This year, the last New Moon of 2014 lands on the same day, within hours in fact, of the Winter Solstice or change of season from Fall to Winter in the northern hemisphere. Mark your calendars because if you are someone who works with energy or follows lunar events, Sunday is an important day for you to set critical intentions for the year ahead.
Winter Solstice, known as Yule in the Celtic tradition, is the longest night of the year. It represents balance between all things light and dark, both outside of and within you. Balance is what we all seek, and at the two Solstice points of the year (summer and winter) we are offered access to this portal in time that our ancestors across almost every tradition and country in the world have historically viewed as sacred and holy. It’s not just the season changing; it’s all of nature surrendering to darkness or, in winter, to light. After December 21 light returns to the land, increasing its scope in minutes day by day. December 21 is all at once a welcome to winter and a farewell to darkness. In just a few weeks, at Imbolc on February 1, we’ll see hints of life burgeoning and spring arriving in muted signs and symbols of growth that are now hidden under layers and blankets of snow and clouds. Solstice asks us not to look too far ahead – to be present in this moment, to find our North, to follow our inner light, to find our way. Solstice says light is coming, but here in the darkness there is S P A C E for you create a new path and forge it in faith. It asks the critical question: What is possible for you? And it dares you to imagine that possibility, to envision it, to breathe into it, to rest in it for a few weeks. At Yule I often don’t share my imaginings; I mirror nature’s silence and darkness and keep it all nestled within my soul, tending it like a child in my womb.
In similar ways, the New Moon is our space of rebirth each month; absent the moon’s light, we are asked to find our way by surrendering and allowing what must naturally unfold while we dream and vision what could be. In this space of darkness and depth, we learn to trust our other senses, especially our inner knowing. That’s why we work with black candles and stones at the New Moon – they represent the darkness mirrored to us by the sky in her days without the glow of the moon.
What does it mean for the New Moon to collide with Solstice this year? I believe this is a grand portal of energy and space and opportunity for you to connect with your deepest sense of Source or God and ask the big questions about your life. Step out in faith and imagine what is fully possible for yourself in 2015, and dream an expansive vision for your life that, when the light returns, can be nourished and supported next spring with roots and leaves and growth and energy. Our ancestors lit white candles at Yule, and we light black candles at the New Moon. This year on December 21, I’ll be lighting both colors and holding space for what is seen and unseen, the light and the darkness, the teachings of nature that mirror to me balance in all things. I hope your New Moon Solstice celebration helps reveal to you with new clarity details about your path and your possibility in ways that inspire you to live even more fully and completely in the year ahead. And so, it is.
Yuletide Blessings from me and my family to you and yours! Ask the big questions, and tend the vision within.