Honoring Darkness - Ceremony Guidance for Winter Solstice

The wheel of the year turns toward darkness. Calling us inward. Longer nights and less doing provide the perfect opportunity to gather ourselves in and look at what really matters, and what we want to create in the coming months. Throughout history, winter was a time when people came in from their work on the land, gathered together in homes lit by candles and heated by wood. Practiced handcrafts, told stories, and engaged in celebrations of the darkest night of the year and the return of the sun.

In our current time where we live lives of constant summer, homes heated to a perfect 72° year-round, and electric lights creating daylight long after the sun has gone to bed, it's easy to feel disconnected from the wheel of the year. From the limits that were a daily reality of our ancestor’s lives. We live lives of inconceivable comfort and endless distraction.

While these comforts are most welcome, and most of us don't desire to go back to a time when we had only candlelight and lanterns to light our homes, or wood stoves to heat them, there is something precious about remembering these old ways. Something tender about honoring the seasons as they change and creating ways in our busy modern lives to slow down and be with the darkness.

It's less than a week until winter solstice. Many humans are busily getting ready for whatever winter holiday they celebrate, and while the hustle and bustle can feel good, exciting even! There can also be a sense of exhaustion, burnout, and a lack of the deep meaning that our souls long for.

Solstice celebrations were at one time, and still are in some communities and parts of the world, a time for humans to come together and honor the sacred in their lives. To gather in a good way and create ritual, song, and feasting to celebrate being alive and surviving through the dark times of the year.

In the frenetic, capitalist-driven holiday celebrations that so many of us are too familiar with, there is not much sense of the sacred. Post-holiday slumps and seasonal depression point towards something that is not spoken about enough. We were born for more than this. We were born to be part of connected communities that live a life guided by the wheel of the year. Honoring and celebrating the changing of the seasons and the significance and meaning of being a human being alive in a living world.

What if we decided to do it all differently... What if we turn away from what feels like necessary spending, and towards time together? Creating bonds of community and kinship, and rituals to celebrate and embrace this season in the way that our ancestors before us have done back and back and back through time.

In my work as a ceremonialist, I treasure the opportunity to craft ceremonies to honor the cycles and seasons in our natural world, and in our human lives. Ceremonies enacted by a community when well-crafted and held, can be powerful and connecting experiences. Self-guided individual ceremonies can also be powerful and connecting experiences. Connecting the individual to the divine, the more than human world, ancestors, and our own souls.

I have found for many people who are longing to bring ceremony into their lives that there is a sense of “I don't quite know how to do it...” This makes perfect sense considering that ceremony is deeply lacking from the fabric of our modern lives. If we didn't grow up in communities that practice ceremony together it is unlikely that we will have confidence in creating ceremonies of meaning for ourselves, or our communities.

I share here some simple ideas that you can work with, mold to fit your own needs, To create a ceremony to honor this coming solstice.

1.       Set an intention- what are you hoping to offer and receive in your ceremony? Set with this question, a pen and paper, and give yourself time to feel into what it is that you are longing to bring forward through your ceremony.

2.       Winter solstice is a time to honor the darkness and celebrate the return of the light. Consider using darkness and light in your ceremony. Dimming the lights in your home, sitting in prayer and meditation, and then lighting a candle to symbolize the sun, and the beauty of this constant force in our lives, returning again to bring light and warmth to the land.

3.       What are you longing to release in your life? What are you longing to call in? Use strips of paper to write down one thing you are releasing, and one thing you are calling in. You could burn these paper strips with your candle, or in a fire. You could also bury them in the earth, tucked in tight like seeds waiting for the sun to kiss them and call them forth into new life. Even the things that we are releasing, the things we don't want to carry anymore, can be transmuted through the power of the earth, the elements, and time, into something new, whole and beautiful.

4.       Close your ceremony with some words of gratitude and thanks for the gifts that have been given in this life. It is important to have an opening and a closing to each ceremony. If you have called in helping powers, ancestors, or guides, make sure to communicate that the ceremony is ending and thank them for their support.

You can use these suggestions to create a ceremony for yourself, or to be enacted with a group of friends, or an extended community. Trust your guidance and intuition as you prepare for your ceremony. Gather candles, stones, sacred tools that you wish to use in your ceremony. Trust that you cannot do this wrong. Your offering will be well received if you proceed with a clear intention and an open heart.

