SNOW!
Let's do some wintry magic!
*There’s a video version of this post here.
It’s been snowing where I live, and I’ll tell you what, it’s been awhile. In what used to be a normal winter here, it would start snowing in November and a nice solid base coat would pile on the ground because it stayed cold. That base coat would stay put until spring. We never saw the ground again all winter, once it formed, except for an odd January thaw once in a while.
But lately…no base coat has formed. It snows, but then it melts, all the way down to bare earth. This has been the pattern for the last four or five years here.
When I say here, I’m speaking of the beautiful hills of Cortland County New York where cows outnumber people. An awkward place for a vegan. It’s very rural where I live, and in the wintertime every view is as pretty as a Currier & Ives wintry scene.
The last several winters haven’t felt like winters at all.
But this year must be the equivalent of Throwback Thursday, because we have a nice, thick, solid, white layer of snow that looks like it might stay put. It snows a little, and stays cold, then it snows a little more. The base coat is solid now, not melting even when new snow does.
I really love snow these days. I used to hate it and complain every winter and threaten to move south. But I’m older now. I’m wiser. And to be frank about it (hi, Frank!) there’s less of it now too. I feel like it might stop snowing altogether here within my lifetime. It feels rather likely, in fact. You appreciate something more when it occurs to you that you might not have it forever
Besides, I’ve learned a lot about snow, about water in all its forms from Dr. Masuro Emote and the film, The Secret of Water. Now I think snow might be one the most magical substances there is.
Water holds memory
But snow holds none. When water transforms into snow, it is wiped clean. The snowflake is pure, a blank slate, tumbling magically to earth ready for anything. Its color reflects this purity, and the shapes it takes do too.
Any substance that comes into contact with water leaves a trace of itself in the water. Water receives and makes an imprint of every outside influence, positive or negative. Water is alive. It can get sick. It can die.
Water also reacts to thoughts. In Dr. Emoto’s now-famous experiments, water that had been prayed over, regardless of the religion—even atheists sent positive thoughts and love–formed beautiful crystals at their freezing point. While water that was cursed at or hated formed misshapen, ugly blobs.
When water evaporates and reforms in the cold, it becomes a snowflake. And as it takes on its crystalline form, every memory it held is erased, except one. The program for life itself.
The snowflake is the very beginning of water’s cycle, the place it’s a blank slate, completely innocent, open to everything and anything. Snowflakes are like The Fool card in Tarot, fearless, trusting. The epitome of faith.
Winter Snow Erases and Renews
I always feel like the snowy blanket of winter renews the earth in the same way. The changing physical forms seem to be what trigger this. In wintertime here in the wintry climes, the landscape changes its form. It freezes the bad stuff so it can’t get worse and releases it into the soil, where it can be purified and renewed in the spring.
We’re a part of the earth, and so we, too, are renewed in this way. Every part of us recognizes the pattern, the cycle, the death and rebirth aspect of it. We see it throughout nature. Trees who lose their leaves. Even evergreens will shed their needles in multi-year cycles. And animals who hibernate mimic the theme too.
Different plants thrive than did in summer. Summer birds have migrated, and new winter birds have arrived to take their places. The earth has changed her clothes. She’s shed the vivid colors of autumn, and dressed up all in white with accessories of crystal clear ice under blue, blue sky.
And at night, her cloak wears a whole new pattern of stars that twinkle brighter than at any other time of year.
In winter our breath is visible. In summer, it’s not. That’s a metaphor too. What’s inside us can become crystal clear to us in winter. It’s winter’s purpose—clarity. Crystal clear understanding. The maturing of wisdom. A time for stillness and deep contemplation.
It’s important, and empowering too, I think, to flow with the energy of the seasons and the rhythms of nature. In every case, it’s more effective to go with the current than against it, and there are so many instances in everyday life where we find ourselves paddling against it, instead.
But this quiet, dark time of year, find moments to pull in the oars, lean back and let the current to do the work. Relax into nature’s flow.
Here are some of my favorite end of year rituals that help me do that. Play with any of these that speak to you. Pay attention to your feelings as you read through them.
The one that makes the breath sough from your lungs is the one to do first.
1. The Year in Review
This works best if you keep a journal throughout the year, but even if you don’t, you can use your digital and paper planners and datebooks and social media posts.
Set aside time to do this. You might even want to divide it up over several days.
