Winter Solstice - The Sacred Dark

12/21/21 • 32 min

Season 2 of Animisma is an offering of seasonal contemplation, offered with care, and offered in peace. It is a walk along the hidden paths, along forest floors covered in soft grass, sunlight peeking through ancient boughs, breezes quietly moving across our faces as we walk with permission through mist and shadow. It is a walk in the presence of giants, of plants as portals, mystical herbs, and magical flowers.

Episode 1: Fàilte a charaidean to the deep dark heart of winter. A time of stillness. A time of depth. A time of darkness peppered with light and the green reminders of life everlasting. A time for introspection, a time for dreaming. A time for death and deep contemplation. A time for silence and a time for the decaying of the old and used energies and dreams to go to Earth, creating space for possibility and potentiality.

Together today, let’s take a walk through a sacred, mythical forest in the Celtic otherworld to celebrate the Winter Solstice and connect with the beautiful trees that are venerated at this time.

Together today, let’s take a walk through a sacred, mythical forest in the Celtic otherworld to celebrate the Winter Solstice and connect with the beautiful trees that are venerated at this time.

Previous Episode

Samhain

Welcome to Samhain, beloveds. Welcome to the ending and beginning of The Wheel Of The Year, the end of summer and the beginning of winter celebrated at this sacred threshold.

At Samhain, the veil between the seen and unseen worlds becomes thin. A time to celebrate ancestors, a time for divination, and a time to seek out the mysteries and magic found in the Otherworld. It is the time of the Crone, the Wise Woman, the time of the Death Gods, and the time to reclaim magical traditions and our reverence for the underworld.

May the spirits of transformation and rebirth guide you as we descend into the liminal, release the past, and prepare for the inward turn of the wheel. We offer prayers to the Gods and Goddesses of Death and to our ancestors to guide us along the way.

Blessed be the season! Blessed be the final harvest! Blessed be the ancestors, human and non-human alike! I wish you a safe, sacred, and sensational Samhain!

Next Episode

Imbolc - The Emerging Light

Episode 2: Fàilte a charaidean (welcome friends). Today, we will create a tree spirit altar together, in honor of Imbolc. If you cannot access all of these beautiful trees and plants in our human realm, this episode offers you space to gently still yourself and witness through your mind's eye the building of a beautiful and sacred offering to the traditional start of Spring.

Imbolc is the beautiful cross-quarter fire festival and celebration of awakening, fertility, birthing, and beginning. It is the promise of renewal, of hidden potential, of the earth slowly awakening and of life-force stirring. We welcome the growth of the returning light and witness life's rebirth at this time. Imbolc is translated from ancient Irish and means ‘in the belly’ or ‘around the belly’ and refers to both the pregnancy of sheep and to the fertility of the Earth, that is the swelling belly of the earth goddess. Imbolc was the traditional celebration of Spring, as opposed to the modern interpretation of Spring beginning on the Spring Equinox.

Today, we create a sacred altar for Imbolc - requesting blessings from Brighid, the Goddess honored on this day while partnering with the sacred tree, Rowan (Witchwood), and sacred plant Heather (Fraoch) and snowdrop, a messenger of hope.