the returning sun…

Day One of the Returning Sun. Today is the first day after the solstice. Now the days will get progressively longer, ever so gently. Life’s ebb and flow are crashing up against the shore of time and the year year is approaching. I’ve finally managed to take an actual picture of my own Solstice Wheel and I just wanted to share it with you.

P.S. Christmas is in 3 days. I hope you’re not one of the many stranded in traffic someone because you “just had” to get that one last gift, or if you’re that person who has waited until now to do ANY Christmas shopping, please, on behalf of all the responsible people out there that have taken the time throughout the year to NOT wait until the last minute, maybe you could possibly rethink things a bit for next year. Just saying.

Happy Holidays.

SHARE THE LIGHT
(The First Noel)

CHORUS: Share the light, share the light!
Share the light, share the Light!
All paths are one on this holy night!

On this Winter holiday, let us stop and recall
That this season is holy to one and to all.
Unto some a Son is born, unto us comes a Sun,
And we know, if they don’t that all paths are one.

Be it Chanukah or Yule, Christmas time or Solstice night,
All celebrate the eternal light.
Lighted tree or burning log, Or eight candle flames.
All gods are one god, whatever their names.

happy return of the sun solstice!

from the BBC

“The grate had been removed from the wide overwhelming fireplace, to make way for a fire of wood, in the midst of which was an enormous log glowing and blazing, and sending forth a vast volume of light and heat; this I understood was the Yule-log, which the Squire was particular in having brought in and illumined on a Christmas eve, according to ancient custom.”
~Washington Irving

Last night was the best in awhile. Clay masks, peppermint foot rub, 5 glasses of wine, 3 shots of Limoncello Liquor, one best friend in matching Victoria Secret Pajamas, and two of our favourite movies: Mamma Mia and Under the Tuscan Sun. I needed this little vacation…

However, it seems this trip will be longer stayed than planned- no problem to me. Yet another winter storm has settled on us. Maybe it will take longer this time to get back to Albany, maybe we can break the five hour mark?

Today, today. Today is the shortest day of the year. Tonight Orion’s belt will aline with Sirius the Star, after today the Light shall slowly return. Here is a blurb about the festival.

This Sabbat represents the rebirth of light. Here, on the longest night of the year, the Goddess gives birth to the Sun God and hope for new light is reborn.
Yule is a time of awakening to new goals and leaving old regrets behind.

If you want to read the rest, you can read the rest here.

And to finish this post off, here’s a Pagan Carol from a list of them, for today’s festivities!

Hark the Neo-Pagans Sing

“Sunblade”
(Tune: hark the herald angels sing)

Hark the Neo Pagans sing,
Glory to the Holly King!
Peace on Earth and mercy mild,
God and Goddess reconciled,
Hear us now as we proclaim,
We have risen from the flames,
Our ancient Craft now we reclaim,
In the God and Goddess’ names
Hark the Neo-Pagans sing,
Glory to the Holly King!
Herne by highest love adored,
Herne the ever-reborn Lord,
At all times behold Him come,
Offsring of the Holy One,
Veiled in flesh, the Godhead see,
Hail incarnate Deity!
Our ancient Craft we now reclaim,
in the God and Goddess’ names
Hark the neo-Pagans sing,
Glory to the Holly King!

Natural Bookcraft’s Advent Wheel

Just for fun a wreath from theenchantedpincushion.com, over priced, so I suggest make your own!

“Let our intention be that we will shine with the Light of understanding and truth. Let our Light awaken what is best in our human family and help us to restore wisdom, honor, balance, beauty, and good will among all beings. Let the Light guide our hearts and hands to act for the healing of our Mother Earth.”

Well gentle readers, life is such a cycle, such a circle, such a wreath! This winter cycle has definitely opened my eyes to the cold, to the purity, and to the wisdom that can be learned from life’s challenges. That is what life has been showing most of these past few weeks, but with my birthday, and my new and improvement passport license, I now hold the key to my future! Okay- this is taking it a bit too far and possibly sounds a bit mad, but all in all I live a very stressful life. Since the fire, I have slept on a couch, on a bed made for stone-people, and now an air mattress seems to be the best out of the three. With constant clutter, and working 58+ hours a week as a supervisor, my life really does revolve, sadly, around fast food and once again living out of my car, whose engine light never seems to give me more than a few days rest. Blasted frigid air!

