Solstice 2011

This year, we had our small family gathering on Solstice Eve as we've done for many years now.
This gathering is when we decorate our tree and exchange gifts.
I grew up with Christmas Eve being the day we got and decorated our tree and for years continued that tradition with my own family. But when we moved up here to Indiana, we discovered that trees are nowhere to be found by Christmas Eve and become scarce even in the week before.  That was the original reason for the switch and also satisfied my desire to allow my  children freedom to create their own traditions  on Christmas Eve and Day as they grew up.

I never wanted to be the mom in the sentence (usually preceded by a heavy sigh) "No, I can't do that - I have to go to my mom's for Christmas."  And yet I'm rather okay with "No, I can't do that - I've got to go to my mom's for Solstice."

So daughter Molly came in for two days and we had a sweet little Solstice Eve. Granddaughter Sophia, Son Shaun also came and we opened the gifts from Son Ian and his wife Lisa. One way or another we were all there and though we didn't talk about Patrick much, I lit a special candle for him and I imagine he was as much on everyone's mind as he was on mine.

Solstice 2011 Mother-Daughter Adventure Part 1

So I invited Molly to join me at dawn the next day, to join me in rattling up the returning sun and to participate in my version of The Mother of All Releasing Ceremonies created and widely made known by Pixie Campbell.

Ingredients we used for Releasing: seed pod rattles, white sage smudge stick, tiny cauldron, crow feather, rose solid perfume. Unseen are the bundle with herbs & tobacco and the numerous tiny slips of paper upon which we wrote things that do not serve us well,  all that we wanted to release, to make room for things that will serve us well. By the time I took this picture, they were burnt to smithereens - turned to ash, buried, vanished into air and earth.  

It was spectacular to share this with my daughter and also a very mysterious thing happened.
We smudged ourselves and rattled seed pods at dawn. Crow was cawing and flying over. It took a long time to burn our bundles in the tiny cauldron I have, and it was a good time of raising energy and reflecting.

We swept away the smoke using a beautiful handmade broom my sister gave me, with a branch handle and dark purple straw. 
Some discussion over what to do with the ashes.
We decided to bury them. More discussion about where. 

We decided on a spot by a bush that birds like to hang out in.

I began to tell my daughter about the full moon of 11/11/11, the one where I left out a bowl of stones & crystals & totems and some animal took it and dragged it off several yards.
I told her how I found everything strewn about, except for a crystal a friend had given me & a black stone that was holding grief.

I wrote here that day about that experience, about how I looked and looked for those stones...how, as I wrote in my journal:

"... Of all the objects I’d placed in the bowl for charging, these two had deepest emotional energy for me.

The quartz crystal had a beautiful occlusion suspended in it. It was mined from Earth by a dear old friend and given to me as part of a public ceremony of gratitude. But it had some subtle negative energy attached. My old friend and I, while not having a falling out, have had a falling away. We are out of alignment, and that has sadness to it, and came to me every time I touched that crystal.

The black stone was included to represent the Dark Moon, the Shadow….it had my grief attached to it.



I am thinking perhaps it is a gift that these particular objects were taken, that it is about letting go.

It’s more, though, it’s about help in letting go, I think. About knowing I have Guides and Helpers, that the current of Mystery in the universe flows all about me, that Spirit permeates physical reality.



It’s possible these objects may be returned to me. 
And if they do, I think they will be cleansed of any negative energy,while still representing the Shadow of things. "



Since 11/11,  I'd continued to stir the leaves about, looking for the stones, most every time I was out in the yard. 

I'd just finished telling Molly that story and she turned to go in the garage to get a shovel and I brushed away some leaves from the spot where we chose to dig....and, with a cry of utter astonishment and delight, I saw the quartz crystal!

It has been returned. And at such an auspicious moment. I felt blessed and...deeply awed and full of reverence.

Next, I shall tell you about that afternoon, and Part 2 of Solstice 2011 Mother-Daughter Adventure.

Bright blessings to all!


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