This Holy Moon: Solstice Traditions, Book Births, and News for The Olden Practice Year
Creating a life our grandparents would recognize, one season at a time.
Solstice and Christmas blessings, Olden Practice community—it has been quite a quarter and I have lots to share with you in this seasonal missive. A reminder: gmail can truncate newsletters so if you are reading via email be sure to click on “view entire message” to ensure you don’t miss anything.
First, I want to welcome new subscribers—hello, thank you for joining the circle. And because it has been a while between I want to remind everyone that this newsletter is intended to act as a digest sent at quarterly intervals through the year with inspirations, writing, art and occasional events celebrating offline life and ancestral crafts, skills and traditions.
If you want more consistent posts and regular connection to this work you can subscribe to the Olden Practice blog (posts from the quarter are linked below), join the Wild Soul School (some new free classes are shared below) or become a patron of this work on Patreon. Patrons receive real-time updates, audio notes, tutorials, process shares, opportunities for 1:1 sessions, gatherings and community connection. Patron donations make possible this work of research, writing, crafting and healing. They also make possible the free access to this newsletter—I do not charge for Substack—and community supported (free/by donation) classes at the Wild Soul School.
Now into the news of the season!
Year of the Dark Goddess Book is Available for Preorder!
I am delighted to share that the Dark Goddess book is now available for preorder! It is titled Year of the Dark Goddess: A Journey of Ritual, Renewal and Rebirth and may be ordered on Amazon, through Barnes and Noble or requested from your local bookseller.
“Year of the Dark Goddess provides an anchor and a roadmap for navigating the disorientation of life transformations and offers resources for embracing changes as initiations that strengthen us and make clear our purpose and power. The book is modeled on ancient rite-of-passage ceremonies and journeys to the underworld and is structured as a four-phase rite-of-passage process: Preparation, Separation from the Known, Transition-Initiation, and Return-Integration. The book provides readers with practical tools—embodied rituals, writing practice, seasonal self-care and community creation—to ground and empower positive transformations in times of challenging change.”
I am so excited to share this book with the world. As I continue to witness the transformations the Dark Goddess process has wrought in my life, and the amazing unfoldings of the Dark Goddess 2022 cohort, I am ever more convinced that we need to honor and celebrate our rites of passage in order to heal and be empowered by life’s difficult changes.
Not only this, but our rites are a way to weave new wyrd and craft community. This is my hope for the book's birth into the world--which should be May 6th of next year--and I would LOVE to have an IN PERSON (pardon all the caps, that's my enthusiasm overload) book release party to celebrate. If you have been looking for an excuse to visit the Pacific Northwest and meet your kindreds from our many years of classes and practices together let this be it!
In the moons building to that event I will also be reaching out to you, my friends, companions, magical beings and fellow web weavers around the globe, to see how we can support each other in the olden-est practice of all: connection.
And I have a favor to ask: Preorders are really important for authors. They tell a publisher what and who to invest in. Beloved circle, would you please help spread the word? You can help weave the web by sharing the book or this post with your kin.
Olden Practices for the Solstice Season
I was inspired to discover the above painting of Christmas in Norway by artist Adolphe Tidemand in my research for the Olden Practice blog:
“With Christmas begin the national festivals...During this season all work is stopped...and the feasts are celebrated with the hospitality and simplicity of the olden time. It is also an old custom that even the phantoms of superstition must share in these winter fetes, as well as the animals of the earth and the birds of the air. A dishful of oatmeal-porridge is placed by the women of the house under the steps of the staircase, to regale the goblin (or brownie) of the farm. Out of doors, a long pole is setup in front of the house, with a bunch of oats at the top, to serve as fare for the little birds...boys play in the snow with the "ski", or snow-skates; and the woman on the right is strewing pineleaves at the entrance of the gallery, or "Swalgang". This strewing of leaves is also a sign of feasting and rejoicing.”
—From "Illustrated London News,” 1856
For those of you who remember my affinity for the Last Sheaf ceremony from the Autumn Equinox Olden Practice letter, you can see why the above image of Norwegian traditions thrilled my heart. A question I find myself asking a lot these days is:
What am I feeding?
The image of the community feeding the birds with a sheaf of grain at Solstice/Christmastime, as well as the house spirits with a bowl of oatmeal, remind me that not that long ago these practices were commonplace and connective.
I’ve created a series posts for the Olden Practice blog that reflect this consideration, and my primary intention for the year ahead—mentioned in the subtitle of this letter—is to create a life my grandparents would recognize. What does this mean?
I think the Olden Practice posts thus far offer a sense of this purpose. I’m linking them below, plus a brief synopsis and gallery of images from the posts.
