Winter Solstice, Dreaming, and The Return Of The Light
Pagan holidays have lasting power in our collective unconscious. I think it’s because they are based in palpable shifts in both our outer world and inner psyche, throughout the wheel of changing seasons. If you think about it, the rituals of the Winter Solstice, or Yule, meant to renew light and hope in what was the darkest and most frightening time of the year (especially in Celtic, Norse, and Germanic Northern Europe) held people through darkness on many levels in generations past. Even this year, with its constraints, palpable sense of danger, and loneliness for many, it’s difficult to imagine the Winters of old, when food was dangerously scarce, light lasted for only a few hours a day, nights were warmed by hearth fire, and illness remained a constant threat. Somehow, in that atmosphere, people found a way to mark the return of the light, on the longest night of the year. It was considered a night of labor for the Great Goddess, as she gave birth to the sun each year. People stayed awake in vigil, while the Yule log burned, singing songs and telling stories until sunrise, when the sun god was born again. They brought evergreen branches into their homes to remind them that life and vitality can be preserved, even in harsh conditions. From that point, the days would grow longer, taking people towards the fertility of Spring and the warmth of Summer.
Here, in Northern California, December 21st often feels more like the start of Winter than its relief, but the metaphor of pregnancy and birth still has relevance. During the months of gestation, before we are born, we exist in a dream state, In this liminal space, we create much of who we will become, as our bodies and minds develop and our souls attune to the life we are entering, informed by all we inherit from where we have been before, and the family we are joining. It is a sacred time, when many possibilities lay ahead of us, unwritten and fluid.
When our brains enter the delta waves of dreaming, we recall this pre-birth state of formation. That is one reason why dreams and the hypnogogic state are such fertile ground for deep change in our psyches and our lives. We begin to create again, to allow things to come into form, leaving behind the rigidity of who we think we are in the waking hours. In Winter, when life slows down, and we naturally go within, this process is even more pronounced. Winter is the dreaming time of year, and in that sense the Winter Solstice is also a time of gestation and labor for the dreams we will birth into manifestation, the light we will bring forward to plant in Spring, work to cultivate in Summer, and harvest in Fall.
The question is, will we dream unconsciously or consciously in the dark of Winter? If we let our unconscious take the reigns, its compulsion is to replay the thoughts, emotions, and impressions that we have encountered in waking and psychic life, especially that material which is harder for us to digest. For this reason, the Winter Solstice is an ideal time for purification, cleansing ourselves on the conscious and unconscious levels. If we allow our dreams to repeat the fear, violence, unrest, and compulsions that preoccupy us, then what will we be creating in sacred liminal space?
This Winter is requiring us to slow down even more than usual, so perhaps there is another approach. Assuming we are not in the midst of a personal trauma or unsafe circumstance, when instinct tends to take over, we can do our best to be intentional about what we feed our psyches. We can attempt to direct our dreaming towards what we want to cultivate, perhaps planting a suggestion as we fall asleep, or even writing a theme or question on a slip of paper and placing it under the pillow. Then, when first waking in the morning, we can take a brief moment to look back to the sequence of dreams we can recall, and write them down or record them, while the memory is still with us. Engaging our dreams, even in such a simple manner, transforms them. It is another way of bringing light into darkness. It may come quickly or take time, but it is natural to us, like a forgotten talent that has been waiting to be rediscovered. Creating ritual is a good way to prepare for conscious dreaming. Even a brief moment of clearing the unwanted influence, calming the mind, and focusing on an intention is a powerful act of moving away from the dark of unconsciousness and towards lucidity. Lucidity literally means not only clarity of thought and expression, but luminosity.
Here are three questions you can take into the dreamtime this Solstice season, if you are so inclined: What part of your life or psyche has been in Winter too long? What will help you to cleanse your unconscious, and your waking life, of harmful input? On the longest night of the year, what is the light you are hoping to birth? For the last, we invite you to carve that intention into a candle, place it in a jar, and let it burn through the long night of the Winter Solstice this year, to guide your dreams towards the coming Spring.
-This blog was written by Melusina Gomez, and originally published with the eleventh house.