Winter Solstice 2016 December 21, 5:44 am in North American
The nights grow longer and colder. Even so, the darkness begins to retreat, and light begins its return once again.
Let us honor and acknowledge the unseen web of Life that connects us all.
Like our ancestors have done from the beginning of time, let us honor and acknowledge the unseen web of Life that connects us all. May we honor the cycles and the seasons that remind us of the ever-changing flow of life in which we are a part.
Rituals give life meaning. Winter solstice allows each of us to remember what we love about life, about ourselves, to be grateful for our abundance, and have the ability to change and grow by casting off things that hold us down or prevent us from living a full life. And by embracing ourselves and living true as authentic beings.
For this years ritual I ask myself three questions:
What am I celebrating?
What am I releasing?
What am I consciously calling into my life?
Celebration: To meditate on my year and feel gratitude for all the abundance which surrounds me.
Release: What is holding me back from being the amazing, light filled being which I truly am. I will write it out physically, (not by computer or text.) What I will let go of in order to live in a new more satisfying way, to be my true, authentic self.
“our inner conflict arises between our projections and the truth, whereby we need the purifying fire and the sword to cut away all falsity”
– Meghan Don
Consciously Call: Who do I want to become? What do I want to make more room for in my life? What will it feel like to be alive in a new way? What does her renewed life feel like?
“If you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I am living for, in detail, ask me what I think is keeping me from living fully for the thing I want to live for.” – Thomas Merton
Fire Ritual
Create a ritual with fire. Make a bon fire outside or light up your fireplace or wood stove. Ask the fire goddess to cleanse you by helping you to let go and offer up that which you are ready to release to make you more whole.
Bring your papers to the fire and let them burn. In the flames of what you release, new ways of being will come.
Invite friends or do the ritual alone. Afterwards enjoy a feast of your favorite foods to celebrate this new year.