It is with a heavy heart to announce I will no longer be adding blog post to this site. After many attempts to upload my own photos to the site I decided I didn’t want to waste any more of my precious time trying to get things set to right. I even attempted to make a post today which includes photos I have posted on the site before, once again telling me the photo is too large for the site, that post is now on the Witch-Crafted blog. With the new year coming it’s about time to refresh my Witch-Crafted blog which I began in 2014 here: https://witch-crafted.blogspot.com/
I thank all of you who have followed, commented or liked my posts. I invite you to follow along at Witch-Crafted, leave comments, ask question and join me as I expand my Walking the Wheel of the Year Journey in 2024. Thank You.
The first day of winter in the Northern Hemisphere is marked by the winter solstice, which occurs on Thursday, December 21, 2023, at 10:27 P.M. EST.
For the northern half of Earth (the Northern Hemisphere), the winter solstice occurs annually on December 21 or 22. (The Southern Hemisphere’s winter solstice occurs in June.) The winter solstice is the day with the fewest hours of sunlight throughout the year, making it the “shortest day” of the year. Thankfully, after we reach the winter solstice, the days begin to grow longer and longer again until we reach the summer solstice the first day of summer and the longest day of the year. Although the winter solstice means the start of winter, it also means the return of more sunlight. It only gets brighter from here!
I am posting this poem by Enid Blyton, from my memory from 1965, I was 10 years old, I discovered around the age of 8 I loved poetry especially any about trees.
I welcome the month of December with winter in my heart, as a northern born woman living in the south for 29 years, I also welcome December with open arms. The year is winding down, many living beings hibernate at this time of year preparing for the spring. While I don’t hibernate I’m preparing for a fresh new year and eventually spring, but for the next few weeks I plan to enjoy all that winter has to offer.
For a while I will live in my memories of freshly fallen snow and the silence it seemed to bring along with it, at least it was silent until squeals of children’s laughter and snow plows broke the silence. I can close my eyes and recall in perfect detail how the tree branches looked heavy with snow, the glistening like diamonds across the expanse of the lawn where grass was seen a few hours before. The deep intake of chilled breath filling my lungs. My heart longs for those days and knows one day I will experience it again when my body cooperates enough to enjoy frolicking in snow drifts and build a snowman in a meadow. Years ago, when I still lived in NJ my son was 6 we headed out early to shovel the walkway. I decided to shovel a path down the entire sidewalk to the elementary school on the corner. Then each neighbors walkway, all while they still slept or began to start their day.
Afterward my son and I settled into hot chocolate and dry clothes. A few hours later we went out to build a snowman and made snow angels in the pristine snow in schoolyard on the corner, after all it was a snow day.
Early this week the days began with temps below freezing, not warming up to much more than 60. Today, the 1st of December at 6 am it was 56 and the high for the day 85. The winter solstice is 3 weeks away, the change in the winter season is there you just have to look for them. For now I will enjoy the last few weeks of autumn enjoying pumpkin spice flavored coffee, the fact that hurricane season is over until June 1st. And watch as autumn gardens begin to fade into the dormant rest of winter. Not every plant rest here in the winter but many of them do wither away and join the last of the summer harvest on the compost pile.
Florida’s Winter Growing Season runs between the slow cooling-off of the Fall through the end of Winter. This season is best suited for growing leafy veggies & herbs. So maybe I will visit a nursery and pick up a few winter plants maybe some lettuce, beets and carrots. Where I live I am considered north central Florida so there is quite a bit I could plant.
On another note I am going to try to do Susannah Conway’s December Reflections 2023 posting each day in December as follows:
For December 1st the prompt is Star: My post is a hand embroidered fabric pieced star.
Yesterday morning when I stepped out my front door I was pleasantly surprised by the brisk chill in the air. Autumn weather is such a mixed bag in Florida we can go from 90 to 40 in a matter of hours. Yesterday at 8 am it was 30 degrees, today at 8 am it was 40, still a chill in the air but not below freezing.
Today is the last day of hurricane season and I am not sorry to see it go, though we know it will return on June 1st. It’s all a part of walking the wheel of nature.
This is the view from my bedroom window this morning, which had me running outside to snap a photo before she slipped behind a cloud.
I love seeing the brilliant moon in the daylight there is something magical in knowing she is always there even when she isn’t visible.
The full moon on the 27th had a wonderful ring aka halo around it, the photo below, though you can barely see the ring. The second photo is the November 30, 2022 full moon with a ring around it.
The ring is actually an optical illusion. It is caused when the moon light refracts off ice crystals in a thin veil of cirrus clouds. Those crystals create a giant lens 20,000 feet above us. They’re positioned perfectly, with respect to our eyes, for the halo to appear. They are easier to see when the moon is full or almost full.They are typically more visible during winter when the air is colder and drier.
Despite their scientific explanation, the ring moon has long been regarded as a powerful omen or symbol of spiritual significance in many cultures and religions.
The origins of lunar rings can be traced back to ancient civilizations that revered the moon as a powerful and sacred symbol. The moon was often associated with the divine feminine, fertility, and transformation. In many cultures, the moon was believed to have the power to influence human behavior and emotions, and moon rings were seen as a sign of powerful energy and spiritual significance.
On the 28th the mornings sunrise painted the sky a lovely pink, a half hour later the pink was gone. The morning temp was 45 degrees. I love when the sun rises and paints the sky with colors.
The month of November has gone by in a flash, I don’t recall a November moving by so quickly, I always felt November and March to be very long, slow months. I know as I have grown older the years seem to pass rapidly, now it seems the months are flying just as fast.
