This image is of old age, bent with weakness and cold. The colors are monochromatic and the application of ink looks like the surface is sparkled with frost. This oracle card gives me the idea to create a ritual for "longest night." I think of spending time with close friends, remembering the past year month by month. This occurs to me because I understand from the creatures and forces of the spirit world that what all want most from us is to be remembered. This evening of laughter and sadness with friends as we sit in circle telling each other the stories of our year will begin with this month of December, and wind slowly back through autumn, summer and spring to arrive at memories from days just like this one, with winter's cold breath against the windows and the kettle rocking gently in the rising heat from the wood stove.
The "shortest day" of winter solstice is for me a day spent out of doors--usually in the rain or maybe snow but hopefully sunshine, feeding the smaller birds by decorating trees with suet ornaments and sprinkled with popcorn; offering small twists of sweetgrass to the coals of the cooking fire to feed smoke prayers to all the other-than-human creatures that help me; leaving small chunks of salmon on the rocks by the ocean for the seagulls, ravens and eagles to find.This other image from the Winter Solstice oracle card expresses my wanting to be part of the song of this special time, when the new sun is born and my northern world again turns toward the light.
