Happy Magickal, Mystical, Marvellous, Magnificent, Majestic, Merry, Manic, Manifesting Monday!
Hello delicious lovely! How are you? I am sooooo looking forward to Solstice and I have three Solstice gifts for you! (Which you will discover as you read.)
I want to wish you an amazing holiday season – however you celebrate, and to say thank you. Thank you for being here, thank you for all your lovely emails and messages. Thank you for being you and sharing with me.
Solstice arrives on Thursday the 21st and I am thrilled, as not only is it Solstice, it’s my youngest’s birthday!
But what does the energy of Solstice bring to you?
At the Winter Solstice, when the world appears to stand still, it can serve as a moment out of time, an opportunity to reconnect with our own souls once again.
There’s a very special stillness about the season we are entering. Even though everything appears dead & frozen in the outside world, a new cycle is beginning. You can sense there is magic brewing deep down in the dark.
Winter is like being in the chrysalis stage in the evolution of the butterfly. It’s the time when the caterpillar is wrapped up quietly, in the dark of her cocoon. To the outside world it doesn’t look like anything is happening. (And this is one of the most challenging things about embracing rest: to the outside world it doesn’t look like anything is happening. Our brains scream at us, telling us “you’re not doing anything. You’re wasting your time.”)
But actually, deep in the dark, a quiet transformation is happening: the caterpillar is evolving into a magnificent butterfly.
This is the same transformation your spirit, and all of nature, is undergoing this season. To the outside world life is still & quiet, there’s no movement. You don’t see anything meaningful happening.
But in the darkness, hidden deep inside, a powerful transformation is occurring. You are evolving into a whole new place in your life.
It’s a time of dreaming.
Dreaming up the dreams of everything that will grow in your life this year.
Dreaming up new plans, new ideas, new ways of being that will blossom & grow, and become bountiful harvests in the year ahead.
The dreams of everything to come this year are being sparked in your winter’s rest.
Winter is the season when things are revealed by turning deep within yourself.
Embracing the quiet & the darkness – recognizing that you don’t need to do anything for the magic to unfold.
This is the season of receiving.
Are you willing to receive?
The first gift I have for you is the delightful story of the Yuletide Faeries, a wonderful story to read as an adult, share with children or grandchildren.
The second gift I have for you is a 20 minute guided visualisation called Winter Solstice – Heart Weaving. This lovely guided visualisation walks you into the warm dark, and you are going to meet some amazing guides and allies. Come dance with archetypes, myth, healing and shamanic transformation. And weave something new.
The third gift I have for you is the lovely process of The Omen Days!
And for those who have asked how long “Opening the Doors on 2024 Reading” will be available, it will be available until December 26th, as will The Book of Winter Solstice.
Let’s crack on with the reading. When I went to the cards and asked who wanted to share this week I thought to myself – perfect! These glorious guides have only come out once in public, so this is quite delicious, and I love how they decided there were going to be 4 to choose from!
So my darling one, just settle. Breathe in the stillness and allow your heart to open and expand and be willing to receive. Then when you are ready, pick the card or cards that tug on your soul strings.
Did you remember to pick?
Shall we go look?
SISTERHOOD OF RECIPROCITY
Tend to your partnerships.
This could be a time to review or negotiate business, renew romance or friendship, or nurture the very partnership you have with your own soul.
Much of our world suffers from a lack of understanding what our ancestors knew so well: all life is dependent on the generosity of our planet. There is no thriving without her good graces for food, water, shelter and beauty, and we’d do well to remember it with reciprocity.
Is it time to share? Celebrate her bounty? Give back to her resources? To your relationships or communities?
Long ago we honoured the lack of resources in the winter season with hopeful light-giving ceremonies. We celebrated the harvest with offerings and gratitude. We marked each season, each birth, death and love affair by honouring our Earth Mother as benefactress.
Carry this practice forward, know that all parts of your life are interdependent with the elements, creatures and plants of the earth, the same way that your healthy psyche relies on all parts working together.
Balance your genius with your shadow. Reconcile love with fear. Strike a balance between logic and emotion.
All parts of your life that you are proud of must dance with those monstrous parts you fear in order to experience a bountiful, creative life.
Take stock of where you are entwined in a healthy partnership, and where you are not.
This is a time for tending the dance of reciprocity.
W.I.T.C.H (Women in Total Control of Herself)
Control.
No woman alive today needs a dictionary to know what control means within a toxic patriarchy.
She’s experienced it a thousand different ways before she’s hit puberty.
It’s alive in the curves of her psyche, in the expanse of her hips, in the marrow of her bones.
It is domination and restraint.
But in a balanced psyche and in a blanched culture, control can mean something else entirely.
A W.I.T.C.H experiences control through cooperation rather than competition.
She’s engaged with all the parts of her psyche in an attempt to coordinate rather than dominate.
You are being asked, right now, to embrace all the inhabitants of your inner realm, because each deserves respect and a place at the table. Even the unruly, the inconvenient, the ugly.
Making a space for all under the banner of wild inclusion and giving voice to the shame, malice and anger, as well as every other outlawed part of the psyche, is the way we create integrity, ensuring that no part of our inner realm is involved with factions, divisions, or rebellions.
When your intent is to create rather than compete, you don’t have to dominate. Your influence is enough.
This is power-with rather than power-over.
Invite whatever is bothering you today into the realm of inclusion and assert your authority.
THE TRAIL BLAZER
This is a pioneering moment.
In order to chart where you’re going and empower the path making, you must know your place.
Only when you know your deservedness and embody your inherent value can you move with the confidence and radiance required to create your own path.
It’s time to shift your allegiance from pleasing to pleasure, from subservient to subversive, though the very act of claiming your inner knowing as the highest authority.
You will then be willing to abandon everyone else’s expectation and approval before you will abandon yourself.
Stop fearing your path and start blazing it, loyal to the visions in your head and the longing of your heart. Trust your intuition to guide you to the next right thing for you, even when you can’t see the entire path or explain it to a mind of logic.
Stop looking for the footprints of those who have gone before you.
Don’t settle for how it’s been for others.
Blaze your own trail.
SIREN OF SURRENDER
This is a time to let go.
Although underappreciated, there is power in surrender.
A wise sage once advised, “What we resist persists.”
While you may not yet see a new way to go, the old way is closed. Stop banging your head and hands on the door that refuses to open. If it doesn’t open, it’s not your door.
This is a moment to acknowledge what isn’t working, and what alternatives are not yet clear, and surrender to that wide open field of unknowing.
Understand that there will be times when further action is wasted.
Exerting more effort is futile, as it’s only bringing frustration and discouragement.
Know that while society would encourage you to keep pushing, applauding you as you battle and bruise your way through this path, this is a patriarchal paradigm whose time has ended.
Instead, embrace the flow, trust when it leads you to a dead end that there is another way, and it will open when it’s ready.
The days of white-knuckle resilience are over.
Everything is happening for you, not to you, so let go of your original expectation and let yourself experience the generosity of flow.
Ahhh, my heart is filled with joy as I see the cards my guides picked. Wishing you an amazing holiday season. Please help yourself to the free gifts and pick an Opening the Doors on 2024. I am going to spend time being like a caterpillar in a cocoon and relax, rest, read and play. See you in January. Big hugs and big love. Thank you.
May you be blessed,
May you be happy,
May you be peaceful,
May you be healthy,
May you be safe,
May you awaken to the light of your true nature.
