just because I'm not sick does not mean that I am healthy. Or learning how to tell the difference between real limitations which I need to respect, and limitations which I have created and which I would do well to push through. There is really very little that we do that isn't rooted in the body, whether we acknowledge it or not, so this work is much more far reaching than I initially realized. I suspect that I listen to my body far more than most people, who seem to view the body as something to conquer, yet I am slowly seeing that I am not nearly as adept as I could be. If I was, I would eat fewer baked goods, spend more time singing, use more aromatherapy, and spend more time crafting (and yes, I think that everything on that list is something my body wants).

Good night.

Due to either an incipient cold or exposure to kitty allergens, I am not feeling terribly well this evening. Thus, I think that I will avail myself of the magic of hot chocolate, and get some rest.

I apologize for the insubstantial nature of this blog post, and hope to have something more interesting to say tomorrow!

It is something of a truism that magic will only work when you take appropriate actions mundanely, as well. Considering how much better I feel now that one of the two major sources of last week's panic are taken care of, I have to say that it is a truism for good reason. Now as soon as I make it to the post office I should be feeling free as a bird! Then, perhaps one more good cleansing will get me back to rights.

Winter woes

It is so cold outside the my eyes go numb in the wind as as I ride my bicycle, and I can no longer deny that it is winter. This fact does not please me. I love Yule, I love snow, I love hot chocolate on a cold day.... but I do not love winter. The long season of dead trees and bare ground, of shivering through the warmest coats and breathing heat dried air all day seems to get longer and harder every year. I love the crispness, the brightness of ice and winter skies, but they pale in comparison to the dull weight of the season. I want to find the wisdom and magic of this season, but I can't seem to feel it.

I turned to Seasons of the Witch by Patricia Monaghan to find some insight on the season. I found the chapter on winter ("To the Mountains of the Hag") to be filled with lovely poems and imagery... wonderful reflections on the nature of the cold months... but nothing which really spoke to me, or lightened my oppressive dread of the coming winter. Perhaps we just aren't far enough into it yet. I mean, it's quite cold out, but we don't have that frosty nip in the air that truly signals wintertime. And we haven't had any snow yet where I am, either. So maybe I should give it time, and get back to Patricia Monaghan later.