Solstice Ritual

A free offering

The Sun at His Eastern Gate, tapestry by William Blake, 1757-1827

Weave a circle round him thrice, And close your eyes with holy dread, For he on honey-dew hath fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise.

— Samuel Taylor Coleridge from Kubla Khan, Or, A Vision in a Dream: A Fragment

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Ritual is how we braid ourselves back into the animate world. It calls the soul into participation, restores the old bone knowing and reminds us there is nothing that is not holy.

I shared a ritual on here for the ancestors on Samhain in October, which some of you seemed to like! So I thought to suggest another. This time for the next turn of the wheel.

For those of you who are interested in ritualising your Solstice, here is a simple ceremony I do every year. I concocted it some years ago based on my research of the ancient rites. It is simple and concise, like all good things.

THE RITUAL:

Write down your Dreaming Seeds for 2025 (all your wishes, prayers & intentions)

Designate a holy place that you will visit 3 times after sundown. This can be a sacred site like a holy well, or your vegetable garden. Whatever is holy to you.

Take a libation with you on your pilgrimage. Eg pollen, milk, honey, wine, poems, song...

Speak your Dreaming Seeds out loud into the dark, metaphorically seeding your dreams into the darkness

On the fourth morning of the 24th, wake at sunrise and welcome the Light back (even if you’re in grey England and the sun is veiled!)

Then burn the piece of paper with your Dreaming Seeds on - igniting them with the first light of the New Dawn

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For many ancient peoples (and this is certainly a belief of mine), the New Year begins on winter solstice. From the ancient Mediterranean to the British Isles, the sun was believed to “stand still" (solstice from the Latin sol = sun, and stice = to stand still) for three days, leading up to the return of the light on solstice day - or the rebirth of the Sun/Son, a mythos that survived into the birth of Jesus on Dec 24th.

Each year the dates vary between roughly 19-24 Dec (as this predates the Gregorian Calendar and is based on the older lunar calendar). So this year's solstice will be falling on the 21st of December.

This means the ritual can take place starting on the nights of the 21st, 22nd and 23rd. While the sun “stands still”, we enter into a liminal place that is ripe for igniting new life. This is a time for deep time dreaming, i.e. - to meticulously employ our intentionality to plant what I call our Dreaming Seeds for the year ahead.

We will be in ceremony for three days, culminating on sunrise of the 24th.

If you will be joining, please let me know in the comments section and I will add your name to a pot I’ll be placing by my beehive for the 3 days to fortify the prayers and wishes!

The Sun, from an antique Italian tarot deck

One purpose of creative ritual was to experience the connection to “the other” as well as a deeper connection to oneself. That’s why ancient people would say: that ritual made me more aware of how I’m connected to life, to the earth, to the spirits, to the song of creation, and made me more aware of who I am inside, at the level of my own being. What we’ve lost is partly the sense that we are each connected to the whole thing, that each human soul is secretly connected to the living soul of the world.

— Michael Mead from Men and the Water of Life