NOTES FOR WINTER SOLSTICE
FIRST HOUR PREPARATION:
Create a Christmas Cairn - Solstice Altar - using
3rdMillennium imagery. The
Cairn/Altar should have one tall central candle, either
red or yellow, which is easily transportable. I suggest the tall jar
(7-day) candles. Surrounding the central tall candle are 9
votives or tea lights. These are lit at the indicated moments.
Join hands and step back 3, 6, or 9 steps to
delineate the circle; set chairs with breaks at the cardinal
points. At the cardinal points, place directional candles.
Rehearse the readings, choreograph the movements.
Be sure you have enough room for dancing around the
Cairn/Altar, and enough residual light so that readers
can see, but you still have the desired effect of
darkness at the appropriate moment. Rehearse
unfamiliar carols.
RITUAL FOR THE
WINTER SOLSTICE
CAST THE CIRCLE
Outside the chairs, circle once with salt, once with
water, and once with a Dagger; Smudge everyone
[At this point, no one else is allowed inside the circle until the
Song, “In the Bleak Midwinter” below. Late comers may enter in
silence and watch from the periphery, and then after the song, a cut
will be made in the Circle with the Dagger, and as late comers enter,
they are smudged. After the song, no one is allowed into the room
at all.]
RAISE THE STANDING
STONES
Group Visualization: As each portal is raised,
visualize gates of Standing Stones rising up. Visualize a Green
Mist swirling in at the North, A White Mist at the East, a Red Mist at
t he South, and a Blue Mist in the West.
ONE: [Approaches the North portal with the wand]
Spirit of the North Stone
Ancient One of the Earth
I Raise You and Call you to attend this Circle
ALL: Charge This by your Powers, Old Ones!
[The North Candle is Lit]
ONE: [Approaches the East portal with the wand]
Spirit of the East Stone
Ancient One of Air,
I Raise you and Call you to attend this Circle.
ALL: Charge this by your Powers, Old Ones!
[The East Candle is Lit]
ONE: [Approaches the South portal with the wand]
Spirit of the South Stone,
Ancient One of Fire
I Raise you and Call you to attend this Circle
ALL: Charge this by your Powers, Old Ones!
[The South candle is lit]
ONE: [Approaches the West portal with the wand]
Spirit of the West Stone,
Ancient One of Water
I raise you and call you to attend this circle
ALL: Charge this by your Powers, Old Ones!
[The West Candle is lit]
INVOCATION OF THE GODDESS AND THE GOD:
ONE: Gracious Goddess
You who are the Queen of the Gods, the lamp of
night, the creator of all that is wild and free; Mother of woman and
man; lover of the Horned God and protectress of all the People, Come to
us and bring your Lunar ray of power upon our Circle here.
ONE: Blazing God
You who are the King of the Gods, Lord of the Sun,
master of all that is wild and free, father of woman and man, lover of
the Moon Goddess and protector of all the People, Come to us and bring
your Solar ray of power upon our Circle here.
Chant:
Gathered Here in the
Mystery of this Hour
Gathered Here in one strong body
Gathered Here in the Wonder and the Power
Spirit Draw Near
CELEBRANT: Think
of a time, not so very long ago, when all you knew was what you saw
happening around you. The seasons come and go; the moon waxes and
wanes; the sun rises and sets; the stars circle the heavens above, the
earth sits solidly below, and under the earth is the realm of the
dead. The Druids tell us that the fires we light on the hilltops
call the Sun into its journey through our skies. As the Winter
approaches, the Sun retreats as the God sends his power
elsewhere. Perhaps he visits the Underworld? Perhaps he
will not return.
In the very
early times we turned to the Moon Goddess for light to hunt the deer
and the boar. Their rich fatness kept us warm as we waited to see
if the God would return.
