Solstice Day

I woke in the darkness this morning, and before my eyes were even all the way open I could feel the shifting energy of the approaching Solstice. This is the shortest day of the year before the return of the Light and there is a thread of expectent delight weaving itself through everything I move through today. 

I sat in the darkness of the living room for a couple of hours; I did some meditation, my morning prayers, an internal inventory, and then I just listened to Rhodes breathing down the hall, and to the Cottage breathing all around me. 

Although it is cloudy here today, I longed to be out of doors, so I lured my adventure partner out of our warm bed and down the road, seeking. We had a brilliant adventure, sharing views, conversation, music, and a thermos mug of hot mint tea. The Sun, Himself, made a few appearances through thinning cloud cover; bright and brilliant and confident as ever in His ability to shine. 

When Rhodes and I finally wound our way back down the road and home we went for a walk around the Cottage grounds, checking the plants and trees and our plans for the future. I was amused to learn that we have the same plan to build a rock seating wall around the Eastern Red Cedar in the North yard sometime down the road. 

This afternoon I am kitchen witching in the sweetest way, filling the house with memories and love of my Mom, my Grandmother, and the Great Gramma Lewis I don't remember at all. It is her sugar cookie recipe that made one of the most magical parts of the Christmas holiday happen in my Mother's kitchen and at the dining room table.

I don't think it is a secret that my mother was not a very good cook. Whether she was locked into simplicity by the demands of feeding seven children, or had no interest in culinary exploration, family legend says (and my mother herself confirmed this) that when she and my father first married she actually burned a pan when trying to boil water. I don't recall things improving much over the course of my childhood.

But Christmas cookies? Oh, man, that was her shining time of year. I have no recollection of how many batches of cookies she made, but during my early years the list was always the same: mincemeat cookies, pumpkin cookies, oatmeal cookies, peanut butter cookies (always pressed so prettily with a fork to make a cross-hatch!), chocolate chip cookies, and sugar cookies (rolled and cut with cookie cutters into stockings, stars, trees, angels, and santas).

She made so many cookies at one time that she mixed the cookie dough in her biggest cooking pot, and I can remember the first time I was allowed to help. I had to sit on our wooden high chair with no tray on it at the kitchen counter because I couldn't reach. She taught me how to use a spoon to cream the sugar into the shortening, and let me find out on my own just exactly how nasty vanilla extract tastes right out of the bottle. My favorite part of the making was using the flour sifter. She helped me to carefully measure the flour into the sifter, and then had to help me turn the little crank handle because I couldn't get it started myself. I was fascinated by that process, and when she said we had to do that two more times I was excited.

I don't know how she had the patience, or even the time, to teach me to set the sifter into another bowl, and carefully scoop the once sifted flour back into it; then repeating the process again with the other dry ingredients added. "Go slow. Go slow, or it will fly all over the place." And she laughed at me the first time that it did.

I don't remember actually doing so, but I know we were allowed to help decorate the sugar cookies. If we all participated, that would have been 7 kids turned loose with colored frosting and sprinkles and cinnamon red hots (I do remember that I loved to press those into warm sugar cookies, they looked so pretty) and some years those really pretty little silver balls.

I'm setting the stage for that magic today, baking Gramma Lewis' sugar cookies to decorate with Katie, Justin, and Emily tomorrow. I'll make the icing in the morning, and the bottles of sprinkles will be all lined up and ready to go. 

If you find yourself in need of a real sugar cookie this holiday season, come on by. I'm happy to share the magic!

Solstice blessings to you, my family and friends! May the returning Sun warm your body as it warms the body of the earth, and may the returning light fill your heart and spirit with joy and hope. Blessed be!

The Road Home

Have you ever been on a long journey and then found that the road home leads you back to some place new? Some of the old familiar and certain things are there, but they are different in ways it will take a while to determine.

I just stepped outside to say goodnight to the Moon. The sky is covered with fast moving clouds tonight and I did not think I would see Her. The moment I moved to the top of the steps,hands on the porch posts, head and eyes raised to the sky, the clouds shifted; Her shimmering nightrobe parted and I caught a glimpse of her silver golden self, still nearly full and gorgeous and luscious. Still familiar and certain, yet somehow different. She and I have both been traveling, and getting reacquainted is a dear, sweet process.