So, it really comforted me the other day when I came “home” early to relax and peruse my favourite blog, Gaian Tarot, and discover in a round-about-way (sort of how I get to work) about the interesting idea of an Advent Ritual, but in a more paganish way.”This sort of  ritual was adapted from Waverly FitzGerald’s that was posted on her School of the Seasons website, which originated from Helen Farias (founder of the original Beltane Papers in the early 80’s).” It is called A Solstice Sun Wheel Ritual and is very much like advent for the smiters. Let me explain.

Normally in catholic (or whatever faction of “the church”) advent a candle is lit in honour celebrating up to the day in which Jesus supposedly was born, records show that in fact if he really did exist that it would be closer to June than December. Traditionally they have three candles and a fourth in teh middle of different colours, symbolizing different things. On each sunday another candle would be lit up until the dreaded mid-night mass where the center candle would be lit breaking in the Christmas spirit. It really is pretty, smells rather good too, and right down to it is very pagan if you think of it.

The Solstice Sun Wheel is a smidgen different. It consists of five candles total, with no specific colour, depending upon the one who ultimately will light them. You can make a wheel wreath out of holly, pine, spruce, any sort of evergreen or even vine, whatever, the key is to be creative! Place a center candle in the middle to be lit on Christmas or the Solstice, or dare I say it on BOTH days depending on what you so choose. Then arrange four candles around the wreath, symbolizing yet again whatever you damn please, thank-you very much. You may choose the four elements colour corresponding and everything, or four simple candles of white. They could be red to off-set the green of the wreath, they could be gold symbolizing the god himself, or orange symbolizing the sun. Whatever, do as you will as long as you shant burn the house down, and believe me that was the last thing on my mind. I fashioned a balsam wreath, with three pine cones and some spruce berries to go with it. I placed the wreath on a rounded-square clay dish with mirrored mini-tiles, placed a white jar candle in the center, added a drop or two of pine essential oil, and put four glass candle holders with a velvet damask glyph on the outside (they were only 5 dollars at Bed, Bath and Beyond, how could I resist?) And with that, I will light all of my candles on this Sunday honouring in the light, the sun and my own inner warmth, because let’s face it, I’ve been a bitch lately.

Happy Solstice!

happy birthday to me.

“Our birthdays are feathers in the broad wing of time.”
~Jean Paul Richter

This morning at 7:40 am I will turn twenty-one.

I should be more excited than I am, but I am fine with just smiling through my day to myself. I am not sure anyone knows of this secret I havn’t told anybody.

I wonder if I will be surprised?

I hope it will go by fast and without error.

And in my head, glitter will be floating around in a spiral and the earth will open me up to the wide and varied world of legal wine drinking.

Hurray.

Giggles.

ice age of 1998.

“Beauty, like ice, our footing does betray; Who can tread sure on the smooth, slippery way: Pleased with the surface, we glide swiftly on, And see the dangers that we cannot shun.”
~John Dryden

This week for Sunday Scribbling, I write about a true experience of my childhood. The prompt is about a Winter Tale, to me it is so much more than that.

I was eleven. The trees hung like frozen spears from the sky. I can remember being in my grandmother’s house, with the smell of lanterns and candles burning in each room. My family was going back and forth to our home with a generator, in order to impede the freezing of the pipes, but the week went on. School was closed, which to me was odd but in a way intriguing. I was in a snow castle, away from the trees, but they were so pretty. The icicles shown in the sunlight light diamonds and each tree was a curtain waiting to be walked through. My family warned me to not go too close, falling ice hurts more than just ear drums. I walked towards the ice sheets, hanging horizontally in the sky and walked amongst the glitter. It was as if I were in a glacier, the sun illuminating the glass from the outside. My foot steps crunched, my breath froze in the air around me. The tip of my nose red as a holly-berry. I sat down surrounded my the spirit of winter itself, Jack Frost must have been proud. As the sun began to rise higher and my bum began to get a bit cold-to-bother, I arose. Arose to the sound of crashing ice. All around me, the trees shook. The ice was melting. I began to stir up inside myself, and thought if I stayed still I would not get hurt. The sound of the force of gravity was shattering. And voices yelled from near by. “Derique!” “Derique!” “Away!” “Away!”  They shouted, and then I was scared. And I ran. Guided by an inner voice, I manged to get away, stop and run some more before an entire limb fell to the ground. ON the hill I watched as slowly, but surely the entire tree fell to the ground with a giant crunch, limbs were falling everywhere, and it began to snow again. They gently touched my eye lashes, and I began to smile again. I nearly got my head blocked off, I said to myself and the wind blew again past my cheek. Chickadees sang near by and one flew to my feet. I puled a handful of seed from my pocket, as I always had as a child, and put my hand to the ground. It jumped on my outstretched hand and started to feed. As, I skipped back inside, my grandfather asked what I had learned from the storm. And I said, it is dangerous, it is pretty, it makes you scared but in the end you have your friends and family and if you’re lucky enough, an outstretched hand filled with bird-seed. We laughed and celebrated as the lights turned back on with some home made hot chocolate. How very delicious!

