It has been another mad mad week. And it will be another mad mad week. I was speaking to Oisín yesterday and told him not to come back for Christmas but he said he was thinking about it... still. Anyway, I told him how much we missed him anyway.
It has been a few weeks of drifting. Next year is pretty much nailed down now. We are very full. I need to get a calendar and put everything in.
Elements is doing alright so I'm gonna just put it here...we don't need anything more. That's us done.
Everything is floating around my head now. I need to start nailing things down.
From today onwards I need a routine and I need to know what's going on. There has been the full moon and it has made people a bit mad. I don't know what to say. The world is falling apart and people cannot see it, or want it to fall apart?
Shame and humiliation is a huge thing for people. All you need to do to control people is not even kill them, it is to humiliate someone. To make them outcasts. Easily done.
But here we are, trying to be positive...
I wrote this on FB today.
The winter solstice is coming up - soon. The shortest day of the year, is followed by the sun's return. In Singapore, probably because no one remembered their birthdays in the past in rural China cos who had time for that? the 21st of December was when everyone turned one year older. We'd mark this by making kueh ee - these colourful glutinous rice balls soaked in pandan syrup. All my relatives would wish each other happy
birthday. The dail was turned on every's calendar.
It is ironic of course since Singapore barely experiences the solstices or equinoxes... it is literally a leftover of the past.
The more I learn about our planet and our relationship to the cosmos, I am more and more convinced of the importance of rooting ourselves in our geology and astronomy. Marking, and celebrating the real meaning of these days is actually healing, grounding. Spending waaaay too much money and getting yourself into debt is the opposite. (I was about to go on a rant about the toxic culture of consumerism, but there is no point cos we all know what that's about.)
So instead, a suggestion, if you really did want to try and inject some solar powered meaning into the winter solstice, you could between the 19th and 24th - in the ballpark of the 21st, observe the return of the sun in the Northern Hemisphere. After this the days get longer.
In Ireland you could go to any of the stone circles at sunrise and make an offering to the spirit of the sun - a thimbleful of milk, a song, a little posy of evergreens like holly and ivy, an arrangement of stones. Do not leave candles on a site. The wax stays forever, more or less. (It should DISAPPEAR into the site, not be left to be admire by the next person who comes along.) Something to mark the start of this solar year. You could go by yourself or with a friend, or lots of friends. Although the fewer people the better I think.
If you bring a firebucket, you could light a small fire - never light a fire on open ground, I don't care how wet it is - and then write intentions and place them into the fire. It could even be a prayer for the year. You could burn offerings - dried sage, bay leaves, something which is fragrance. You can think of the things you are grateful for and appreciate.
The Sheela-na-gig is the goddess of doorways - she brings to birth and receives in death, and rebirths again. You could thank her for everything - both good and bad. Acceptance for the lessons. Gratitude for the blessings. The mystery of the dark, the magic of thresholds.
You could try not photographing it on a phone or if you did, not sharing it on social media. You could bring back a momento from the ceremony - don't take back something from the site - leave that. You could bring a candle and bless it and then take it back and light it on special days, to give you hope. You could write a short poem from the morning after you return and put it on your fridge, to remind you that everything starts with a spark, even the great sun's return.
And then you would have observed the first day of the solar year in the Northern Hemisphere. What an amazing planet we live one! What a corner of the cosmos we have here!
Happy solstice everyone. May we have a gentle start to the year.
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