Yesterday, we celebrated both the Full Moon and Yule/Winter Solstice. I know it is an early celebration, as the Winter Solstice is first on December 21, 2019. But I decided to perform the ritual a week before because my father will be here next Friday to celebrate the Christmas holidays with us.
I planned the ritual the day before so that I had a couple of hours to set up altars and light the Yule log that my husband has made for me. I also took a ritual bath with a homemade bathing salt consisting of dried sage leaves, Himalaya rock salt, and lemon oil.
It is so refreshing to bathe with. The aroma stays in the bathroom for a long time, and it is easy and cheap to make. I plan to make a recipe notebook when I get the time to it. At the moment, it is mainly daily mini-rituals and the eight major festivals in the Wheel of the Year that I celebrate.
It was also renewing to celebrate the Full Moon. In 2020 I will try to follow the New and the Full Moons, so I plan my spell work around them.
My interpretation of the meaning of Yule
To me, Yule means the rebirth of the Sun, and the Winter Solstice is the first turning point in the Winter season. The shortest day and the longest night of the year are symbolic of the battle between light and darkness.
Where everything is connected, where one cycle replaces another, where there is a natural balance between the two.
Yes, I believe in rebirth, and I celebrate the cycle of the Sun. From December 21, 2019, the Sun will grow powerful and warm us all again to its peak at Litha/the Summer Solstice on June 21, 2020. I watch it happening every year, and this is a happy time.
This is the first breakpoint in the Winter season. From now on, the Winter has to fight with the Sun. And every time the Sun will win. The second breakpoint comes at Imbolc on February 1, 2020. It is the promise of Spring, it is inspiring during the long and dark Winter months, and it is a renewal each time.
To celebrate the light in the midst of darkness is life-affirming. We needed something to celebrate due to the news about my husband´s health. It is never easy to wait for answers. Fortunately, things were as they should be. So we are saved for this time.
My own health is a mixture of the highs and lows in a bipolar mind, of physical ailments and pain, and of the appreciated days without any side effects. My husband made me a healing candle the other day and read the spell aloud himself, too. Yes, he has an active part in my work with witchcraft.
Full Moon and Yule ritual
I called the elements around noon yesterday. I used aromatherapy (geranium) and crystals (moonstone, lapis lazuli, amethyst, clear quartz, and sunstone). There were Full Moon invocation and prayers, and then there was my Yule ritual.
I stood in front of my ritual altar, facing East to great the Sun, with my athame in my raised hand. I read a beautiful poem that welcomed the Sun. And I smudged myself and everything in my den with homemade sage incense.
The Tarot cards spoke of a need for contemplation and finding inner peace by doing shadow work soon again. To me, it means that I need to work a lot with the plot for my novel and that it will be worth the effort to work with my own shadows as well.
The ritual ended with a prayer of gratitude. At this time of year, it is good karma to show gratitude for what the old year brought of experiences and challenges. But I´m also grateful for all the possibilities that follow a fresh new year.
Creating traditions in a rainbow family
When we celebrate the Christmas holidays, we do it as pagans with a touch of childish joy. There is nothing like the joy in a child´s eyes when he or she still believes in the magick of Santa Claus. Christmas Eve is getting a tradition, as it is our second year we are spending it with our neighbors.
To us, the major point is to have a good time together, to eat delicious food and to give gifts to the children. We celebrate throughout December with homemade Christmas decorations, pancake puffs, and often also homemade gifts.
We are not following any traditions but our own. We prioritize quality time where we do things together and enjoy the company of sweet children who are eager to participate. Tomorrow, we will make ornaments for the Christmas tree in our local store, for the children, there are a treat and a meeting with Santa Claus himself in return.
We call ourselves a rainbow family for it is a chosen family, although it´s not in the blood. We like each other and function well together. And we are friends for life. It´s a wonderful privilege to be a part of a family with children, and it feels secure and safe. It feels like coming home.
Celebrating the coming of the light
The Yule log is still on my daily ritual altar and will remain there for the rest of this month. I like the idea of the Sun getting stronger by the day after the Winter Solstice. I always use a lot of candles in the Winter season.