And the Advent posts each have one or more easy, handmade ancestral crafts to engage your embodied memory!
Sacred Solstice and Twelve Days of Ancestral Traditions
Patrons have received a series of Olden Practice audio notes this past season, and I’m including the latest one here where I share ancestral traditions for the season from Samhain/All Saints Day until Twelfth Night/Epiphany in January. It is a time of huge spiritual and social vulnerability--the darkest days, requiring celebration, devotion and reflection.
Some of the things mentioned in the audio note:
Direct syncretism between pagan customs and Christian traditions
Solstice/Mother's Night vigil and the story of birth/rebirth
Saint Sylvester's rowdy holy day/New Years Eve
The Three Sisters feast practices for abundance and satiety on New Years Day
The Yule Log and its many purposes, including a direct relationship with The Last Sheaf
Here are the inquiry questions I reference in the audio. I like to use these in ceremony on the Solstices/Equinoxes to reflect and set intentions for the year ahead:
Where was I at the last Solstice?
What intentions/hopes/wishes/dreams did I have at that time?
What have I achieved in the past six months?
What has surprised me since the last Solstice?
Where have things come clear since the last Solstice?
Where do I need more clarity?
What practices have been nourishing and sustaining me?
What distractions have been keeping me from my center?
What are three devotional intentions I can embrace from now until the next quarter day at Imbolc?
What are three devotional intentions I can embrace from now until the next Solstice?
The books I reference in the audio are:
A History of Pagan Europe by Prudence Jones and Nigel Pennick
Christian Mythology by Philippe Walter
The Golden Bough by James Frazer
Free Opportunities at the Wild Soul School
Thanks to Patrons and members of the Wild Soul School Community I am able to offer FREE, no-barrier, by donation classes. This season we have three experiences that are open to the public, two with a live component:
The Foundations of Ancestral Animism Practice—a 13 day practice that delves into Olden traditions, ancestral awareness and small daily ceremonies. I offered a supported practice last month that folks can still view and share in the Wild Soul School Community.
If you would like to support this work AND have access to a private library of ancestral research, fourteen archival courses and more, consider joining the Wild Soul School Membership Community. Details are available here.
Bog Hag Goals for the New Year
This fall I shared a poem I wrote about embracing my inner Bog Hag—I’m ending with it here, and a hope that we Bog Hags—in our many manifestations—can unite as we follow this journey of olden practice joy. In quarter ahead (by the Vernal Equinox) I have goals for the following…because things are feeling pretty sacred right now:
The Wild Soul Sanctuary and Preserve—there has been some movement in our planning and I have a ton of structural work to do but should have some news on where/how…and most importantly WHEN we will be beginning the land search process! You can learn more about the Sanctuary vision in this Patreon post from last year…
Quitting My Smart Phone—my 2016 phone is dying an ungraceful death (missed texts, missed calls, shuts down spontaneously) and I do not want to replace it. I have lots of research to share about why this decision makes sense (I had to do the same thing with quitting social media two years ago) and I’ll be posting resources in the Unlearn Online classroom for anyone interested.
Celebrating the Dark Goddess Book—you can expect an invite to the LIVE book release along with some online events in the next edition of our Olden Practice newsletter in March.
Continuing this work of Olden Practice with Connection at the Core—it is the joy of my heart, connecting us to the earth and each other. And it has never felt more vital.
What are your intentions for the year ahead? I would love to have you share them in the comments!
And now, this poem is dedicated to all my kindreds who are struggling to fit life with modernity right now…may we cease to struggle, thus the cease to fit becomes but a skin to shed, may we embrace instead that good unfitting mantle of the Bog Hag:
I will be the bog hag And I will be the forest crone And I will be the feral witch Howling moonrise all alone And I will ride the borrowed horse Steed unbridled falcon flight And I will bless in all due course The start of day The end of night And I will have my worthy friends Creatures of all shape and form And will no longer make amends For speaking truth or breaking norms And in my hut you’ll find a kettle Cauldron full and hearth in flame Rafters hung with sage and nettle Candle poems I call by name Outside wanders through the heathing Drifting thatch and creeping snow Hobnail boots and shawl web weaving Water voice and stones I know With pockets full of ancient rhythm With mugwort Whiskers in my hair With wyrd mind threaded through decision Abandoning the road more fair There is a freedom here beginning Feel it neatly at the bone Touch your feet to earthen midden Find in body your way home We will be the bog hag We will be the made right crone We remember the loom of mothers, Gathered here ourselves we own.
May the blessings of this season fill you with joy.
May the love of this life shine through you and your ancestors—forward and back.
By this and every effort may the balance be regained.
With love—Lara Irene