Creating ceremonies can bring a richness and depth to this time of the year, and bring you closer to your own souls deep longing to live a life of meaning and purpose. Connected deeply to the sacred, to ancestral traditions, and to the unique beauty that you were born to bring forth into this world. May you be held gently in this tender time of darkness, and may the sun return again to warm your face and your heart in the months to come.

Spiraling Inward

We have officially arrived into the season of darkness here in the Pacific Northwest, the sun rising just after 7:00 AM and setting at 4:30 PM. The nights are long, and the days are mostly wet. I hear people grumble about the weather, talk about how the damp and cold are a bone chilling combination. And yes, all of this is true. But I relish the descent into the darkness. Historically winter was a time for communities to gather, to create light inside themselves. There is a continual string of Saints days and feast days and celebrations of all sorts, from so many cultures. This is a time of less outdoor work and more handcraft. Less pushing and doing and more conviviality and kinship.

Each year that I am on this path of weaving my life closer to the old ways, and closer to the ceremonial hoop of the year I feel more tenderly held by the seasons themselves, and by my community. I see the seasons in my own body, the rise and fall of my energy levels, the different foods I want to eat, the way bed calls me earlier and my body wants more hours of sleep. This is wintering, and it is beautiful.

There is also a call for inner work, the type of deep looking within oneself that I truly love. In our most recent Women’s Circle -  Sacred Circle Women’s Gathering, We dropped deeply into this territory of looking within, to some of what has been hidden inside us. The places where we have exiled parts of ourselves. I think that this is something we all do. Whether we are aware of it or not. We carry around, hidden inside us versions of ourselves that we don't want others to see, or that we don't want to see ourselves. Sometimes we don't even know they're there.

I've been deep in the pages of a fantastic book, Descent and Rising by Carly Mountain. She opens up the story of Innana, the ancient queen goddess of Sumeria, and her exiled sister Erishkagel. There are so many layers of inner looking available through this myth. Inana claiming her truth that she must go to the underworld to find her exiled sister. The stripping away of all Innana holds herself to be as she enters the underworld. Her death at the hands of her sister, and her eventual resurrection. The acts of sacrifice that must take place for her to be whole and alive again. This is true for all of us. To become whole, we must die to the old version, the one we held so tightly, determined to make true.

These old stories are sharp-edged, filled with the scent of smoke and bear fur. They are not for the faint of heart. They require us to soften our own ideas and allow constructs to fall away. Inside the old myths lie shimmering truths that are just as relevant today as they were 4000 years ago.

Innana’s descent was in essence a self-guided ceremony. She heard the call in her heart to descend into the underworld, she prepared herself in all her finery, and she began the journey. This is what we do too. When the call of soul is heard a process of inner descent must commence. We must find the path with our own feet. We have to find the ceremonies that call to us, that speak our wild and holy truth and nestle it into the life-giving breast of mother earth. Self-guided ceremony does not mean that we have to be alone in the process. Inanna was not alone. She had to begin the journey alone, but she was supported by the guardians of the underworld, by her inner exile, in the form of her sister Ereshkigal. By her companion - maid servant who was waiting for her return, and willing to lay her own life down to see Innana rise back up into the land of the living.

In intact cultures where rites of passage are still held there is an understanding that this is territory that one would never enter into alone. You need a companion on the path. Someone to mirror the process, to create a container of safety and holding, an anchor of sorts to stabilize you as you descend into this territory of soul. It can be easy to get lost along the path, to find yourself in a forest so dark that you can no longer see where your feet need to land. But this does not mean that you should not go on the journey. It means that you should prepare yourself, gather your crown of self-knowing, your lapis beads of your voice of truth, your breastplate of a strong and noble heart, and begin.

I am in the creation process of a new offering, an 8 week deep dive – The Spiral Path – A Journey to Self and Soul. This offering is for women, who hear the call to deepen into their relationship with their Soul knowing and truth. Most women come to this work through suffering. The truth is that if we are coasting along in the eternal summer of life, and have not had our share of appropriate heartbreak, the call of soul will usually not be heard. This is because it demands everything of us, it is the greatest sacrifice, and also the greatest gift and beauty we could open to in our lives.

This Program will offer a container where you can spiral deeper into yourself, your relationship with the natural world, the voice of your soul, your inherent intuitive power, and truly the meaning of life. It is a structured ceremonial container, individualized support from me including eight hours of soul guidance, a ritual support care package, various handouts and prompts to help you on the journey. It is in depth and super juicy.

