A Ritual for Winter Solstice
At Winter Solstice, we set intentions.
Our energies are spiraling inward, we're all cozy and reflective, and we're content to spend a night at home with our journal. It's the perfect time to dreamweave the next year.
There are whole books written about the most effective ways to write your intentions and decide the exact nuance of your goals. For our purposes, let's assume that you've written a list of intentions that you're pleased with and all excited about.
The intentions you set for 2020 will likely be pretty big. After all, they're your intentions for an entire year. They will probably represent a much bigger life shift than, say, the intentions you set for a certain month or a certain holiday gathering that you swear you'll keep your cool at this year.
When you set big intentions and plan to manifest big life shifts, it's helpful to have a big ritual to back them up.
I'm a proponent of empowering your intentions in a whole variety of ways. The more ways, the better. Come at it from all angles.
The following is a ritual for empowering your intentions.
A Ritual for Winter Solstice
1. Get comfortable in a place where you won't be pestered or embarrassed by doing a ritual (i.e. be alone).
2. Write them. Sit down with a blank piece of paper. Write down your list of intentions for 2020.
3. Speak them. Read your intentions out loud, multiple times, emphasizing different words each time you read them.
4. Visualize them. Now that you've basically got them memorized, close your eyes. Sink into your heartspace. Move through each of your intentions, visualizing it in great detail. See yourself living in each scenario. Engage your senses: how does it feel here? How does it smell, or sound? Can you see your hand reaching for something? What is your daily life like?
5. Sing them. Yep, now you're singing. Gently beat a drum or shake a rattle, singing your intentions lovingly to yourself (this is why I suggested you do this alone). This is a way of raising the vibration of your intentions -- and a way of communicating them to the plant community (if you're singing to a specific Plant Ally, even better).
6. Consummate them. When we make magic, we are bringing a spiritual change into the material world. Thus, it is helpful to consummate a spiritual change with a physical act (which is why both spellcraft and sex magic exist). You don't have to do anything crazy -- any physical act will do. I often choose sipping a potion as my physical act. The Midwinter Spice Oxymel I wrote about yesterday would make the perfect potion for consummating your intentions. Simply hold each intention in your heart, and as you hold it there, place a few drops of the oxymel on your tongue. As the flavor sinks into your body, so too will the shift you're seeking to bring about.
7. Bask in the glory. The vibrational shift you've created is already changing the material world around you. Your intentions are coming to fruition as we speak. Huzzah!
If you're looking for more ways to celebrate Solstice or Questions for Reflection to guide your journalling, The Inward Spiral is a good place to start.