This coming weekend marks the winter solstice here in the Northern Hemisphere. Historically, there have been more rituals and ceremonies associated with the winter solstice than any other seasonal celebration. Typically, this time of the year has been celebrated as the transition of light versus dark, cold versus warmth, abundance versus shortage, and life versus death. In the past, people in the northern climates have tended to view this time as the critical time of the year for survival. Ceremonies were held to assist the turning of the Sun and to celebrate the coming of the light.
In this time of dark and cold our longing is to be back in the place of light and warmth. This is the longing our soul has whenever we experience change. Since the start of the 6th Day of the Mayan Calendar, November 11, 2008, I have had many emails and calls from students and graduates who are feeling like many things are “up”, or shifting for them. The Mayan Prophecy tells that we will experience the coming year as if it is a full lifetime. What an incredible and important opportunity to re-examine our lives and come into balance.
As we experience what is “up” for us and we sense what might be considered “dark” in our lives, our tendency is to long for what we consider “light.” The Shaman’s goal is to live in right relationship with every element in his/her life – even those elements that we are less comfortable with. Winter solstice is a time of acknowledging and having deep gratitude for what most of us are less comfortable holding in our lives. This includes the places of cold, those elements of dark, the areas of shortage or lack of abundance, and of course, the places of fear and death, what needs to be allowed to die. Our typical desire is to hibernate under the blanket or find some other means to ignore these unwanted elements until the warmth of spring finally arrives. The trouble is that these elements will just continue to stalk us until we can come into right relationship with them.
Winter solstice is a gift. When we honor and bring gratitude to those uncomfortable areas in our lives in ceremony on this date, it allows our limbic brain of emotions to come to stillness and we become free. We can then choose to make changes, or not, but from a deep place of freedom and stillness. This honoring and gratitude allows us to step outside of time and into the place of our soul’s journey.
Gratitude for what we like about our life or the world is easy, but gratitude and honoring of what we don’t like is much more difficult. When we move everything into ceremony, the honoring becomes easy. Your ceremony this Solstice could include fire ceremony, an Ayni Despacho, an altar, or even creating your own personal ceremony. As we welcome the 6th day, and this full life time in one year, I invite you to join me, and the many others across the world, in celebration and ceremony on December 21st.
Wishing you joyous holidays and an incredible New Year,
Linda
