I am in constant wonder of the natural world: the spinning earth, the sun we hurtle around, the moon rotating around us, the shifting planets – how it is an ongoing symphony of movement, shift, change and return – eternal, cyclic and cosmic. How I absolutely can’t ever quite know it or comprehend it in its forever stretches. And how it all affects me in my life, how it touches me, this eternal dance. How it touches everyone and everything. I frequently feel myself in resistance to all of it. I want it, the transformation, the change, the growing – but it feels too mysterious, unknown, uncomfortable and fucking scary, and so I make attempts to avoid, to shutdown and ignore, but change is inevitable, as constant as the cosmos. But this, the Winter Solstice, offers something sweet and somewhat lighthearted in me, the shortest day of the year that begins the turning into more light each day – and I imagine myself opening to the same. To cultivating that light within myself. We’ve an offering of a magical, liminal space from Winter Solstice to the new moon and solar eclipse on the 25th. Such enormous goings ons! I want to dive into the magic of this moment of time held in 5 days, an in-between space to find the me in the non-existent not-me, no-space, no-time, nothingness of the eternal and limitlessness where all creation and possibility resides simultaneously. A space to be in change with acceptance and a light-filled heart.

Lately I am frequently ensconced in my own shadowy shit, looking at what needs to be grown into and what needs to simply become a part of my rich compost of knowing and self, not trauma anymore, but a place for more empathy and intuition and magic to be born from, magnificent and phoenix like. And the world isn’t okay so I try to not get lost in my grief around what is happening to the earth and to all of the life she holds, but to galvanize myself to be a part of the right action, the radical responsibility that will assist in finding balance, adaptation, remembering, and healing. Right now I sit on my bed typing and playing with the idea of reaching out to women I know to gather to celebrate this opening to the light, to hold each other as powerful reflections of strength and of possibility, to remember we are all needed here and we are as rich with light, as with dark…. that we are here to heal the earth and each other, to reinvent this holiday time as we work to step out of the deep enculturation we’ve been steeped in since birth, to forge new ways in the fire of our hearts and hearths. I want to whisper sweet poems and prayers to the earth and our ancestors, to light a fire, to share our hearts, to cast magical spells, to truly believe in all we are here to do and can do, to sing, laugh and cry.

(*Note: my family came down with a very gross stomach flu and our Winter Solstice celebration and honoring ended up being just us – a big backyard fire with my daughter sleeping under a pile of blankets, and a bowl of offerings that we gave continually to the fire through the night with prayer and intention.)

In the Celtic celebrations at this time of year it is truly an acknowledgement of the dark. For the Celts the next day begins when the darkness falls, which to me speaks to the knowing that the dark holds magic and riches and faery folk and dreams and the shadows of the soul and the world. It is there that we are resourced and find are way into illumination.

I will also admit to this, I enjoy the holidays. I love my christmas tree, adorning her with ornaments and beauty collected over the last 25 years, and then just sit and gaze at her. I was born shortly after Christmas, supposedly 42 minutes after. There is a space in me that connects to this time of year on multiple levels: there is the deeply pagan piece which the tree adorning comes from, the coming of light inextricably tied to the creation of beauty, the twinkling lights and flickering flames, the remembering of a time before time when we were all pure and gentle and new. And I love to make food magic, to feed those I love – and any excuse to gather, especially the calling in of distant family and friends, makes Christmas feel just fine. I love to give special gifts (this year we made organic soap scented with lavender, rosemary, lemon and bergamot, organic caramels made from coconut milk, coconut sugar, rice syrup, salt and butter, and adaptogenic and nettle cacao mix) and I don’t want to buy into the blatant consumerism and what often feels to me, for the most part anyway, like a faux-christian celebration. But with all of that said, I am still struggling with the consumerism part of things. I have an almost 5 year old girl who wants Santa to bring her special gifts… so I buy clothing to replace some of what she has quickly outgrown, I buy a small hand sewn velvet horse from a woman at a local craft fair, light the menorah she fell in love with even though we don’t practice religion, eat sugar cookies that are frosted to look like Christmas ornaments, buy crystals and clementines to put in her stocking…. yes. I feel enmeshed in our culture even as I attempt to escape/ignore it in so many ways. I made a vow to myself to only buy upcycled, handmade or from thrift stores, but haven’t totally followed my own rule when buying for my daughter. It is a work in progress, clearly.

Cacao Mix:

Use all organic if you can! Raw cacao, coconut sugar, dried nettle (turned into dust in the blender), dry coconut milk, tocotrienols, lion’s mane, cordyceps, ashwaganda, astragalus, cinnamon and sea salt. Get a little crazy. Do what tastes good to you. I started with about 2 cups of cacao, added about a 1/2 cup of nettle dust, around a cup of coconut sugar, 1/2 cups of dry coconut milk powder and tocotrienols, tablespoons of all the adaptogen powders (I used ashwaganda, cordyceps, maitake, astragalus, and lion’s mane) and teaspoons of raw vanilla powder, cinnamon and salt. I also ended up throwing in some roughly chopped up organic dark chocolate. 2 teaspoons of the mix make a yummy hot cocoa – just whisk it into hot milk of whatever persuasion until it is nicely blended – sometimes I even throw it in the blender to get a little frothy.

Coconut Caramels:

Mix a can of full-fat organic coconut milk with 1 stick and 2 tablespoons butter and 1/2 teaspoon salt in a sauce pan and heat on low until combined. In another pot, combine a 1/2 cup water and a 1/4 teaspoon of cream of tartar, and stir on low heat until the tartar is dissolved. Add 3 cups of organic fair-trade coconut sugar and a 1/2 cup of brown rice syrup to the water mixture, and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. You’ll need to stir pretty consistently. Once it is boiling, keep a close eye on it, stirring constantly. You want it to get to an almost caramel consistency, but not quite, and be a nice dark brown. If you have a candy thermometer that will be about 325 degrees. Once you’ve got it there, pour it into the other pot with the coconut milk and butter, stirring as you go – it will boil crazily, so make sure you’re using a nice, long spoon! Stir it until it is well combined and heat it back up on medium-high heat. It wants to get almost to the caramel stage. Stir constantly, scraping the bottom of the pan. When it is really close, turn off the heat and just keep stirring. Add 2 teaspoons of vanilla or a teaspoon of vanilla powder and stir it in. Then pour into a shallow baking dish that is lined with parchment paper. Once it is almost cool, cut into candy sized rectangles or squares and wrap individually in little pre cut rectangles of wax paper.