Song: In the Bleak Midwinter (NCH 128 – Verse 1)
In the bleak midwinter, frosty
wind made moan
Earth stood hard as iron, water
like a stone
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter, long ago
[Late Comers may enter the Circle in silence, through a Cut in the
space. Each one is smudged. The door to the space is shut,
and no one else is allowed in.]
Celebrant: We
gather in the early morning darkness to watch where the light will fall
as the Sun rises this day. The Druids tell us that the Sun’s
first ray will fall precisely in the center of the Temple we have dug
into the Hill. Listen to the Story:
Reading: Sun from The Universe Story (Brian Swimme
and Thomas Berry, HarperSanFrancisco, 1994) pp. 63-79
When the universe flared forth it was capable of a particular spectrum
of activities. When the laws for the fundamental particles were
stabilized, the universe’s capability for creative action advanced to a
new set of rich possibilities ... In the Milky Way galaxy four and a
half billion years ago, the disc of stars was relatively rich in all
the elements. Rushing through this sea were two great spokes of
density... whose velocity at the edge of the Milky Way was 20 miles per
second. As these invisible waves spun, they drew forth millions
of star bursts, each new star with its own particular destiny.
But now we focus on one branch of this galactic evolution, the one
leading to our Sun.
In the area of space-time where the sun emerged, the density wave
passed through every one hundred million years. The most massive
stars exploded as supernovas and enriched the interstellar
matter. By the time of the Sun’s birth, perhaps one hundred
passes of the star-making wave had occurred. Eventually a wave
swept through that triggered the burst of some ten thousand stars all
at once. ... One of these subclouds was destined to become the Sun of
our solar system ...
This formation would be finished in five hundred
thousand years. The subcloud, freed from interactions with the
others, gathered itself into a state of increasing nonequilibrium;
matter fell into a center, creating a great deal of heat that radiated
out from the collisions. After several hundred thousand years,
the central core became thick enough to trap its own light and began to
heat up even more rapidly. ...
The pressure of the plasma core grew to match the gravitational
pressure. When the temperatures reached ten million degrees, the
hydrogen at the center began to form helium. Our Sun was born....
[Light the Central Red
Pillar Candle with a match]
The vast majority of the gas that did not make its way to the Sun’s
core ... was blown off, but not all. Spinning around the Sun was
a disc of the original subcloud just large enough to resist these
cosmic rays from the Sun. Only one one-hundredth the size of the
Sun – a cool remnant of the subcloud, a hanger-on, a residue, something
left over when the main action of the star formation was finished –
this swirling disc of elements gave birth in time to Mercury, Venus,
Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto.
[As each planet is named, light 9 votives around the central Red Candle
using matches from the central candle]
Spiral Dance
Around the Altar Part One
[CD: Loreena McKinnett, a winter garden: five
songs for the season, tracks II and III. As the spiral dance
continues, extinguish each of the 9 votives until only the central
candle still burns.]
CELEBRANT: We
are overwhelmed by this story. We cannot understand it. We
have a nagging fear that our personal gods are too small to have
created such a Universe. We fall into despair and make agreements
with the ones who profess to mediate, or who claim the power to walk
between the worlds of Spirit and Waking Consciousness. Soon our
Chieftains and High Kings claim Sovereign power for themselves, and we
are disenfranchised. We repudiate the Old wisdom and accuse our
mystics of heresy.
[One takes the central candle outside the
chairs toward the West and moves around to the South. Extinguish
the candle. Lower house lights]
Litany
One: My God, my
God, Why have you forsaken us?
All: Our Sun is dark. Our
light is gone. How can we sing our sacred song?
One: War, famine, disease and
death; Poverty, injustice, despair surround us.
All: Our Sun is dark. Our
light is gone. How can we sing our sacred song?
One: The land is silent, the birds
have flown, we have nothing to call our own.
All: Our Sun is dark. Our
light is gone. How can we sing our sacred song?
One: We cannot breathe the
stagnant air; the waters do not refresh us.
All: Our Sun is dark. Our
light is gone. How can we sing our sacred song?