Lucky I do slow stitching which at times is very slow indeed, it is the one constant in my day to day life I can count on to be slow and it helps to slow me down when things get a bit frazzled. Years ago I noticed when I was relearning to knit how meditative it was, the slow repetition of needles and yarn, the total concentration I put into what I was knitting. I never really got the knack for knitting so I let it go, preferring crocheting and hand embroidery which gives me the same meditative feeling. That feeling of calm and total relaxation. I am currently working on a pre-printed pattern from Kelli Lincoln of Dancing Goddesses. It’s a small piece, the goddess Airmid.
In my spare time I am planning some changes in 2024, one of the things I want to change is my walking the wheel of the year journey, I am considering adding some stitchery to my journey, maybe something moon or seasonal related . I’m not sure yet exactly what I just know I want to add something more. I am also thinking of combining my 30 days of goddess practice with the wheel of the year.
I am tentatively planning a garden this year outside of the containers I have been doing since I became ill in 2020 and wasn’t able to do much beyond a few containers. Despite the back and knee problems I am hoping to regain the energy and strength to do a small raised bed in addition to a few container plants. I will take each day and how I feel physically into working in the garden. I feel as if a piece of me is missing when I’m not out there tending to the plants, pulling the weeds and watering those tender seedlings waiting for them to grow, I feel the loss in my soul and my heart longs for my hands to be in the soil. But I will be sensible about it, if I don’t feel I am physically capable of a garden for spring I will just buy more containers.
It is again a time of seasonal change and the Cailleach has stepped through the veil and into our world. The fields are bare and the wind carries a colder edge, speaking of what is to come and what must always return.
And as the pace of contemporary life seems to grow faster, commercialism becomes the byway for how we navigate time.
But it is all to easy to surrender to this quickening rhythm and miss the natural shift of cycles and nature.
We are often catapulted through trajectories that push us like currents and tides, making it almost impossible to actually appreciate each day and the passing of the year.
And yet, if we can take a moment to step back we can separate ourselves from this way of thinking.
The way in which we measure time, and our lives, is based today upon the Gregorian calendar, which was introduced in 1582 to replace the earlier Julian calendar.
It is deceptively easy to see time as civil and regimental; days and tasks measured out in order to regulate life and obligations.
But time is not really like this.
The earth and the sun do not know the names of days or months. The star constellations change shape from a different angle in space.
From outside of the earth’s orbit the concept of a ‘year’, as we measure it, does not even exist.
Seasonal time measured in cycles can help us plan and map out how we live, but every single moment that is yet to arrive has never existed before.
For example, ten seconds from now you will live through a moment in time which has never been experienced by another human being.
The midday hour today, which we automatically see as the same as the one yesterday is, in fact, a brand new moment, full of potential and infinite possibility.
The orbital cycles of stars and planets create the fixed canvas onto which we can paint our stories and lives. But those stories themselves are ours to imagine and live out.
This might be seen as another expression of the circle and square, or the spirit and the body.
Remember; although the modern world may seem to be the controlling factor in terms of how we perceive change, we can very easily look deeper and into the actuality of ‘real’ time, as opposed to the layer or mask imposed upon us.
So as the Cailleach begins her work, this is an opportunity to realign ourselves with ‘real’ time.
It is a moment when we can adjust to the turning of the year and perhaps still ourselves enough to feel the shift of worlds and the opening of ancient doorways.
And it is the call to cross over, for those who know the way.
Have ready a cauldron (or large dish) of water, earth, salt. Two green candles, one black candle.
Say:
The Wheel turns. The Crone brings an end to growth as she harden the earth with frost. Hers are the darkest months of the year. Everything dissolves in her cauldron as all things return to the source.
Light the black candle and say:
Crone Goddess, I call
Grandmother, teacher,
Storyteller and lore keeper,
Mistress of the cauldron,
Of inspiration,
Of manifestation,
Of transformation,
Of initiation,
Crone I call.
Go to the cauldron and say:
All life springs from the sea. All life springs from the Goddess. Salt and water are within me
Add salt and water to the cauldron.
All things young and fair must fade, all that is vital eventually grows weary, all that is strong becomes weak, and all that is full of promise and hope must pass away. All things that live must die and return to the womb of the Goddess. But as the mound is raised above the seed, the seed prepares itself for rebirth, and all things shall be transformed by death. Earth is within me.
Add earth to the cauldron.
The year itself returns to the Otherworld womb from which it came but know this – the secret wisdom of the Crone is that the wheel shall turn once more. Rebirth follows on the heels of death, just as spring follows on the heels of winter.
Let the candles be lit in token of our hope.
Light the green candles and reflect for a time on the meaning of the cauldron and the wisdom of the Crone. Then say:
The cauldron of creation is the essence of life in motion. I carry the hope of the Goddess in my heart, safe in the knowledge that the wheel shall turn.
I am the Queen of Magick, hidden in the deepest night.
I am the mystery of the other world and the fear that coils about your heart in the times of your trial. I am the soul of nature that gives form to the Universe.
My torches light the way for enlightenment and illumination.
My sickle of death cuts away things that are dead & no longer needed
It is I who awaits you at the end of your spiral dance.
I am She who has no secrets but a thousand secrets.
I am the aged Old Crone of Darkness who face of death portends life anew and filled with Luna’s secrets.
All acts of magick and mysteries are my rituals and
My greatest ritual is love itself.
You who seek to remove My veil and know My true face,
Know that all your questing and efforts are for not,
Until thy own face beholds and knows the mysteries of they own self.
For you to truly know Me, you must look in your own heart and know and accept thy self.
For those of you who call upon Me and My powers for magick, beware!
For My magick is swift and without regards to the consequences.
Those that know Me shall glide safely through troubles,
For it is My dark cloak of protection that is wrapped about you.
Close your eyes My child and call to me, for I am there,
As The Crone Flies 