I am currently looking for a few women to go through this spiral with me completely free of charge. You will receive the entire package, including the ritual support gift box, in exchange for your honest feedback and a review. If this is of interest to you, please reach out to me through e-mail, I would love to have a conversation with you and see if it feels like a good fit. You can also book a discovery call directly through my website on my Soul Guidance page.

My prayer for all of us is that we bow in completely to what is being asked of us right now. Wherever you are, however life and the land are moving in you right now, that you take this opportunity to turn and look deeply within. These are hard times, filled with political unrest and catastrophe upon catastrophe in the world around us. There is no better time than this to do the work of deeply knowing your own truth and capacity to be with the trouble. Perhaps we could stop pushing it all away. And instead turn to face what is true, and to gather all of the layers of support possible. Ceremonial support. Spiritual support. Deep connectedness to the earth and the ever present loving support she pours into us. The support of our networks of kinship and community. When times are dark, it is even more important to celebrate the strength, tenacity, and beauty of the human spirit.

From my little home in the woods I am sending tender blessings to you. May you feel held in this time of wintering. And may you know the beauty and power of your human-ness and your connection to the more than human world.

Weaving the Threads of Autumn

Autumn has arrived and the earth is tawny. Fields roll like the fur on a lion's back, caramel colored, sun drenched and smelling of that clean freshness of dried grass. The trees stand green and tall as always they do here in the fertile Pacific Northwest.  Summer rains have blessed us over the last month, and I feel that too. The roadsides are not covered in dust this year, the green trees not ashy. A great relief this moisture, a great blessing.

It's the gathering time. Gathering the crops in from the field, gathering myself into a quieter space, gathering the blessings of the summer.  I've already harvested some of my seed corn, and squash are plump and heavy waiting to be brought in and stored for winter feasting. Growing food makes the seasons feel more real, more eminent somehow. It's definitely not all about pumpkin spice lattes and cute sweaters and boots over here, (not that those are not delightful! )  It's a real life turning in, and in a month’s time putting things to bed.

I'm grateful for the slowing down and turning in. There's something broody in my chest. Something wanting to be seen, tended, given space to explore. I can't quite put my finger on what it is and that's OK. I've learned that sometimes we have to create a sort of nest inside of ourselves before spirit can reveal more to us. We can't force the soul to speak. We can't peel back the layers of the egg to help the little chick be born, because we all know how that turns out... and it isn't pretty. So, I'm gestating a bit. Feeling into the center of my being. My home base.

It takes radical resistance to not become spread too thin in this time. I sense this all around me, everyone I love is chronically too busy, all the time. We all seem to have so many ways that we are being pulled and called, and yes, of course it is important to be of service, it is important to be engaged in healing, and learning, and living. And yet, I wonder what is being lost in all of this frenetic hastiness and can the deep soul wisdom that we long for be attained through ambition,  or only through being, and presence, and crafting that nest inside one's life where truth wants to live.

I'm thinking of the marvelous bowerbirds, how they create these gorgeous nests that call their mates in. Ground displays of beauty, of welcome, of tending. What have we forgotten about courtship and steadiness in this time of more, more, more? I frequently hear the words of my teacher Stephen Jenkinson reminding us that we don't want to be a mile wide and only two inches deep. At least I certainly don't. I want to be a deep well of truth.

This past Saturday, the night before equinox, I sat with friends around the fire and we lifted our voices in song together. Not in a formal way, not in a formed ceremony of any type, just human women gathered around the fire with our voices mingling in the night air and the children playing nearby. Sometimes coming close to crawl on the lap and be comforted, or to sing a few lines of a song. This type of simple being is delicious to my soul. This comfort can't happen on Instagram. It can't happen in a zoom room. It can't happen unless we humans are willing to slow down enough and prioritize sharing our lives with each other. I am so grateful that I have those ones in my circle.

Perhaps we can all take a step back and a turn inward this season. I wonder what precious being living inside you wants to be courted forward and given voice? What tender place inside your heart is longing to be fed and nourished? What wounds still live inside your being that can only be mended by attentiveness and time, stitched together by spider silk and moonlight, by a warm water, and heavy tears that brim right at the surface of your heart, finally being shed.