Something about the quality of light reminded me of my last December in New York, and an afternoon and evening when I wandered for hours through the snow. I visited many childhood haunts and many childhood memories. These lions were a last stop on that adventure. I hope I find them in my dreams tonight; a last stop on this day's adventures.

What childhood magics do you carry with you, talismans of safety as you journey through life?

Not Your Mother's Table

THIS IS NOT YOUR MOTHER'S TABLE

I bet you all thought I was going to forget to remind you of this, this year.
Wrong! Some parts of me are with it and balanced.

So, without further ado: Holiday guilt-free pass.

I have a dear friend who suffers from debilitating anxiety. She posted a meme that asks people to understand how difficult the holidays can be for people who have anxiety, and described some of the ways in which they struggle.

I add to that this request: please be kind and understanding about the schedules of your family and friends, especially when it comes to your adult children. More than kind and understanding, please also be generous enough to be the person who gives them the gift of a guilt-free pass.

Balancing the holiday demands of multiple families can be a nightmare, especially if those families all insist on sharing a meal or even time together on the same day. Rushing from one gathering to the next makes for an exhausting day filled with stressful expectations.

Guilt-free pass: "Hey, I know the holidays can be crazy. Don't worry about Thanksgiving Day here (or Yule, or Christmas, or Hanukkah). Let's plan something around your schedule. And by the way - this is a GUILT FREE PASS. I love you."

Saturday afternoon dinner or dessert, or Sunday brunch or Wednesday night sandwiches and chips, when everyone is relaxed and happy, can be every bit the holiday you make it in your head and heart, especially if it is all about the love and being thankful.

The Winter of My Soul

Funny how long it takes to settle things in a home. In the moving-in process it was necessary to dump all of my stuff - writing materials, books, paintings and paint supplies, craft materials and materia magicae (sorry, Mr. Gray! 37 years out of Latin classes with you and I just don't remember as well as I should!) - onto the surface of the repurposed kitchen table which is now my desk, and envision it all perfect in just a week or two. In reality, although it has been functional for a while now, it took five months to get everything in just the right place.

Earlier this week I was doing the final sorting out, prompted by the need to create an easily accessible morning altar space. This process included going through an impressive stack of notebooks and journals and, because I have lost the ability to stay on task, I found myself reading through each one of them. At the bottom of the stack I found the journal I started when I realized I was in the Winter of My Soul.

Nearly two years ago, close to the end of the first year of life without my youngest daughter in this world, I wrote about wishing I could take a sabbatical for six months or a year. Mostly, I said, I wanted to get away and rest and renew my spirit. I wrote these words:

     "I have alternately felt as though I am lost, drowning, overwhelmed, cannot breathe, cannot slow          down, cannot move fast enough..."

I tried for a while to turn inward with the season. I tried to tend to my own needs, my own healing. I was successful for a short time, but then I let life get in the way. I allowed the expectations and distraction of other people and society to turn me away from dealing with the grief that threatened to consume me. In doing so I shut down all awareness that it was wearing away at me from the inside out.

Events in my life in the past year stripped away all those distractions, and those of you who know me best probably know that I severed the ties of expectations and obligation. While those life changes were immensely liberating and have opened doors of opportunity, they have left me standing face-to-face with the grief that is still raw in wounds that are wide open. This has not been an easy journey, and it is nowhere near complete. I have once again alternately felt as though I am lost, drowning, overwhelmed, cannot breathe, cannot slow down, cannot move fast enough.

A couple of weeks ago I made the decision to follow the seasons in the Turning of the Wheel of the Year, and to turn more deeply inward than I have ever done. To the marrow of my bones I know that it is the right thing for me to do.

When I found that journal yesterday I rediscovered a writing that woke a truth within me the first time I read it, and I read it out loud again as a prayer:

     "When winter comes to a woman's soul, she withdraws into her inner self, her deepest spaces. She refuses all connection, refutes all arguments that she should engage in the world. She may say she is resting, but she is more than resting: She is creating a new universe within herself, examining and breaking old patterns, destroying what should not be revived, feeding in secret what needs to thrive." ~ Patricia Monaghan, Season of the Witch

It is time for me to embrace that truth, and to live in each moment of this season. Self-aware, self-exploring, healing, learning, and turned as deeply inward as I can possibly go. I do not fear the darkness anymore than I fear the light.

I am living The Winter of My Soul.