Midwinter

There it is: My favourite festival in the Eight-fold Wheel Year!

This weekend I had my anticipated Winter Solstice celebration. Unfortunately, the date Claudiney Prietto and Espiral da Criação had to do the ritual was the same Saturday afternoon the São Paulo Pride Parade was happening. Part of me was a bit sad for missing it, especially because I believe that was my last chance to be there in for some years, as I plan to move to Spain within a year. I am particularly proud of the Parade in São Paulo, as it is the largest in the world. But anyway, I managed to enjoy a little of its beginning before going to Páteo do Colégio, and joining my Community again.

This Solstice, as in every Solstice, I performed as a storyteller. I was prepared to tell three stories with myths and images related to the Midwinter Mythology, but in the end we didn't have time for the last one. The stories I chose were Oscar Wilde's 'The Happy Prince', a version of the first branch of the Mabinogion, focused on how Pryderi redeemed Rhiannon, and the last story, left untold due to lack of time, was Hans Christian Andersen's 'The Pine Tree'. I invited my friend Haranin, also a storyteller and a professional actress, to tell Andersen's 'The Snow Queen'. Both Haranin and I are huge enthusiasts of Andersen's incredible and lovely legacy of stories. The performance, it seems, was a blast, because everyone congratulated me after the ritual that followed.

Well, the ritual in itself was quite something, however unusually brief. I have always had something with the Winter Solstice and its related imagery, but this time, the ritual worked something really deep in my Astral Bodies. After a few songs and dances I was so overcharged with Manna that for the first time ever I felt the urgent need to put my hands against the ground to help excess Energy flow back to the Earth, but that alone was not enough. So I drew back from the circle and put my Third Eye against the ground. I'm not sure how long I remained in that position, but probably I could have used more of that because until yesterday sensitive people around me felt I was 'something different', and one person actually told me he felt shivers and a chill when we touched. Immediately after the ritual I took a cold shower (despite the cold) and wrote a letter to the Universe, a spell my witch friend Beatryce taught me to help with a specific goal. I wrote a letter to the Universe in gratitude for my moving to Madrid going all right, for me finding a great job there, my relationship with my boyfriend only getting better, and my artistic career taking off there. So mote it be!!

Every year, the Winter Solstice is a turning point for me, for some reason. This year, the Midwinter midwived an active artist of me. Most specifically a storyteller. So far.

(Photo: Winter Solstice Sunset at beautiful Stonehenge, in the ancient Celtic nation of Kernow)