Begin with January 2025 and think about what you were doing, what you were thinking about, what you were focused on. What projects did you have underway at work, or at home? What special events happened that month? Who did you spend the most time with, and who did you most enjoy spending time with? Oh, that’s an important angle to explore, not just what you did, but what you enjoyed doing most. Keep track of that. Going through your sent emails and main posts on social, your planning calendars and datebooks all might refresh your memory. So might chatting about it with those closest to you.
Write these things down. Think about the main energy of the month for you. Try to distill it down into a sentence or two, and then move on to February.
When reviewing the first month of the previous year, though, don’t leave out all those goals you set. Take a good look at those, not just to tally up success vs failure. There is no failure. The goals we set, we didn’t set in stone. They grew and changed throughout the year. We might’ve left some of them behind, as we stepped beyond them into goals that suit us better. Our goals evolve as we do. This is not a pass/fail test. The most important part of a goals review is to help us get clearer on what our new goals will be for the coming year.
Think about what went well, and be aware you want to include lots more things like that ahead. Think about what went horribly, but not for very long. Be aware that you want fewer things like that.
This is the task of the season, and one I just have to do before I can even begin thinking about my goals for the new year. Everything from the previous year must be processed and integrated and understood before I can move on.
We are, in effect, writing the story of the year gone by, the story of us, personally, over that year. The most important insights will be the ones about how we, personally, have changed, what we’ve learned, how we’ve grown. It’s great to analyze every way in which we are different now than we were in January 2025.
And then in February, and March, and April and so on, all the way up to and including the very moment in which we are doing this review.
Process the year into a sentence or two that describe it perfectly for you and write down. Examine what you hoped would be, and what actually was, and take notes on what you learned and how you grew.
Try to do this without judgment. Even better, try to do it while talking long walks in the snow.
Remember that the experiences we perceive as “bad” spur more growth and necessary change in us than the experiences we perceive as “good.” From the non-physical perspective, it’s all just experience. And all experience expands both the individual and the whole. So when reviewing the less pleasant events of the year, try to see them in terms of the growth and change they inspired.
Also, let this exercise inspire you to begin right not today, journaling.
The Winter Solstice Cleanse
*If you can time your 18 hour fast so that you are finishing up your bath and draining the water at the time of the Solstice, so much the better! So for perfection, you’d begin your fast December 20th at 3:33 EST, hop into the tub by 9:30 a.m. the next morning, December 21st, soak for a half hour, pull the plug at 10:01 or 10:02, and let the water drain through the actual moment the solstice at 10:03. In a shower situation, time it so you are finishing your shower, shutting off the water at exactly 10:03 am. This part will make more sense after you’ve read the ritual.*
3 drops rosemary oil
3 drops sandalwood oil
3 drops sage oil
OR
3 generous finger-pinches sage
3 generous finger-pinches rosemary
3 generous finger-pinches sandalwood or crushed sandalwood incense
One large, sealable teabag, or tea ball, or a small, cloth or mesh drawstring bag
AND
1 bowl full of snow
First, fast for 18 hours. Drink only water during this time.
Next, Prepare your bathroom. Place candles around while the bath is running or the shower is heating. Light them and turn off the lights. Set the mood with sacred music, turned down low.
You’ll want your water very hot.
In a bath, add 3 drops of sage oil, 3 drops of sandalwood oil, and 3 drops of rosemary oil.
OR
Add three generous finger-pinches of each herb to your chosen container.
AND
Pour in the snow!
As you place each ingredient, be entirely present with its energy. The sage is for clearing out negativity, the rosemary refills the vacuum with pure positive energy, the sandalwood bathes the rest in the essence of divinity. Think of the herb’s purpose as you add it. Bless it and thank it for its help. Vibrate with it.
Using the power of three times three enhances the power, drawing in the energy of the divine feminine.
Drop the tea bag or ball into hot bath water while it’s running, or hang it from the shower head so the steam and even the hot water flow can activate it. For oils in the shower, drip the oil onto a cotton ball or a piece of foam sponge, then put it into the bag or ball and hang it from the shower head.
As you soak in the hot, scented, energized water or stand in its flow, close your eyes. Take deep, slow breaths, all you can hold, then a little more. When you exhale, blow every bit of air out and then a little more. Pause for a few beats between inhale and exhale, between exhale and inhale.
Feel the water, a living being, pull the darkness from your very pores.
Soak there, basking in a quiet mind, in the scents of the oils, and in the heat until the water begins to cool or you’ve showered long enough.
