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We need Fire and Ice
In the beginning, in most cultures, there was chaos, from which gradually life emerged. In the Norse tales, in grew from the mist that was created where the Fire from Muspellheim and the Ice from Nifflheim met, and his body was the what our world was made from.
Extremes are scary, and generally not easy to deal with, and often when they meet there is conflict and chaos which are also scary, but that’s what drives creation. Humans live in a central place where we can draw what we need from many extreme energies. We need to proceed not with fear, but with caution, as we negotiate the world between: Middle Earth.
Because we live in the middle, we can draw from the fire when we need more energy, and from the ice when we need to slow down, or chill out. We mustn’t fear these corrections, they are what allows us to live. It may seem exciting to be moving and changing things, but sometimes we need to just wait and be.
Holding Space
This year our theme is holding space, Stillness, Waiting, Holding, Silence, exploring what’s beneath…. The harder it is to learn to do that, to find that quiet and still space, the more it is needed, both by the world and within ourselves. When you start practicing it, you may find it hard, that’s your first clue that it’s not “doing nothing”. The results may take a while to notice. After all, when you preserve something, the proof that your effort was successful cannot be determined until time has passed and it’s still good. Trust that this pause we are taking is doing us and the world good.
Next Year’s Theme
Some years our themes are easy to embrace, for example Joy or Healing or Balance (a bit more challenging). I have to admit that Change was a pretty challenging theme. But often we find more in the more challenging themes, just as we often learn our greatest lessons from the challenges we face. Next year’s theme is going to be Stillness, Waiting, Holding, … as an image: Ice.
We are going to be exploring finding what we learn from Silence, what is under the surface, the benefits of slowing down, the drawing power of emptiness, and what we gain in waiting. When the molecules of water slow down, water becomes ice, and we can see it’s inner structure. Dr. Emoto’s images of water that had been charged with different energies made it possible for everyone to see how those energies were locked into the water, even when most people don’t have the ability to feel it when the water is in liquid form. Film has made it possible for us to slow things down and see what we couldn’t when something is moving faster than we see. Perhaps this is what meditation does for us as well.
When we scry in a crystal or in water, we look deep into the material that light usually passes through; looking deeper puts us in the right state to perceive more deeply. When the sun shines on the surface of water, who knows what’s going on below the surface? We can see what’s under the surface when the water is still, but not when the surface is rough.
Let us explore contradictions: how the same ice that makes it impossible for us to travel the river in our boats, makes it possible for us to cross it on foot or skates. How the frost that blights the blossom, preserves food so it can be eaten later. Let us learn what we hear in Silence, what we learn from saving things for later. Let us hold space for others and for ourselves, and find the crystal form of our centers.
Dark Time of the Year
Here we are in the quiet time of the year. In the Middle Ages, we’d be in the roisterous 12 Days of Christmas, and coming out of the long month of Advent fasting; these days we are exhausted by the holiday partying that has been going on all December and ready to “nest” in a quiet week after Christmas and before New Years. This gives us an opportunity to think back over the past year, and forward to the coming year.
We all speak of the “veil thinning” at Samhain (and Beltain), but it isn’t just one dangerous night, it’s like the ebb and flow of the tide, coming in and going out, the season of spirits crossing over more easily begins (for some) the Full moon before Samhain and continues until after Yule. That’s quite a “high tide” of spiritual activity. In the dark of winter, it was dangerous to go out because you might fall victim to the Wild Hunt. Even safe at home you had better remember to make offerings to your house spirits, those creatures who help you every year.
The traditional story is of a housewife who buried the lump of butter in the porridge one Christmas Eve so that when he came to get it, the Nisse thought she’d neglected to add it. In annoyance, he killed the family cow. Then he went back and ate the porridge, discovering the hidden butter. It was now too late to save the cow, so he magickally switched a neighbor’s cow for their dead one. In the morning, the farmer went out to milk and discovered his neighbor’s cow in his barn. Returning it to his neighbor, they found the exchange that had been made, and eventually figured out it was because of the error of the wife. So make sure you let your house or barn wight know that they are appreciated! “
The light is returning, but we have yet to reach the latest sunrise of the year (that happens around two weeks after Solstice, whereas the earliest sunset happens about two weeks before Solstice, making Solstice the shortest DAY of the year.) This is a great time of year to pause and reflect and try to be in touch with the spirits of many sorts while the veil is still thin.
Cromniomancy
Cromniomancy – In some parts of the world, the first day of December is the traditional time for young girls to perform the ancient art of cromniomancy (divination by onion sprouts) to find out the name of their future husband.
To find out who your future husband will be, take some onions and upon each one carve or write a different man’s name. Place the onions near a fire and the man whose name is on the onion that sprouts first will be the one.