That is all I remember from the Ice Storm of 1998. Thirty people lost their lives, nearly thirty-one. It was a grandiose start to a new year. It opened my eyes, both to the beauty and to the danger that mother nature possesses. Winter I have always said is a way the earth purifies itself. Both the holiday’s spirit and the trinity of my family’s birth (Meme’s 1 December, Grandfather’s 2 December, and I the 3 December) always brings us close. My favourite constellation Orion, is bright in the night sky. All is peaceful, quiet, cold yes, but purifyingly beautiful.

Winter’s Kiss

In the morning I do see,
Frost’s kiss like pollen’s bee.
Holly, Pine, Mistletoe too,
Gifts of hugs both old and new.
Blessed be the love in spirit,
May you be far away or close and near it.
White’s blanket is fallen true,
To make the earth brown and sky so blue.
Pretty lights twinkle, twinkle,
Sometimes a Grinch’s smile does wrinkle.
Run around, run around so much to do,
Gifts and presents to those known and knew.
Happiness, joy and goodwill towards men,
Singing carols at the fire in the den.
To those who have too little and too few,
May your heart be filled with sweet sweet dew.
Happiness to all and to all a grand light,
May you believe with your heart and not just your sight.
© Derique d’ Corbeau, December 2008.

happy december.

“How did it get so late so soon? Its night before its afternoon. December is here before its June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?”~Dr. Seuss

This month has always either brought disappointment or complete joy in my life. It’s my birth month, and xmas. Normally, things get crazy, people forget, or people just end up ruining my xmas spirit. Yuletide is something very special to me, so right about now, when the snow is starting to be more frequent, the spirit- the spark of whatever it is, goodwill towards men if you will, is in the air and in my heart. Already, I can feel that my birthday is going to be memorable. The gifts have been perfect, something that doesn’t happen just as much, and a sense of being special has come over me. Haha. I will be 21 after all! It’s time to live it up, no? Now, I just have to get at my holiday shopping list, but with the apartment still being up in the air, there are far too many things on my mind. Right now though, as of this very moment, I’ve just opened the window. Cool, fresh air fills the room and even though the breeze is a bit chilly, the fan helps to make me feel calm. I’m going to bed, sweet sweet dreamyland, and I hope tomorrow isn’t going to be as crazy as what I suspect.

Onward ho!

As for my Tarot spread for the year, I cannot wait to do another one soon. The cycle is almost over, the last will be 27 december, but until then my latest, november 27th’s 2 of Pentacles is as follows:

Gaian Tarot 2 of Earth

A young father balances his baby sons in his arms as he shops for ingredients for the family’s meal at the local market. The West African symbol on his T-shirt is an adinkra symbol of a crocodile, signifying the adaptability of living in water while breathing the air.

Divinatory meaning: You are multitasking, balancing more than one thing at a time, adapting to a rapidly changing situation. Your responsibilities may weigh heavily on you, or you may be handling them with grace. Your task in this situation is to stay grounded and centered.

Twos are a duality. They show two sides, they show balance. As with the one’s the undirectedness of life, the twos show the choice, the struggle, the patience and the instinct to make the right decision. It shows you to be patient, calm and move forward with what you have and are learning… Which is exactly how my life is. Balancing, home with work, balancing work period, balancing spirit with material. Light with darkness, holding on to my sanity, or my insanity depending on the time of day. And basically just dealing, period. Especially with my innerness, my emotions, the desperitiy of loss, the joy of the new. This is my life rigth now and it seems to have already been laid out for me to see way in advance. Well, you can’t say I wasn’t warned. Haha.