Today is the Winter Solstice and tomorrow is both the full Cold Moon and a meteor shower, so this is an exciting time in the cosmos as the sun begins its return closer to earth and the sky showers us with light on this darkest night of the year. I like to perform solstice rituals, so let me share with you an invitation, in case it resonates. The Winter Solstice is about celebrating our darkness, so take some time to contemplate your own darkness, not as a way to shame yourself, but as a way to illuminate the darkness and shower it with love, compassion, and understanding about why you may have exiled your shadow parts. Use this time to invite them back, to integrate them into your whole being, and love them back to wholeness. I like to light a sun candle—a big white pillar candle that represents the Inner Pilot Light of the world. Then illuminate another candle from the sun candle in the center of a circle. This represents your own unique inner flame. Light some sage or incense and use it for cleansing and also as an offering to the darkness and the returning sun. Allow this candle to illuminate everything that is unlit in you.
Let Go Of What Needs To Be Released
The solstice is also a time to let go of what is old and used up and no longer serving you, so you can plant seeds for what is fresh and new and life-giving. Paradoxically, the full moon is a time to celebrate the seeds you may have planted during the new moon—so you may find yourself both planting seeds and harvesting fruits this unusual solstice! If you’ve been waiting for the right time to do that potent cord-cutting, letting go release ceremony or humble, surrendered, deep longing-based manifestation ritual, this would be a good time! Write down what you want to let go of and burn it with your Yule log.
Plant The Seeds Of Co-Creation
If you’re wanting to plant seeds for something that you sense wants to become, either for yourself or for the health of the planet, remember the key to heart-centered manifestation. You must tune into the FEELING of that which you most deeply desire and FEEL IT NOW, as if it’s already here. This may bring up grief, as you feel the joy of having what you long for but know in your mind that it’s not actually here yet. Let yourself feel both the wash of gratitude as if it’s here and the pain of the unmet longing. The tension between those two is magnetic and puts you at the vibe that prepares you to receive that which you yearn for. Remember to also hold the paradox of being fully in the beauty of your deepest longing and also surrendering it to Divine Will. Remember that you only truly want what is meant for you (or what is aligned for our species, our Earth home, and our place in the galaxy) and you don’t want to force what is not aligned (that never goes well or leads to true happiness, harmony, or peace). Instead, let yourself be vulnerable before God/Goddess about what you deeply desire, then cast the burden of your longing into the loving arms of that which can help you bring it into being—but only if it’s meant for you or the planet. If it’s not aligned with love’s most enduring destiny, the force of love that fuels co-creation will help ease the longing and replace it with a desire for that which is aligned.
Think of it as casting your vote in the co-creation process without strong-arming it. Imagine that if you were God/Goddess, you would want your Beloved child to have a say in how things unfold, but you wouldn’t want him or her to demand that things go a certain way!
Unblock What Interferes With The Co-Creation Process
Also critical to planting seeds is bringing out of the darkness any energetic block that may interfere with the creation of what you so deeply desire. Check in with yourself—and be honest. Where are you putting one foot on the gas and one foot on the brakes? Maybe you say you’re longing for a deep soul partnership—and part of you is—but another, perhaps even stronger part of you may be terrified of the ego shattering that this kind of partnership can activate on your journey to true love. Or maybe you’ve been deeply heartbroken and part of you can’t bear to open a heart that could get broken again. Or maybe you say you want greater ease in your financial life, or you want to fulfill a creative goal. But what stories do you tell yourself about what would actually happen if you were rolling in Divine abundance? Maybe you’re terrified that if you were wealthy, you wouldn’t be able to discern who loves you for you and who is just trying to use you. Or maybe you were raised to think wealthy people are greedy. Maybe you long to express your creative goal, but you also have “burned at the stake” fears about what might happen if you succeed and expose your talent and your art to criticism or too much attention. Maybe you long to see an activist cause of yours healed and resolved, so the suffering of the world can be lessened and dehumanizing actions or nature-harming behaviors can cease. But you feel helpless, disillusioned, resigned, or afraid of exerting your true power in order to help make it so.
I can’t tell you how many clients I’ve worked with who say they’ve been planting the seeds energetically (and taking action in the 3D world to bring their desire into being) but nothing is happening. I’m not suggesting that everything you plant seeds to co-create will happen (or should), but when someone says “I’ve been dieting and dieting and I can’t lose weight,” or “I’ve been doing everything in Mind Over Medicine but my symptoms aren’t going away,” I often intuit that they don’t actually want to lose weight or be pain free. When I suggest this, clients are horrified. “Why would I want to stay fat or in pain?” But as hard as it is to face, sometimes we get secondary gain from not losing weight or getting well. Maybe someone with sexual trauma doesn’t actually want to lose weight because they don’t want to attract attention from potential predators. Or maybe someone with chronic pain doesn’t want to be pain free because they’ll have to give up the disability check and go back to the soul sucking job.
The key is to be compassionate but honest about how all of your parts really feel. Yes, a part of you wants what you’re planting seeds to create. But does any part of you not want it? That’s what we’re hunting for to bring into consciousness!
Find the places where you yearn for what you desire, and find the places where the energy gets stuck.
Put your care and attention on the stuck places and blocks, and pour the waterfall of your open heart upon them. Dowse them with your compassion and pray for help from the invisible forces of love. If the blocks are strong and rooted in past trauma (in this life or another one—or in the collective), find a good trauma therapist to help you unblock what is yours to unblock.
Let’s PARTY!
Then celebrate! Have a little party for yourself, as if your deepest longing has already come true! Toast your good fortune with a cup of homemade egg nog or raw cacao powder mixed with warm almond milk and maple syrup. Feel your heart full of gratitude for the generosity of a benevolent Universe. Dare to be this honest with yourself and the Universe. Resist the temptation to pretend you don’t really yearn for that which you feel wanting to come your way. Also, resist grasping at it with desperate energy, which suggests that you believe it’s not actually meant for you. As Tosha Silver says, “The very act of grasping for the feather creates the wind current that pushes it away.” Resist thinking you know what’s best—even if what you desire seems like it would benefit the whole planet. Find the tension in the middle between the purity of your unmet longing and the humble, surrendered letting go as you trust in Divine Will and bow before the mystery of it.
Because this Winter Solstice is also so close to the full moon, and full moons are times of celebrating the seeds that have flourished and bloomed, don’t forget to celebrate that which is already manifest in your life! Raise your egg nog to the blessings that are already here. Full moons are also a good time to let go, so that fuels your intention to unblock and release everything that might be blocking the co-creation of what you so deeply yearn for.
Don’t forget to honor the darkness, to bless the lunar/feminine energy of the moon and bow before the returning solar/masculine sun as it comes closer to earth in the next six months. Feel the morphic resonance of all the devoted people who have worshipped the moon, the sun, and the earth for millennia. Connect with their devotion and adoration of these earth and cosmos energies. Feel their hearts in your own heart.
My husband Olivier and I will be leading a ritual like this live in Muir Beach tonight, so feel free to tune in energetically if you can’t be with us in person. Or call your friends and host your own Winter Solstice ritual! (If you’re in the Bay Area, join me and Olivier tonight.)
Happy Solstice, dear ones!
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