How will you honor the longest night of the year, followed by the gradual lengthening of days, the return of the light – prayed for and celebrated by northern peoples throughout time?
For several years I’ve joined Portland’s Threshold Singers in a community gathering that honors both darkness and light. If you’re in Portland, consider participating! Details for “Longest Night: Rhythms of Resilience” are below.
If you’re elsewhere or needing the comforts of home, I can highly recommend the on-line ceremony hosted by Michael Meade of Living Myth. His free online Solstice ritual, In This Darkness Singing, “weaves together songs and story, rituals of remembrance of those we have lost, rites of forgiveness and a resounding collective prayer to bring back the light of healing and the capacity of life to renew itself at the darkest hours.” Learn more here.
Longing to create your own Solstice Ritual? Be Ceremonial, my colleagues in British Columbia, provide an on-line platform to help you “create a Winter Solstice ceremony by choosing from our library of curated rituals to acknowledge your unique experience.” Learn more here.
However you spend the shortest day and longest night of this seasonal turn of the Great Wheel, may it bring you the blessings of reflection and integration, embrace and release.
With thanks to Leanne Logan for her gorgeous photo of the Sonoran desert starry night.