Winter Solstice (Yule) is traditionally celebrated in many circles as the beginning of new light. It is the point of the year when night reaches its zenith; from then on each day grows longer as the sun returns to the northern hemisphere. Starhawk's Winter Solstice ritual in Spiral Dance ends with the chant: "The tide has turned! The light will come again! In a new dawn, in a new day, the sun is rising!" Diane Stein in Casting the Circle calls Yule a ritual of rebirth, the return of the Goddess and of light and warmth. Janice Broch in Seasonal Dance calls Yule the anticipation of the return of the sun where darkest night is also the rebirth of light.
Why all this rush to get out of the dark? We noticed the days growing shorter way back at Lammas and we gathered in our dues and paid our debts in the waning light of Mabon. At Samhain we left the world of the living and entered the world of the dead. If we have taken a quarter of a year to get to the dark, why a bare six weeks later are we anxiously heralding the light again?
Technically, of course, it is true that the days do grow longer after Winter Solstice. The Almanac predicts earlier dawning's and later sunsets as the numerical calendar advances. The Almanac, however, does not relieve our feeling that we have many months of darkness ahead. Our psychic sense of winter extends all the way to Ostara. Even at Imbolc, in far off February, we light many candles to encourage the light, which we still do not see. So while the sun may peek over the heel stone at Stonehenge in late December, darkness rules for yet a considerable time.
Do we want to hurry the light because we fear the dark? Yes, thinks Demetra George as she explains in her book, Mysteries of the Dark Moon. She counters this fear by saying:
Our images of the dark will ... have to be revised. This is a courageous movement toward accepting the wholeness of our being that challenges our misogynic cultural conditioning of fearing the great dark unknown.
This statement is significant. It identifies the dark with the unknown, yet it acknowledges the dark as an intrinsic part of ourselves. That means there is a part of ourselves that we do not know and that we therefore fear. How did we lose our knowledge of the dark? Many feminist writers have charged the patriarchal religions with setting up false divisions and hierarchies, including the separation of light and dark. These thought forms taught that the dark was evil and that we should shun it for the light. But by shunning the dark, we shun an essential part of ourselves, therefore experiencing ignorance and fear about it. This is the real original sin, because it robs us of our wholeness. It creates a false need that the patriarchies supply from a god and a church outside of us. Thus they hold us captive to a power monopoly which claims to dispense something called "grace" that will fill the cavity we used to fill by ourselves with our dark side.
D. George uses the moon to illustrate how we are whole. She explains that the moon has a distinct period between the last quarter and the new moon. The moon must pass through this period to renew itself.
It is at this point that we enter into the dark moon phase, the transition between the destruction of the old and the creation of the new. This process is called transformation, a process that occurs whenever any life form has fulfilled its purpose and used up its store of vital energy. It then becomes necessary for that form to be broken down in order to liberate the contained energy so it can be revitalized, recharged, and made available again to be infused into a new life form.
D. George draws a parallel between the eight phases of the moon and the eight sabbats. For her, Winter Solstice is like the dark period of the moon. She calls this period the "depth of dark" or "balsamic" phase. This dark phase is the time of transformation when healing and renewal occur.
When we entered the dark time at Samhain, we let go of last year's structure so our energy could be reabsorbed into a formless state of nonbeing. D. George says that in this dark phase, our energy essence is cleansed, distilled, revitalized, and imbued with a new vision that ultimately will become our new form rebirthed at Imbolc.
Much pain and agony may arise in the process of releasing our vital energy from useless forms or habitual nonproductive psychological patterns, but this is also the very energy that will nourish us and enable us to push onward toward new growth. The end results may not become apparent until we have clarified and enacted our new vision, and this often takes some time.
I suggest that this time takes longer than six weeks. In our mundane world, these very weeks are filled to panic proportions. There are the American holidays, the family gatherings, the commercial orgy, third quarter earnings reports and year-end inventories. Football, basketball, hockey and soccer glue many to their video altars. Cards, cookies, and gifts bury us in self-inflicted obligation. Is it any wonder that we collapse in January, physically and emotionally exhausted? Is it any wonder that New Year's resolutions hastily made, just as hastily fade? How much introspection and renewal can we accomplish in the midst of this cacophony and still leap to a rebirth of light at Winter Solstice? What kind of renewal can we make at Imbolc, if we have not lain fallow in deep spiritual rest in our balsamic season? How can we hope for next year to be better, deeper, richer or more fulfilling than the last, if we don't take enough time to transform?
D. George says an understanding of the Dark Goddess will help us develop our night vision. Taking time to rest, to lay fallow, and to disintegrate into formless nonbeing is a way to acquire night vision, so we can navigate and gain knowledge of the dark phase of the wheel of the year and the balsamic phase of our own being. With knowledge comes understanding and appreciation. With appreciation we can reclaim ownership of our dark phase and embrace it like a long lost sister, home at last. We can look forward to the dark and willingly linger there.
In Greek myth, Persephone reenters Hades each year, not in fear or in duty, but in anticipation. She looks forward to her transformation in the underworld and gladly shares Pluto's bed and table. She chooses to eat the pomegranate seeds and thereby takes personal ownership of her dark phase. It is not hope of returning to the upper world that sustains her in Hades. She is not a prisoner in the underworld; she is its queen. She embraces dark and death and is thereby rebirthed anew each spring as Kore. Persephone/Kore has night vision.
How do we incorporate Persephone/Kore's experience into our wheel of the year? How do we accept the loving embrace of the Dark Mother and willingly dissolve ourselves into her womb?
We might begin by reevaluating our rituals for Winter Solstice. We might start by giving it more room to breathe on its own, leaving the act of dying at Samhain and not invoking rebirth until Imbolc. We can postpone references to new light until spring. In fact, we can take action verbs out of the Solstice altogether, since we are passive at this time. We can take out references to individuality, too, as we have dissolved into nonbeing. Sacred space can be created to evoke a dark place that is full of its own meaning without gloom, sadness, or fear. A connection may be drawn between tomb and womb. Visualizations may be conjured to image leaving the husk of last year's form, and scattering our protoplasm throughout the earth and amongst the stars, mingling and commingling with all variety of other protoplasms, minerals and elements of the universe. We can use whatever will work to create a ritual which acknowledges the time it will take for our personal essence to cleanse, distill, reenergize, and refocus into a new vision of itself.
As the caterpillar surrenders in the darkness of its cocoon to the biological and chemical processes which break down its form, and in time emerges as a new butterfly, so we can surrender ourselves to the Dark Mother at Winter Solstice to allow our own transformation. By plunging into the dark, enthusiastically appreciating and embracing it, we may emerge at Imbolc with something truly worth lighting a candle about!
Janice Van Cleve is a writer who has passed through many dark periods and is beginning to appreciate them more each time.
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