[Silence – 3 minutes]
Reading: Before
Time Was (Wicca for the Solitary Practitioner, Scott Cunningham)
[During the reading, the red candle in the south is lit, and gradually
moves closer to the circle, then comes in through the east, where it is
placed in the midst of the altar. Relight the votives. Gradually
bring up full lights]
Before time was, there was The One;
The One was all, and all was The One. And the vast expanse known
as the Universe was The One, all-wise, all-pervading, all-powerful,
eternally changing.
And space moved. The One molded energy into
twin forms, equal but opposite, fashioning the Goddess and the God from
The One and of The One. The Goddess and the God reached out and
gave thanks to The One, but darkness surrounded them. They were
alone, solitary, save for The One. So They formed energy into
gasses and gasses into suns and planets and moons; They sprinkled the
Universe with whirling globes and so all was given shape by the hands
of the Goddess and the God.
Light arose and the sky was illuminated by a billion
suns. And the Goddess and the God, satisfied by their works,
rejoiced and loved and were one. From their union sprang the
seeds of all life, and of the human race, so that we might achieve
incarnation upon the Earth.
The Goddess chose the Moon as Her symbol, and the
God the Sun as His symbol, to remind the inhabitants of Earth of their
fashioners.
All are born, live, die, and are reborn beneath the
Sun and Moon; all things come to pass thereunder, and all occurs with
the blessings of The One, as has been the way of existence before time
was.
Litany (John 1:1-5 from The Five Gospels (Robert Funk and The Jesus
Seminar, Westar Institute 1995))
One In the beginning there was the divine word and
wisdom. The divine word and wisdom was there with God
All: and it was what God was.
One: It was there with God from the beginning.
All: Everything came to be by means of it;
nothing that exists came to be without its agency.
One: In it was life,
All: and this life was the light of humanity.
One: Light was shining in the darkness,
All: and darkness did not master it.
Spiral Dance
Part Two
[CD: Ancient Noels. All rise and spiral
out to the full circle.]
SONG: Joy to the Earth (from
Songs for Earthlings Emerald Earth Publishing, 1998)
Joy to the earth, the Light returns
And sunlight fills the air
The tide has turned, the Sun has been reborn
And hope is everywhere, and hope is everywhere,
And hope, and hope is everywhere.
Dark ruled the Earth and Death has reigned
But on the wheel does spin.
From out the womb of night
Is birthed the Infant light.
The Sun has come again, the Sun has come again,
The Sun, the Sun has come again.
CLOSING
THANKS AND RELEASE OF THE GODDESS AND THE GOD:
ONE: Gracious Goddess
We thank you for attending our Circle. Go if
you must, stay if you will. Blessed Be.
ONE: Blazing God
We thank you for attending our Circle. Go if
you must, stay if you will. Blessed Be.
DISSOLVE THE STANDING STONES
Group Visualization: As each portal is released,
visualize gates of Standing Stones disappearing: Visualize a
Green Mist swirling away at the North, A White Mist at the East, a Red
Mist at t he South, and a Blue Mist in the West.
ONE: [Approaches the West portal with the wandj]
Spirit of the West Stone,
Ancient One of Water
Take your leave with our gratitude
[The West Candle is extinguished]
ONE: [Approaches the South portal with the wand]
Spirit of the South Stone,
Ancient One of Fire
Take your leave with our gratitude
[The South candle is extinguished
ONE: [Approaches the East portal with the wand]
Spirit of the East Stone
Ancient One of Air,
Take your leave with our gratitude
[The East Candle is extinguished
ONE: [Approaches the North portal with the wand]
Spirit of the North Stone
Ancient One of the Earth
Take your leave with our gratitude
[The North Candle is extinguished]
ALL: OUR CIRCLE IS OPEN AND UNBROKEN. MERRY
MEET, MERRY PART, AND MERRY MEET AGAIN.
FEAST