The moon cycle of the Winter Solstice
Embers of a fire
To get to grips with the energy of the new moon cycle, birthed on the 1st December 2024, visualise the embers of a fire.
The embers are the hottest part of a fire; strong and established. The fire of alchemy; of smiths and cooks, that can be worked with to make something that cannot be made in any other way. This fire is the one we need to keep us warm and positive on long nights, the fire of winter gatherings.
As we sit around the fire, what stories will we hear and tell?
Though we are in the time of wintering, where we may resist doing anything at all in these long, dark nights heading to the winter solstice, there is of a low, intense, burn of creative energy this month. It’s an interesting time. Quietly revolutionary, this energy is questioning, transformational and original. At its heart is creativity and originality.
Diving into Astrology
This new moon, in the astrological sign of Sagittarius, lightens the energy after the intensity of Scorpio in the last moon cycle. It represents a pause or a reset button and invites acceptance of what has gone and acceptance of the here and now.
Last month was the time to let go of what didn’t work in your life this year. Perhaps a harvest that failed. Scorpio enabled you to grieve its passing and come to a place of acceptance and inner growth, ready to face the future. Sagittarius is that future.
The invitation is to let go of the past finally and to step into that liminal phase, the time before action, that dreamy, creative phase where anything is possible. The earthy sign of Capricorn next month will give you the grounding to work out what is possible to achieve.
Creative Visioning
Work with the energy of this time to explore your creative side. What is stirring for you in these dark evenings? What are your deepest wishes and desires? What would you create of your life if you were able to? What have you always wanted to do or explore?
The energy of Sagittarius and the winter solstice go hand in hand. The invitation is to rest and expand your dreaming time. Within your dreaming, what is moving, what do you want to explore and create?
“What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” (Mary Oliver)
Some questions to work with during this moon cycle are - What does the world need and how can you do your bit to meet that need? What longing stirs in your heart in the dark? What dreams come when you stare into the embers of a fire?
Within the hot coals of the fire lie your destiny. This month is about destiny. It’s about following the thread of your dreams, of the thoughts and images that come in the twilight and dark hours. It’s all about visioning. Now is the time to look deep within to find the answers to your soul searching.
Winter Solstice
The significant astronomical event of the Winter Solstice takes place during this moon cycle, around the 21st December. The energy ramps up in the week leading to it, as the days get increasingly dark and there is a sense of stillness in the Earth, despite the howling wind.
Many animals are taking shelter, sleeping or hibernating to conserve energy from the cold, and even the trees are unusually quiet, their energy deep down in the Earth. When animals and birds emerge to feed or weatherproof their shelters, they carry out their activities quickly, with focus.
These are the lessons from the land, of rest and focus, and we can align ourselves with them provided we pay attention. We can be incredibly focused at this time if we take enough rest.
Ancient Winter Solstice Ceremonies
There is much we do not know about how our distant, prehistoric, ancestors honoured the Earth and marked the winter solstice. Yet we do know they did, simply from all the monuments they left behind.
The UK has a rich archaeological record of the lives of prehistoric people, including the indigenous hunter-gatherers and early farmers that once lived here. The physical remains they left behind are often associated with their Earth-based spiritual traditions rather than their domestic world. Clearly their spiritual traditions were important to them.
Many of their monuments, such as long barrows and stone circles, were orientated to the Winter Solstice. The tallest trilithon at Stonehenge was carved and placed to frame the sunset at the winter solstice. At Newgrange in Ireland and Maes Howe in Orkney, the light passes through a shaft to light up the whole interior chamber of the Neolithic tombs.
The focus on the light might signify that people felt that the light’s return brought hope for the year ahead and a knowledge that the darkness and cold would pass. We can envisage that people would dance around fires, drumming in ceremony, for days around the Winter Solstice at monuments such as Stonehenge, waiting until the sun moved once more and the days began to get lighter.
As you walk around the monuments today, you can feel the energy of ancient celebrations, as spirits continue to dance on the land. Yet its hard to recreate their ceremonies - we don’t know the names of their Gods, what they honoured in the land or within their ancestral history, nevermind their specific customs.
However, there are things we can know, things that only come when we start to really connect with the spirits of the land and reorientate ourselves to a more Earth-based way of viewing the world.
Celebrating the Winter Solstice
To mark and celebrate the winter solstice this year, you can go out on to the land wherever you live and connect with the birds and animals, trees and plant beings, the land and the elementals, and feel what is moving as the Earth tilts away from the sun.
If you can, perhaps go to a monument from prehistoric times, particularly from the Neolithic when people made monuments from stone to honour the winter solstice. While you are there, be still for a time and see if you can connect to the memory of what they did in these places. Can you feel the Earth move with their dancing and drumming?
As you watch the setting sun on the shortest day, sense the gratitude that would have been so apparent to our ancestors, acknowledging that prior to our own era of knowledge, it was not known to be a given that the sun would rise again. Feeling this gratitude and sending it out, with your deepest love, to all beings.
The real purpose of ceremony is to honour what you feel to be real, coming from your heart, and connected deeply to the land and to the beings that belong there with you.
As you set an intention to honour the winter solstice, may it reverberate through all of your life, bringing reverence throughout your year as you deepen your relationship with the land and all beings.
Samara
November 29th 2024