Mastering the Winter...Attuning to the Solstice

The Winter Solstice approaches. We sit at the foot of her. She is the arms into which I fell at my birth. She holds the lessons of my life in the most potent of ways.

She is the frozen teaching, the one that never changes, yet blows through time like the brisk wind of the season. In the lap of winters' wisdom do I find myself transforming yet again....and a sense of magic mixed with tender release fills my day as I prepare to honor the womb space from which I emerged into this earth plane.  But it is not just I who can benefit from understanding and attuning with this potent space upon us...

I believe the Winter Solstice holds open a door for all of us, and what we do with that opening will

determine where we will go from here and what we leave behind.

The magic I feel at this time of year comes from the delicate, yet fierce way the seasons slide into one another, darkness layering on more darkness....rain upon snow...dead leaves burying the earth for hibernation, inner reflection, and potential growth again at a later time. This is the moment for reflection. For shedding, for letting the old be buried away as old bodies who have lost their soul shine.

As the nights lengthen, just a bit more, reaching ever so stalwartly into the depths of mind, heart and soul...and the dream time dances with the notes of discomfort for some, pain for others, the magic comes in form of surrender...in the silent spaces between words and heartbeats...between flakes of snow and teardrops.

Like a fairy who knows the potentiality hidden behind the sadness, behind the seed unsprouted, behind the compost awaiting the fresh new life it will feed, the solstice spirit pushes to the edge of our liking...to the end of what was, into the land of 'what will most definitely be' beyond the "heartbreak."
What is this heartbreak??? For for many of us, we would not deem it such.
The funny thing about heartbreak, is that it can happen for reasons we may not understand, yet try to pin on other things that seem appropriate. It may happen in minute and seemingly invisible ways...but it is a heartbreak, even so - as a piece of our understanding, our perceived "safety" shatters to make room for more light.
Sometimes our bodies are just changing, morphing, becoming something new, something different, something more than they were...and it feels funny, it feels uncomfortable, it feels unsure, because it's new. I believe this happens most reverently at this potent time of year. In the darkness of the world night, the human vessel receives hidden codes of awakening...seeding us for the grace of understanding it never knew before.
When this occurs, as this IS occurring, I find it helpful to retreat into the quiet, not run from it; to

retreat from the need to speak and "work things out" with words and simply go to where the heart beats in the stillness of the night. For within the body vessel, there is a dark space that is lit with consciousness....and in that place, we know what is happening. In the quiet we can learn to honor the unfolding that need silence to bloom.
The Winter Solstice is the Mother of Silence, of Change. She is the Goddess who embraces her shadow and by doing so, ushers back in the light to dance the waxing journey of conscious expression back into the eyes of the seen. She is powerful, for she stands, unmoved in the freezing cold and bitterness of self-hatred, self-loathing and inner disbelief, in the winds of sadness, loss and uncertainty, to allow for the shatter. She knows when the cold is allowed to seep all the way through, that heavy shadow of self - will break...and Spring will appear to show the sprouts of a new life that have been all the while hiding in the undercover.
Winter Solstice takes us in her arms, if we allow her, and buries us in the snows of forgiveness.

The world looks so beautiful after winters' first storm...and with such a stark white blanket glistening crystals of frozen consciousness, we forget all about the mud, dead leaves and neglected gardens, sidewalk cracks and toys left to the cold. Instead we only see magic. We see the purity of the untouched, the mystery revealing itself as trillions of unique translucent shapes falling from eternity.

It is true, the darkness can be bitter, as the cold can be relentless and without sign of end. In the winter our bodies shudder, shake and fold in on themselves in search of warm crevices and memories of a time with less crack in the air. But in the arms of Solstice, if we are brave enough, and think not to resist or avoid the lessons and the gifts of this crest of time, we may receive the great blessing of Bold Empowerment and Rebirth.

For Mother Winter, the Goddess of the Dark Night knows all that lies in waiting in our deepest recesses, and will grant us access through her holy gates in order to retrieve our most precious treasures, wisdoms and remembrances, left frozen in suspended time, if we will stand in the discomfort and look behind the bustle of words and movement long enough to find them.

This might be my first year I have really understood the lessons and the power of the Winter Solstice. As I move into my 42nd year and laugh at the numbers, only to embrace the experiences which have brought me to this point, I find that I am in deep amaze at the portal to infinity that exists in these gates resting in the quarters of our western calendar. The Winter Solstice is my home and I chose to come through this gate to wear the blessings of its passing as a garland of humility and power.

This year I claim it and activate my Winter Goddess self in the arms of the night. By doing so, I find the greatest love I have ever known in between sheets and heartbeats, for the love-affair one has with oneself and life are the signpost and means by which any external lover may ever manifest in the flesh....and tonight I am falling back in deep love with myself. And it is dark, with a silver, shimmering lining...one that lures in the light like only a queen could do. And I am cloaked in gratitude, love, and praise for the most high.

The Most Brilliant of Winter Solstices' to you. <3
May you have bliss in your house like I have in mine.
<3 So Very Much Love All ~
For We are One
Stasia Bliss