*I’ve got lots of astro-gifts available for you and your loved ones this holiday season, including an Intention Setting For the Year Ahead that includes writing exercises and rituals for the winter solstice (Dec 21st) and a meditation for the full moon in Cancer (Dec 25), a personalized reading for each sign on the major events and themes of 2016 and a 21-day workshop on how to live out your life’s purpose through understanding the foundations of your natal chart. All that and more here.
The light wanes. The darkness falls down around us at hours that seem impossibly early. The senses are smacked down. Straining to understand where we are in time and space, we push against the darkness and brace ourselves against the cold. We need no excuse to stay home in the warmth and light, but when we do venture out the charm of twinkling fairly lights strung around trees and homes delights our sense of whimsy to no end.
Winter.
The Winter Solstice occurs the moment the sun enters the tropical sign of Capricorn. This year that will be on December 21st at 8:48 PM PST. At the solstice the sun appears to stand still in the sky. Time goes by so fast. Years whip through calendars like ravenous monsters of the future. Taking time on the solstice to remind ourselves of the timeless stillness within us can be tremendously powerful.
This seasonal pivot has a natural power we can harness. The light shifts from dimming to brightening once again. But the shift is subtle. We can’t come out of the darkness too rapidly or we are blinded. The earth’s natural rhythms are always a perfect process of mysterious discovery.
We get to unfold with ourselves. We get to experience the turning both of the earth and of our lives.
At the time of the Winter Solstice, the moon is strong and exalted in Taurus sending a trine to a Jupiter/north node conjunction in Virgo, and all three are sending/receiving trines from the sun, Pluto, Mercury and Pallas Athene in Capricorn. It’s a very grounded, earthy, tangible chart, full to the brim with practical magic.
Use it.
Earth signs teach us to honor nature. Honor the body. Honor the resources available. Honor what you have to give to your life. You can become the person you needed when you were little. You can become a source of revolutionary self-love. You can become an unending source of appreciation and acceptance for yourself.
The Winter Solstice is a time to call the sun and its light back to us. Ceremonies involving lanterns, candles, fire and bright objects of all kinds can help us remember to call in light and warmth into our own lives. The Winter Solstice is also a powerful time to plant seeds of intention for the year ahead, seeds that will grow with the sun’s warmth.
As a ceremonial offering you can light candles, sit in meditation and declare your intentions for the year ahead to either the ethers or a circle of like-minded friends, babes, unicorns, witches and woo wanderers.
Spend some time between now and then meditating on a few key questions to help you determine how you most want to direct your energy in the coming months. Some things to sit with might be: How do I want to feel about my work, relationships, body, spiritual life/relationship with myself? What old paradigm do I want to outgrow? What life affirming feeling do I want to grow into? What bonds am I ready to free myself from? What guilt, shame and self-doubt can I lay down? What actions can I take to help my self esteem and quell my self-doubt? What self-care practices can I give to myself considering the nature of my work? How can I give that which I want to cultivate? What do I need to become more sensitive to? What might I need to have a thicker skin about? How can I grow myself up so that I am moving away from thinking that the world owes me something and towards getting curious about what I can give to it?
A highly sensitized full moon in Cancer is on its way on December 25th. Water loves to be held by earth. Using the Winter Solstice to ground our emotional responses to the holiday season is wise woo. For a more complete assessment of the full moon I wrote a tribute to it that will be posted on Monday, December 21st.
Few practices have been as powerful in my life as stating my intentions for the year at the Winter Solstice. I hope you find it to be as helpful and as healing.
Solstice warmth to you and yours,
Xc