Crystal Healing for the Solstice: Beginnings & Endings

Crystal Healing for the Solstice: Beginnings and Endings / www.krista-mitchell.com

Can you feel the energy building?

It’s been building through this month, having increased in momentum after the new moon solar eclipse on the 14th.

Whether you’re in the northern or southern hemisphere a climax will be reached on the solstice: the darkest night or the longest day. A transition point. Cycles and patterns beginning and ending.

Cultures and faiths the world over have been celebrating this day since ancient times. And while you can apply any practices or notions, ceremonies or beliefs, based on where you come from and what you espouse, if you tune in to the energy and observe nature, there’s no denying the power of this day.

According to many ancient calendars the solstice was observed on the 25th day of December, and it marked the new year.

In the north, it marked the turning point where the sun, in its weakest phase, would be reborn and slowly begin to wax again. It heralded the promising return of light, life, and warmth.

In the south, it marked the height of the sun’s power and the zenith of life force – a time of magic and ceremony – before its power begins to wane.

While in times past I’ve looked forward to my solstice ceremonies and traditions with excitement, this year I feel more contemplative. I’m reflecting on what we’ve been through, and on all those who did not make it through 2020. I’m also reflecting on how we all responded – it was a mix of intense extremes.

While there are those who profited, I see this largely as a year of loss. But loss, in and of itself, is also a healing and growth process.

This is something the ancients have always understood: it’s all a part of the cycle of life.

Loss is an ending but also a beginning. It’s up to us to find what can be gained from losing.

Read original article at: Krista Mitchell ~ Crystal Healing for the Solstice

Herbs for Visionary Work at the Winter Solstice

The Druid's Garden

Plants are our medicine, our teachers, our friends, and help us connect deeply to spirit in a wide variety of ways including through spiritual work. Long before recorded history, our ancient ancestors used plants of all kinds. Ötzi, the ancient ancestor who was preserved in ice and who lived between 3400 and 3100 BCE, was found with multiple kinds of plants and mushrooms, including birch polypore (a medicinal mushroom) and the tinder fungus, a mushroom often used for transporting coals starting fires.  I love plants, and I love the ancestral connections and assistance that they can provide. In more recent history, we can look to a variety of cultures that use plants in ways that help alter or expand consciousness.

What better time to do some deep visionary work than at the winter solstice, when the world is plunged in darkness? It is in these dark times that we…

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