PaganSquare


PaganSquare is a community blog space where Pagans can discuss topics relevant to the life and spiritual practice of all Pagans.

  • Home
    Home This is where you can find all the blog posts throughout the site.
  • Tags
    Tags Displays a list of tags that have been used in the blog.
  • Bloggers
    Bloggers Search for your favorite blogger from this site.
  • Login
    Login Login form
Subscribe to this list via RSS Blog posts tagged in winter

Posted by on in Culture Blogs
Northern Mandate

Call it the Northern Mandate.

For some, Spring Cleaning is an annual rite.

But here in the Uttermost North, we have Fall Cleaning too.

During Summer, our attentions and efforts are outward-directed. We're out doing things. (Quickly, there's not much time.) Doors and windows are open. In-house work gets neglected.

But now it's Winter. Our attentions and efforts turn inward. Windows and doors are closed, and we're facing the prospect of being shut in with all this for the next six months.

It's only natural to do what you can to undo Summer's lapses: to make where you are as bearable as you possibly can.

Well, the White Ravens have flown. Yet again we give in to the age-old urge.

Last modified on
Recent Comments - Show all comments
  • Steven Posch
    Steven Posch says #
    Gods speed the work.
  • Kile Martz
    Kile Martz says #
    Just such has gripped me. Moving furniture, dispatching dust bunnies, and moving broken things on to their next lives.

Posted by on in Signs & Portents
As Spring Draws Near...

It seems like winter juster arrived, but already it’s on its way out. Today is Imbolc, the Celtic festival celebrating the end of winter and the beginning of spring (though most of us don’t regard that to happen until the Equinox). It’s also approximated by St Brighid’s Day, Candlemas, Groundhog Day, Setsubun in Japan, and the Spring Festival in China (better known in the West as the Chinese New Year’s). Basically, a time to celebrate impending the return of warmth and the sun after months of cold and snow.

As usual we’ve gathered all of our related stories as well as those we found across the web that we thought were interesting. We hope you enjoy and have an enjoyable month and a half on the way to the equinox!

Last modified on

Posted by on in Culture Blogs
Just Winter

It's just Winter now, and I took down all the Yule decorations this weekend—the tree, the ornaments, the pine garland on the mantle, the wreath, everything has been been taken down, put away, discarded. The boxes are back in a shadowy corner of the basement. Like Narnia, where it was “always Winter and never Christmas,” the trees are bare, snow is inches deep, the wind is icy, and now dark nights are even darker, there are no Christmas lights still lit to soften the darkness.

It's just Winter, and the bills we ran up during festive Sagittarius, have come due in austere, disciplined Capricorn. The holiday season has ebbed, and in its wake is a return to the small and cautious, to the frugal, to the tightening of belts, the tyranny of the budget, the austerity of a cleaner diet. It's just Winter, just a cold season with many weeks to Spring, still hibernating and quiet, too soon to plan Spring's garden or Summer's vacation.

...
Last modified on

Posted by on in Studies Blogs
A Meditation on Winter

The medieval Scots poet William Dunbar is probably best known for his humour, but he offers A Meditation on Winter that captures the melancholy many feel at this time of year.

Into thir dirk and drublie dayis
Quhone sabill all the hevin arrayis
With mystie vapouris, cluddis, and skyis,
Nature all curage me denyis
Of sangis, ballattis, and of playis.

...
Last modified on

Posted by on in SageWoman Blogs
Celebrating Colour

The grey skies and the angle of the sun in a British January often conspire to wash the colour out of the landscape. Whatever colour remains, that is, after the leaves come down, and the grass dies back. Sometimes we get frost and snow – pretty at first but rapidly greying as well. Our winters tend to lack visual drama. What we get instead is drab, and demoralising. This is why celebrating colour in January is so very important.

There are of course brighter days, when the lower angle of the sun can produce surprising effects. Intensely bright blue skies are always possible. I walked on Christmas day this year, and the combination of cloud and low light conspired to create soft light, filling the woods with unexpectedly warm tones. When there’s any kind of decent daylight, it is important to get out there and experience it, especially if you are someone prone to winter blues.

...
Last modified on

Posted by on in SageWoman Blogs
Gaia's Fires in the Cold of Winter

The Solstice is upon us and the chill of Winter is reaching deeply into bone. This year, in particular, is one that has tested the boundaries of cold and feeling isolated in a vast tundra of unknowing”ness”. Things change from season to season and in the never ending cycle that is life itself, Gaia remains steadfast and strong in offering up her body as our home and our refuge as Her fires burn brightly. 

Even though I know this to be true, the memory of her fires fades as the Light of the Solstice returns and Summer takes hold. But now, this is the time of remembering as the nights have grown longer and the cold seeps in, and I feel a chill that cannot be heated by physical warmth. This is a cold that holds the space of awaiting the stoking of the inner fires that resonate with that of Gaia and fuel the yearning, to once again, be held in her embrace. 

...
Last modified on
Today, I am a Flamekeeper of Brighid

 The longest night is upon us. For three short days, we have watched the watery sun rise and set in the same place on the horizon, barely skimming the treetops at its highest point, filmed over by hazy clouds. This morning, it was impossible to tell just when the sun had risen, and indeed even though it has been up for half an hour, it's just as dark as before, with heavy overcast skies letting in only a small amount of light. I lit a candle in my lantern dedicated to Brighid just as the sun rose somewhere behind the clouds, and in Her name I lit my solstice flame. The candle's flame burns very low, just barely alight as it struggles amidst a pool of wax and an insufficient wick. There is the tiniest amount of light at the tip, with a small blue aura beneath. I look at it even as I type these words, and its struggle portends much to come.  

It has been a difficult year for many. Across the Western world, we have been rocked by unprecedented political change. There is not much hope for the future. Political leaders do not have the common good in mind, and greed runs riot. Things have not changed for the better. Across the globe, war, strife and unrest rage, with millions of innocent beings suffering.  And there is still more darkness to come.  

Last modified on

Additional information