YULE BLESSINGS
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Yule / Midwinter
December 21, 2019 8:19pm PST
(Winter Solstice)
The Wheel of the Year has turned again and we find ourselves back in the darkness, which is the primordial womb of life. Let us begin again…
THE WHEEL OF THE YEAR
As the Sun moves into Capricorn – the sign of authority, status, and mastery – the Shadow of the Sun God reaches maximum strength (shadows are longest when the sun is lowest) and is honoured as the Holly King, a sometimes-antlered old man with long white hair and beard, adorned with holly and mistletoe (sound familiar?). It’s no coincidence that Saturn – the planet representing Father Time and the Wise Old Man – makes his home in Capricorn.
As for the Goddess, the Earth moves into Cancer – the sign of the womb and the Mother Creatrix – and home to the Moon – the planet overseeing cycles and connection with the Divine Feminine. It is here that the Sun’s Light is reborn. The shadows shorten and the days grow brighter and longer, as the Oak King`s reign begins.
The Cancer/Capricorn axis – where the Milky Way crosses the ecliptic – marks the gates in and out of incarnation; cosmic death and rebirth. (The Taurus/Scorpio axis marks the gates in and out of the underworld; earthly death and rebirth.) So it is with the Earth/Goddess in Cancer that the Light/Oak King finds incarnation, while the Shadow/Holly King in Capricorn exits incarnation, and is accepted back into the womb (which has become the tomb) of the Great Goddess. It is interesting to point out here that the fourth chamber – Cancer’s chamber of residence in the zodiac – represents home and where all life returns in the end.
While Yule is certainly a time for celebration, it is also a time for peace and stillness. (After all, what mother wants to birth her child in the middle of a wild party?) Solstice means “stationary sun” or “sun sanding still” as the Sun appears to pause a moment before its ascending journey.
So, whether you celebrate the birth of the Sun or the Son, honour the season as a time of hope. A new cycle has begun and I invite you to meet this new cycle without expectations (and without resolutions). Sit in the peace and stillness at the height of darkness and allow the natural flow of the cycle to begin.
THE GIRDLE OF THE GODDESS
In the language of Theodomy, the 12 signs of the zodiac are further divided into 36 primordial energies of the divine feminine, called The Girdle of the Goddess.
At the time of the winter solstice, the sun moves into the 28th primordial energy activating Holle, the Goddess of Midwinter. See my HOLLE post Her story.