It was the season of darkness, the time when the earth went dormant once more, sleeping until the spring returned. It was cold, often brutally so, and a lack of preparation could mean certain death. Those who didn’t plan in advance might starve, freeze, or die of illness. The days were short, the nights were long, and it must have seemed as though spring would never return.

Despite all of this, our ancestors knew that despite the darkness of the night and the chill in the air, soon the light would return to the earth, bringing with it life. This night, the Winter Solstice, welcomes back the Sun, the ultimate giver of light.

.:.  Join the Sacred Way of Becoming.:. 

What’s on your New Year’s Resolution Altar? And just how do we make way for welcoming our becoming when we carry yesteryears regrets/unfinished business?

Our Ancestors knew the importance of engaging in ritual ceremony and visioning bringing one from Mother to Crone, the transition from adulthood into elderhood. 

In the depths of Winter, we cultivate wisdom, living closest to the Earth as we run through our storages. We experience hibernation, the scarcity, and sparseness of Winter.

In this way, we let go, and die to what needs to be released before we emerge into our New Year. To me, this is the most important of ritual tending of the year.  

Also during this day of ritual tending we track our Becoming. As the Sun returns we hear the cracking of our emerging in the belly of the Earth Mother, the seeds turning in the soil beneath us, and the promises in Winter’s dreaming, what will be born in the Spring.