Maybe we could take it all to the land. Our generous earth that provides all, and always holds us so gently. Make up a bundle of offerings, read your favorite poem out loud, place your forehead down on the cool grass in the morning and breathe out hot steamy breaths of longing. Trust that all you need welcome to you in due time period trust that all that no longer serves you will be let go, once it has been attended to and released. It's not a matter of if, it is a matter of when. Make your life a prayer. Speak that prayer to the wind for all of us. We need each other's prayers. We need them now more than ever.

I'll be here, planting my feet into the soil. Welcoming the chill of frost to my cheek. I'll be here creating a nest in my heart for truth to inhabit and make home. I'll be here feeling your prayers blowing by me on the morning breeze and sending mine up to travel with yours. Maybe they'll join together and make something more beautiful than we can imagine right now. Maybe we will all receive the gift of slowness, of deep understanding, of a spaciousness in time and energy that we long for. Maybe we will receive exactly what we need. Here's to believing this to be possible...

And I said to my heart be still now

for there is no where we need to go
and no thing we need to do -

only wait in this precious cave of time

for the bird in us to land and in good time
to sing again
until that song, silence will be our welcome
companion and we will create comfort - here
in this nest, this body, this home
here in this tender place of longing.

Marianna Iverson

Broken Open to Belonging

Altar at my recent Broken Open - Tending the Gifts in our Wounds Workshop - August 2024

I'm home now, in my little nest in the tall trees. Settling in and resting after an eventful and beauty-soaked week, learning and facilitating at the Temple of Belonging Women's gathering here in Oregon. Imagine this, 230 women, acres and acres of pristine forest, Douglas fir, cedar, big leaf maple, a diverse and beautiful forest. Bubbling brooks, clear streaming water, and even a waterfall. Delicious meals, new friends and old friends, ceremony, prayer and song. To say my heart is full would be a vast understatement. I feel satiated in a bone-deep way.

We humans really are tribal creatures, even in this time of great forgetting, this time of isolation, and the poverty of terminal aloneness, we still need each other. Women need each other. To be gathered in with company such as this, able to freely express our beauty and uniqueness, our longing and our hunger for life, our tender truths, is such an incredible gift. And that doesn't mean that it's all easy, or fun and games.  For me, learning to belong, allowing myself to belong, and showing up as my full self is a work in progress. My prayer before leaving for the gathering was that I would allow myself to belong, that I would be able to remove all of the barriers to love inside of my heart, and be open and willing to the possibility of what this gathering could bring into my life. My prayer was answered.

I was honored to be able to offer a workshop during the gathering, a council circle with an element of time on the land. I called my offering Broken Open – Tending the Gifts in our Wounds. 20 beautiful women joined me in the sanctuary space, a gorgeous old Chapel with wooden floors, a wooden roof, and those old glass paned windows that almost look like they're ice, patterns swirling in the light. We came together with a collective prayer to share our hearts, our wounding, and the beauty that arises when we are able to turn and face ourselves, in our truth. Suffering truly is the doorway into the soul. Each one of these women came with  tender truth and with courage that was stunning to witness.

As a circle facilitator and ceremonialist, it is always a privilege to be able to hold women in this way. As I step deeper into this path it's such a joy to realize that there is honestly nothing that I would rather do. Being able to create space for women to feel safe enough to bring themselves fully forward fills my soul with a sense of purpose. Ceremony is the place where my gifts are most alive, and what a precious treasure it is to be able to share these gifts with the world.

In each circle there is a magic that happens, the right women show up. It has never failed. We gather and the stories that are shared have synchronicity, one woman needs so much to hear what another shares. We find a thread of connection and we know we are meant to be there. There is a palpable hum of aliveness in the space. What is this wonder? I can’t know, but I can guess that it has something to do with our spirit kin, our ancestors, and the spirit of the depths that calls us at the right time to say yes to our soul’s longing. Our showing up brings the magic, it is our creation and it is also a gift.

I spent some time in my preparation for this workshop sorting through my collections of poetry and finding poems that felt resonant with the work that we were going to be doing. You can see them in the image above, rolled into scrolls and tied with a lovely green silk thread. As our circle came to a close I asked each woman to go to the altar and take a scroll, open it , and then tie the silk thread onto the wrist of their neighbor, as a symbol of our togetherness, of what we had created together.

I rub the silk thread on my wrist as I write this. I feel these women with me. I hold their sorrows, and the earth holds their sorrows. We grew stronger together, and the wonder of that beauty is enough. We are enough. Ceremony is enough. We were born for these wild and turbulent times and together we find our way. We belong to each other.

Many Blessings,

Marianna