It is my way of celebrating the coming of the light. But I also embrace the darkness for without it there would be no light and vice versa. It is a fragile balance between light and dark, and the core issue is to recognize that nothing is ever one hundred percent black and white.
It is in the shadows that you truly get to know yourself. So this time of year is a time of contemplation and deep inner shadow work, where I touch the sensitive parts as well as the areas of my life that I consider safe.
Nothing is sure in life with the exception of change. I may not be able to change what happens but I can change my attitude toward it. I may have to adapt to unwanted changes but I can choose how I respond to them, how many resources I invest in them, and how I handle the consequences of them.
And so I changed when I invested myself in the Craft. It´s a journey of a lifetime. I´m grateful I chose the path of witchcraft. It is the right path for me. And it has helped me so much since I embarked on this solitary quest.
Life as a writing witch and a witchy writer
The combination of being a witch and a writer is a wonderful experience to try out for real in a mentally cluttered world where everything else is so dreadfully hectic, where the big issue, even in a so-called modern society, still is the dance around the golden calf, and where the majority keep silent.
I often feel overwhelmed after a planned shopping trip. Why does everything have to be done in such a hurry? It is an enigma to me how people can believe that this is the only way to move forward in life. No thank you, please, let me live my simple, yet complicated life exactly as it is.
Living in the moment becomes essential after such stressful experiences
I retreat to my writing as often as I work with witchcraft. I like to combine things and draw on as many different resources as possible. So it is a privilege to write about the things I cherish the most after my health, my family, and my friends.
Therefore it is so important to me that I deliver something worth reading in return.
Witchcraft has given me inner peace and calm, qualities much appreciated here. It has enabled me to learn more about myself than I else would have been able to. It gives me hope, it inspires, it makes me whole as a human being.
It is a way of life, and it is a matter of changing attitudes toward many things in life. Life has become more simple, more understandable, more enchanted with witchcraft and writing.
I´m happy about yesterday´s ritual. Although it was my first ritual in my new year as a witch, it was at the same time the last in the old calendar year. Now there is only my yearly Tarot spreads left to consider, before it is time to plan new things to study in 2020.
Soon it´s family time again
I ´m looking forward to meeting my father again next Friday. In January 2020 he will be eighty-two years old. We live far from each other, so it is always a great joy to be with him. Our time is sacred in that we take the time necessary to talk about life´s many experiences.
The writing and the witchcraft are still here, though. I take also great care of myself, and I need to write daily to be truly happy. So I have saved notes that can be written while at the same time having a good time with my father.
But I have planned ahead, so the blog post for the weeks 51-52 will be written next week. That way I save more time to be with my father without compromising my other needs. I know it will be busy next week, and therefore, I take even more good care of myself than usual.
And here both writing and witchcraft come in handy. I use often writing as an inspirational bait to prevent me from procrastinating, which is a recurring issue at times. And witchcraft helps me balance my life better.
My family and friends know and accept that I´m a combination of a human being, a writer, and a witch. And I can´t wait to celebrate a pagan version of Christmas Eve with them.
Yet there is a whole week to prepare for seven days with my father and our rainbow family. Time is used with care, for we know by experience that things do take more time when a seasonal festival is coming up.
We still need to buy some of the food needed for seven days of treats, and we try to mentally prepare ourselves for the craziness that we meet when we are out shopping. I know there must be time to relax and regain our strength, so Thursday next week is saved for exactly that.
What to expect about this blog in 2020
I have now decided that due to my current project with my novel I will only publish once a week on this blog in 2020. I will also shift between witchcraft and writing as I do today, but it will be one week about witchcraft and the next with writing.
This week, I had to buy a new car, the old car is way too expensive to repair, and therefore my budget for 2020 does not include money for blog purposes. The only exception is the Grammarly upgrade. But, on the other hand, my blog is about the content, not the fancy look.
I will in return re-read my old blog post and update them as I find necessary. There are probably many mistakes to learn from, so I will spend a couple of weeks in January 2020 to overhaul my blog.
Now, I will use the remains of the day to completely relax and do as little as possible for a couple of hours before bedtime. Maybe there is a good movie on the TV, there is room for hope, anyway.
May your weekend be blessed and filled with joy, dear readers. May your life be blessed and filled with life-enriching experiences. May you find soothing inner peace and happiness.
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