Season and Spirit: Magickal Adventures Around the Wheel of the Year
The Wheel of the Year is the engine that drives NeoPagan practice. Explore thw magick of the season beyond the Eight Great Sabbats.
The Repose of Winter and the Shift into Spring
Outside it is Winter. There's a fierce wind whipping up from the Southwest and more snow is due tonight. Imbolc is a few weeks past, March is around the corner, and signs of the shift into Spring are already happening. Despite the cold temperatures, there are some trees showing tiny swells of buds on the tips of their branches. Despite snow in the forecast, there is more light in the sky. All signs are pointing towards the Waxing Year, the growing light, and the energies of the burgeoning Spring.
We start to feel the stirrings despite the calender, despite the weather: a certain restlessness, or irritation, or pops of energy out of nowhere. The garden catalogs start coming in the mail and we realize the year is in full swing.
When the Year wanes, we Descend, into the dark body of the Earth, and into ourselves. The whole Earth is sleeping and dreaming, and we join that dreaming when we take the time to slow down, get still and connect. This is the time of lying fallow, and we can't move well into the work of the Waxing Year without it. Proper functioning for humans requires that we sleep and dream every day. Our ability to function while awake is dependent on the rest and repair we get during our sleep. To maximize the benefits of yoga, we follow up the physical poses with conscious breathing and stillness (pranayama and shavasana). We need the time of Winter's repose to sift thru the work of the burgeoning year, to evaluate and plan, but most of all to get quiet and still. And in that quiet and stillness, any possibility can arise, miracles can happen, we encounter things we would never have seen rushing immediately into the next round of doing.
Tonight is dark and cold. Winter is still very present. I can feel the stirrings of the new Spring already and I welcome them. But I'm still happy for a few more weeks of cold winter nights, still holding me in a dark embrace. Still luxuriating in the Dream, I'm not quite ready to get out of bed and face the new day. Soon, but not today! Tonight the snow has started to fall and all around me, everything is still, and still Dreaming.
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