Winter Preparation- a Journey to the Winter Goddess to her hearth. To ask to be prepared for the Winter Season. For the darkness.
It's still surprises me today as I feel the resistance and fear in my heart to let go to let go of the ghost of my past to let go of the struggles of my ancestors to let go of what I have held onto for so long for myself and others.
Being in the hearth of these compassionate and powerful goddesses. In the darkest night or on the brightest day when the snow sparkles of the moon or sunlight. We are brought to the hearth of her home. Brought into the safe shelter with provisions, warmth and soup.
That is there where we face the things in us that are ready to let go to surrender and pull from the deepest places in us to bring to the flame for it to be burnt up.
Be kind and be gentle as you go deep into your self. Through the unknown into the coals of your own fire.
Asking for direction in your Practice and how to be in Connection with your guides- Journey to your oldest known guide, your confidant. Ask them about ritual and how to be in practice.
We're all moving to the world and our own dream. We can ask how to be in connection in ritual with our spirits. Our life is a ceremony. Our life is a great journey. Everyone we come across is a teacher and a guide. Ask your spirits for wisdom and how to move through your life in a balanced connected way.
Do these Journeys for yourself. Set up a winter Altar and honour this time we are entering into. build your own hearth in your home.
Drum Track on Resources page- Podcast if you need.
The last week has been a bit of a whirlwind, as an air sign I do love a whirlwind. This was a type of wind that cracks old trees and brings them down with a hefty crunch in the quiet forest. Only to leave the forest more silent than it was before.
The spiral continues in the way spirals do either either in a continuous swirl inward or slowing outward. seeming to build a momentum so natural and so perfect in its structure that it is hard to stop when it begins.
So here we are lucky number 3, the trinity. The triple spiral is a powerful symbol that many of us have seen in our lives, not dependent on its popular home in Ireland, but cross-culturally as well.
So to cover a bit more of the last spiral whirlwind tree down in the forest to not be forgotten mentioned earlier. It was a journey into the hearth of the goddess of winter. To be taken into her home and next to her hearth and ask for what it is in the heart that needs to be revealed and taken care of for the dark nights ahead.
For those of you just catching up, conscious or unconscious we are connected to the forces of nature and the spirits that guardian and herald these times. When we cross the other world it is not out of the realm to meet gods, goddesses, and powerful beings that tend to seasonal shifts.
To consciously go to these beings who know deeply what it means to enter into such phases, to not just survive, although that is crucial but to thrive and be conscious as we too are going to shift, for we are not separate from the turn of the wheel.
So into the heart, into the hearth, into the fire to burn up what is no longer needed, into your stomach is the soup sitting over the hearth, over the flame, full of care, prayer, and medicine. Drink it and it becomes you, cooks down, melts your lies, and fills you with warmth and love so there is no room left for the things you are so tired of carrying.
Now you have gone to the goddess of winter, she has revealed what in your heart in her hearth. Your heart has been seen to and may need tending. When we unearth these old rituals, when we dig through the cold dirt pulling roots in the cold, when we get to the matters of our heart and open it wide you may feel the ache.
The ache of passing through the portal of your heart, going so deep within into the unknown. Pulling open a place in your heart wide enough to step through and then keeping it ajar to be able to access the truths that lay buried in there so you can move in a way that makes sense. How honest it may be, how free it may be to be feeling the truth, to have the love come through you it also can hurt. Not just like man that heartache emotionally hurts but it can also physically hurt! Like ouch, I can't turn over without feeling it, and when I wake from a dream it hurts. I am not talking about heart problems but you have been cleared by your doctor and they can't see any visible signs anything is wrong. I have done this very thing when the pain was becoming so bad in my heart during my one-year initiation, maybe six months in. I had called out for my roommate, yelling I need your help. I couldn't roll over and was sorry to wake her but she too insisted we go to the emergency room. After four hours of waiting out, not laughing for once as we always do when thighs get weird they ran their tests and cleared me. The heart aches did shift as did the lessons and healings coming through the heart. Although from time to time there are some pains when I do heart healing work like this last week, in not one ceremony but two!
Heart of the Forest
 There is attention needed, you are being asked to go into your heart. Maybe try a few practices. Do specific journal pages just for your heart. Ask it what it wants to tell you and then freely write what comes up. Soothing and attention will go a long way. Be gentle with your heart and pay attention to what time it happens and what is going on around you. Be mindful. You can also try cleansing to soothe it. Smudge, incense, and pull it in towards your heart.
Salt Bath with flower herbs, here are some good herbs for the heart that I have personally used and seemed helpful. Remind me later in the spring to make you hawthorn tincture when the flowers are out!
Hawthorn (Crataegus)
Rose (Rosa) ...
Motherwort (Leonurus cardiac) ...
lavender
Vetiver
Clove
All flowers in the home can be heart healing, maybe buy some and put them in your room. Ask for ease to your guides before you go to sleep and when you wake up. I hope that helps. Let me know what comes about.
Go into the woods, the earth element might intensify by the end of the walk/ hike it becomes to come into balance.
Sooth with the water element to help move some of these energies.
Practice- Place your hands over your heart and then ask your heart to guide your hands. Touch the earth, write, dance, and move your arms, paint. Your heart extends out of your arms and into your hands, moving the energy. Express what is in the heart as it moves and grows.
Always consult to see if herbs are safe if you have allergies, on medications, or are pregnant/ breastfeeding
With warmth,
Elaine
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