Winter Solstice: The Dark Light Threshold

Hello all,

And to those new here, a warm welcome too. Feel free to come and introduce yourself here.

Today on The Wild Edge, I am bringing you some reflections on the threshold in the Celtic Calendar of the Winter Solstice, and the symbolism and wisdom it so graciously holds for us in dark times. I hope you enjoy, and if you’d like more, for paid subscribers, I’ve also created a short downloadable guide, with prompts, reflections and a creative practice to nourish you at this important turn in the year. There’s even a playlist to go with it too.

Thank you, and sending wishes as we all learn to navigate our way onwards,

Clare x

We are snug to the fulcrum of the Winter Solstice. In the northern hemisphere, as deep mid-winter settles in, the trees bare, their skeletal frame is writ in the shapes in the sky, and as the year turns once more, the circle of time is a teller of the stories that travel with us, some stories as old as the moon, and others that we make in our moments.

Here on the edge of a continent, as I look towards the Atlantic breaking shore, the night hangs low, and the tide, inward bound, has travelled far. Some years it feels further than others, and this year, it seems, more tumultuous too. The world is bearing weight, and no amount of stories can gloss the tides of grief and loss which wear themselves like a scar on our humanity. It can feel raw, and bare and stark; the frame of what holds us is exposed. And yet, as winter solstice approaches, the threshold itself holds clues to how we might cross. For as the world spins, as the marker of the year delineates itself in the sky and on the stones, in the very moment of the blackest night, the light penetrates once more, splicing time into a new season, and there, least when we might expect it, in the very depths of the bleak, summer is born.

The wisdom of the Celtic calendar, with its eight seasons, begins at Samhain (or modern day Halloween), in the dark. We have just travelled through the season of shedding and releasing, as the branches and bracken testify. As the weather took hold, so do did the mythological crone of ‘The Cailleach’; a sterly, fierce embodiment of feminine power, who on Samhain’s crossing, took herself into our lives. She ravages the mountains, but also the mountains we’ve made in our minds; inviting us to shed old narratives of who we are and release the beliefs that might hold us back. The Cailleach, carries us across the threshold of the Winter Solstice with an invitation; first to pause, and then to sink even further into the dark, where the ground is ripe with fecundity and is daring us with the energy of dream and vision. She’ll carry us through until the end of January, when she’ll then hand us over to Brigid, the poet creative, to align and alight our stirrings. But first we must learn to sit in the dark, listen to the silence below the silence. We must squirm in the discomfort of not knowing. And even when we have welcomed the crack of light, still we must wait.

We are so uncomfortable with waiting. Our always on, always productive, linear trajectories of growth and development, protest. It’s the masculine drive, for accomplishment showing up to ever increase our output. Who are we to stop, to rest, to listen? In fact, how do we even to this? Our systems are so wired for stimulation, it takes effort to slow. But in the slow gestational dark, in the loam of our imagination and our callings, there are gems.

The Winter Solstice has always held magic in my own mythic imagination. Growing up, hearing stories of the returning light at the ancient site of Newgrange, in Co. Louth, I remember holding my breath, wondering, will the light enter the chamber this year? We’d need clear skies, which in wintery Ireland are never a given. Newgrange, 5200 years old, is a womb-like mound, accessed though a passage tomb. It’s the representation of the masculine and the feminine; with the feminine holding the birthplace of the light. At the mouth of the passage tomb there is a lintel, and on the days hugging the solstice, the light enters at dawn and lights up the back chamber of the tomb, fully so on the solstice itself. It’s that what still feels like a miracle to me. How did they know, whoever made it? Now, I think about how attuned my ancestors must have been to the rhythms of the turning, to the stars and to the earth, and how they must have understood that time was a cyclical dial, returning, always returning.

In the Irish language, Solstice is ‘Grianstad’, meaning sun stand still, sol - stice. On those days, we are invited into the pause, to sit into the dark, and also into the birth. Death and life, held in this pivot point. Joy and sorrow too; what is it to hold the contradictions and paradoxes of life and still hold hope like a promise. Like all the seasonal thresholds in the Celtic calendar, it’s a beautiful time to reflect on time’s passing currency in our lives, and at Winter Solstice, particularly to think about the potential of the dark, gestational fecundity of these times, in our own life, and in the great winter we are in. In every turning there is wisdom, in that wisdom there is medicine, and in that medicine there is a path laid, by the hands of the earth and the map of the stars, into our deepest imaginational longings. The invite is to listen. The sky is there to help us, and time itself, holding us by the hand, and saying, here, cross, I’ve got you.

A Special Winter Solstice Guide: Creative Practices, Writing Prompts and Seasonal Ritual.

For paid subscribers, I have made a special Winter Solstice guide, with seasonal practices, prompts and a simple creative ritual. This is an editable 10 page PDF download, which can either be printed or saved digitally. All artwork and imagery is my own too- a little labour of love.

Later in the week I will also be sharing a short piece about working with the energy of this threshold in our creative lives, speaking about how we can harness the dark and the unknown in our writing, our creative projects and our imagination.

I even have a special Winter Solstice playlist for you all.

If you are not a paid subscriber, you can join now to access.

Winter Solstice Salon

Also, on Winter Solstice (December 20th, 7-9pm Irish time) I am hosting a night of poetry, journalling and seasonal ritual. This is included in gold membership, but tickets can also be purchased separately via my ticketing site, luma. This is one of the highlights of my hosting year- I have been hosting these for four years now, and each year, a little bit of magic is created. As a special bonus, to celebrate the launch of The Wild Edge, I am offering a gift ticket to anyone who signs up for an annual Wild Edge membership before Dec 19th.

Afterwards, I will be hogging the fire, lighting candles and entering a period of rest and listening. The deep dark awaits, and I dream to enter.

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For those of you not in the Northern Hemisphere, it’s interesting to thinking about flipping the questions. Leaving a period of light, you are entering a period of darkness, and for this, I hope these reflections offer some guidance too.