It’s always darkest before the dawn.

Welcome to the longest night of the year and our very last day of Magic Snacks! We can all go to bed tonight, or stay up till dawn, safe in the knowledge that there will be no nights as long as this, no darkness as dark as this again, for at least another year. The days have grown darker and colder, the leaves have fallen, the animals have hibernated. Death’s fingers are upon the cold hard ground.

As Nigel Tufnell says,

‘There’s something about this that’s so black, it’s like how much more black could this be? And the answer is none. None more black.’

While it’s only natural that the return of the sun is cause for celebration, today’s cards ask the same question posed by Gwendolyn Brooks:

truth
BY GWENDOLYN BROOKS

And if sun comes
How shall we greet him?
Shall we not dread him,
Shall we not fear him
After so lengthy a
Session with shade?
Though we have wept for him,
Though we have prayed
All through the night-years—
What if we wake one shimmering morning to
Hear the fierce hammering
Of his firm knuckles
Hard on the door?
Shall we not shudder?—
Shall we not flee
Into the shelter, the dear thick shelter
Of the familiar
Propitious haze?
Sweet is it, sweet is it
To sleep in the coolness
Of snug unawareness.
The dark hangs heavily
Over the eyes.

The Solstice Reading

How Shall We Greet The Sun?

Hello, Tower, our old friend. After these last few days The Tower seems changed to me. I don’t see grasping, I see acrobats performing tricks, springing on their hands, as the tower burns. Light a bonfire tonight. Throw on it all your artificial constructs and fixed ideas of what the world says you should be striving for. Watch it burn and do a little dance. The razor fire of truth will set you free.

Better The Devil You Know

Ahhh…Lucifer, light bringer. All through the night years we have been bound to you, bound to our compulsions, our dark feelings, fears and pain. It is cool and sweet in the darkness. But the solstice marks the sun’s entry into Capricorn and if we can just turn around and face you then we might be able to receive your gifts: subversion, defiance, passion, desire and the power to use our darkest moments as seeds for personal growth.  The Devil grows from the abyss.

Those are your options for greeting the sun; ecstasy or alchemy.

When dawn comes, tonight will be a memory too

All Hail The Sun! Sunrise and sunset are the primal rituals of our collective consciousness. For as long as humans have had the power of observation they have gathered at these two moments to pause, observe, reflect and marvel, measuring their lives in this eternal daily cycle of light and dark.

With this card we honour the light of health and glory. We recognise the source of all life and bask in the promise of having all of the best that life has to offer. To Thrive! That is the promise of The Sun.

The twins are shown at the heart of the card to remind us that we really are made from the universe. The sun is nothing more than another star and every person on earth is made of stardust. Scientists now are beginning to recognise that the universe is conscious. Perhaps we, as mundane specimens of consciousness, are a way for the universe to know itself.

All hail!

“. . . The song of the light! I would capture its elusive melody as it curves throughout the year, as it waxes and wanes with the pilgrim’s errand of the sun through the skies; for the year is but a cycle of light, a poem of solar pulsations, now low, then high, carrying with their rhythm the message and meaning of that supreme Being, whose presence is light and whose name men stammer in many tongues.” Dane Rudhyar, New Mansions For Men

The Spell Of You

I don’t have a spell for you today. What I have is a gift. I am gifting you all with the power to write your own spell, create your own ritual of celebration, honour the return of the light deeply because it matches the flame of your own golden magic.

Mysticism is the way we experience our nondual consciousness. Ritual is the way we participate in it. Experience and Participation. Feeling and Being. Spirit and Matter. To write a spell, you build a potent field of analogy between these poles and you apply it to your desire. This is the Law of Correspondences in action. Ritualistic actions & imagery communicate the idea to your unconscious because this is its lingua franca. You don’t need faith or belief, but also you do. You need belief that the analogy you are creating is THE ONE. You need to feel it under your skin and in your bones. It needs to touch you.

The Instructions

1. Focus on your intention, for this week, or for the coming year. Feel it deeply in your body.
2. Now does it remind you of any past memory? Is it evocative of a feeling that’s familiar to you? Maybe a walk on the beach at sunset, with the sand between your toes and the gentle lapping of the waves as the glorious rays of the sun blaze across the sky? Go fully into your past memory and really feel yourself in that space. Remember the shuttling exercise in Day 2? We’ll do the same with this memory. This is the analogy that we’ll apply to your intention in order to find the words and actions for the spell.
3. Staying in that space of memory and imagination draw 3 cards and ask them: what does this spell want to say? Allow words and images from the memory to connect with the images of the cards. Do not get distracted by card meanings or what you know or don’t know about the cards. Just feel and start writing.
4. Spells work best when they are a rhythmic, evocative and symbolic.  There’s a reason nursery rhymes stick in our minds long after their original meaning has slipped away.
   
   Here’s an example: I drew the King of Cups, 4 of Cups and The Star. My intention is to reconcile with my sister. My memory is a day at the beach when we were younger that was full of joy and play, with crashing waves and a blinding sun. I allow the cards to inspire these words…

   King of Seas,
   laughter and joy;
   Wash over me
   That I may give
   my cup of kindness
   in friendship and love.
   Friends and sisters
   Sisters and stars
   We are all suns

   So it is

5. Gather any materials that you feel to drawn to incorporate in your ritual and find an appropriate place tonight or tomorrow to perform your spell.
6. If your Tower of Power is still standing, now is the time to let it burn out and to thank it for its guidance

My Solstice Ritual

Tonight my family will perform our solstice ritual. We are making a wicker man of sorts – he’s not actually wicker, nor is he very man-like.  Inside we will place all the things we want to say goodbye to from the last year and we will say ‘thank you and goodbye’ as we light them all on fire. We will have a good scotch in our cups to toast the return of the light.  My Dad will fall asleep on the sofa. My Mom will play the slightly tipsy but wise Grandmother role. The kids will get to play with fire. My brother and I will crack inappropriate jokes and annoy his wife. At some point I will place my spell, written on parchment, in the fire and wish that my sister would join us too. I will honour my Grandmothers and will raise my cup one last time in gratitude for the last seven days with you.