Portrait of me by author & artist Louise Hewett
Our antlered tales for advent are:
The Old Antlered One - click here to read
She Who Runs With the Herd - click here to read
She Who Wears Antlers
A Sisterhood of the Antlers
There are many rituals as we approach the Winter Solstice. Some bless the pathways, the great ancient migratory routes while others are inspired by the great basins in the chamber of of Newgrange that held the bones of the beloved dead and the ritual of the reborn sun and rebirth.
We are in literal dark days as the days shorten and the nights lengthen yet we live in dark times. Somedays I loose hope completely, I feel lost and feel myself descending into deep grief. Yet I make sure not to grieve alone and hold space for lament and keening which can offer a cathartic experience - yet this isn’t for some feel good factor, it’s wading through our thick mud like grief (personal and for the world) in a communal experience and the opportunity to recommit to the world and a reminder of our unique role.
Hope of course needs to be planted in a different soil from that which brought about the dark harvest of all that is unfolding in the world as patriarchy tightens its stranglehold. I am not an oracle, I cannot see the future but I can Run With the Herd and feel the strength of community, the sharing of a new world and what we each individually to to make that world happen. I can’t say whether it will happen but I will die trying, I will die resisting. I will hold hope and plant her everywhere. I shall sing her song, chant her incantations, I will carry out ritual, I will do everything that I can.
I can’t say whether it will happen but I will die trying, I will die resisting. I will hold hope and plant her everywhere. I shall sing her song, chant her incantations, I will carry out ritual, I will do everything that I can.
While this post was meant to be about the story of how I came to be given the name ‘She WHo Wears Antlers’ that can wait for another time. You may well have your own rituals for this time of year yet I wanted to share one of mine.
Rebirth of the Light. Winter Solstice sunlight - Newgrange, Ireland
I have doubted everything in the last few months - the relevance of what I do, how I do it, and slid down the slippery slop to land in a heap of what-is-the-point! Right now I refused to think about that anymore - I give up, I let go - or rather I give it over.
I drag the black cauldron into centre. Use what you have - a bowl, a matchbox, a tin - a hole in the ground. She is used for many rituals - especially at Autumn Equinox when the first stirrings start remind us that we are moving towards the dark of the year. I take a small green doll, who is the green vitality of the plants yet she also represents a green vitality of myself and I put her into the cauldron. Once as I did this ritual a tree on the land I live on reflected this curled up doll back to me. It’s leaves and branches took the form of a curled up green figure - the trees joined in with my ritual. Or rather, I reflected back to them their ritual of descent.
Holding Newgranges Spirals
For this Winter Solstice ritual (the actual Solstice falling on Sunday 22nd December this year) I take everything I no longer know about - I write them out on paper, or add an object that represents them - whatever feels right. It might be words you whisper into her womb-like shape, it might be sound or stillness anger or tears. The invitation is just to do it, to let it go, to give it up and surrender to the mystery.
A small tin represents the cauldron
You can start your ritual now, in the days leading up to the shortest day, the longest night. Perhaps you’d like to do this ritual every day up until the Solstice. Arising in the morning before dawn - before any bird has sung or daytime creature has awoken. The thresholds are powerful times - not quite days and not quite night - a place where the magic resides.
On the eve of the shortest day and the longest night let your cauldron be. Give it up, stop trying to fix things, let go, surrender - have faith.
On the shortest day and the longest night whenever feels right light some small tea-light candles, and place them in the cauldron on top of all that nestles inside. Bring in the light, this fragile and tender light which brings the promise of rebirth. You don’t need to do anything or say scripted words, in fact silence that chattering mind. A mind which might want to reflect the craziness of the season that this upside down world would like to wrap you up in. It wants so much to consume you, have the dark so lit up that you don’t notice this tender little flame or have you so blindsided that you can’t see in the dark, or see what is reflected back to you.
Antlered Prayer Beads
And that is my ritual. Breathe in the stillness, try not to let it shatter or dissolve. We all know that’s what family gatherings can do - so return to that stillness before dawn, or step out into the garden - connect with tree or robin, worm or decomposing leaves. Connect to grey sky or velvet moss, visiting stag or green leaf growing out of the sidewalk crack. And then slowly ever so slow tend to the growing light and let hope be reborn.
If you would like to join me on the Path of the Ancestral Mothers - with ritual, art and guided meditations for each season - click on the image above for full details, a discount coupon and for sign up