In a shower, you will visualize the water taking all your unwanted energies down the drain to be cleansed and purified by the earth.
In a tub, pull the plug.and remain in there until the last drop of water has gone down the drain, taking every negative vibe with them.
Afterward, dress in clothes you love and get something to eat—something pure and natural, straight from the earth. Not something dead. When we remove something, something else must fill its space. This happens instantly, during our soak as we pull in the positive, life giving forces from our water and our herbs or oils, and our connection to Source.
But the filling continues. We are constantly filling up with our experiences, and that filling pushes out what was in the space before. So we need to really attune more with what we love than with the objects of our fear and loathing. We need to do it so often it becomes our new habit, our default setting. We need to do it so often we lose our ability to put up with much focus on the negative, or any at all.
THE WORD FOR THE YEAR
One tradition I learned from a group of friends was the word of the year. Most just chose a word or short phrase to represent their goal for the year. I was probably the only one who created a ritual out of it.
This is best done AFTER the contemplation of the year gone by has run its course, and you’ve had time to process the year into a couple of lines that describe it perfectly to you. In fact, it makes spiritual sense to do all three of these rituals in the order in which I’ve put them here.
This one is the culmination of the other two. It’s time now to think about what you want in the coming year. Not individual, specific goals. Those, you can work on later. Right now, as we pass through the winter solstice, we’re looking for more general terms. We’re looking for a quality of being.
If asked what they want more of in the coming year, a lot of people would immediately reply, “More money!” or more accurately, “More, money, dumbass.”
To those I would ask another question. Why? Why do want more money? How would you feel if you had more money?
You’d feel less stressed, which is the equivalent of more relaxed which is the equivalent of ease.
You feel less worried, which is the equivalent of peace of mind, which is the same thing as peace.
Interesting to notice how alike those two words are?
But there are more. What else would we feel with more money? I think we’d feel less reliant on employment, and therefore more free. Free to quit or to change jobs, maybe. Or free to launch your own thing, your own business.
That boils down to a single word, too. Freedom.
I think long and hard about my word for the year, and often it’s a phrase I repeat to remind me as the year unfolds. Sometimes I print it in some way that can be hung on a wall where I’ll see it often. If embroidery were my gift, I’d embroider it into a “sampler.” You know, I might just try that.
So choose your word. I’m still mulling mine. Hubs has his.
Once you have your word, design a sigil of it in some format you can hang on a holiday tree or in any special spot in your. We covered making and using sigils in THIS POST
Draw it in Sharpie on a new decoration after cleansing it in smoke and moon water, for example. Paint it on a tiny round mirror and glue on a ribbon for hanging. Or use it to decorate the cookies you’ll leave out on solstice night or Christmas Eve. (I have this whole Letter to Santa thing I do that includes cookies, but that’s a different post.)
When you have created your decoration, it’s time for the ritual.
The Rite of Enchantment for Magical Objects
In a properly cast circle with all quarters open, on an altar set with incense in the east, a red candle in the south, blessed a cup of snow in the west, (it’ll melt during the rite and that’s fine,) salt in the north, and a cauldron in the center. (If you don’t have a cauldron, you can use a large silver bowl or a glass one that you do not use for anything else. Alternatively, if you have a large flat pentacle in the altar’s center, you can use that. After activating the altar in your usual manner, then take the item in your hands.
1. Sprinkle the item with salt, while saying:
By the fragments of my flesh, be thou clean and Goddess-blessed.
2. Waft incense smoke over the item while saying:
By my swirling, fragrant sigh, be thou pure and sanctified.
3. Run the item back and forth through the candle flame, saying:
By my spirit’s searing flame, impurities are burned away.
4. Sprinkle the item with the melted snow water, saying:
By the water of Her womb, be thou reborn, clean and new.
5. Lower the item into the empty cauldron (as far as it will go) saying:
Ornament, mundane no longer!
6. Hold your hands over the item in the cauldron/on the pentacle, saying:
Witch’s magic makes you stronger.
7. Raise the item from the cauldron/pentacle, saying:
Sigil’s power fill my year!
8. Hold the item high overhead, saying:
With the (WORD) we’ve created here! So mote it be.
Afterward, give thanks and bid farewell to all the energies you’ve invoked, take up the circle, and ground the energy.
Take the ornament immediately to its new place, hang it, and sense its energy filling your entire space.
*There’s a video version of this post here.
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