Winter Solstice ritual with Crystals

I like to celebrate the Winter Solstice, the longest night of the year, with a simple Crystal ritual. Winter Solstice represents the dark but it also represents new beginnings and hope for the future.


I begin the ritual by reflecting on the year passing. I am reminded that we have come through the darkest part of the year and now the light will be returning, yeah to longer days. I will light a candle and as I light it I know that I am planting the seeds for the new year. What is it that I would like to welcome in to my life? What would I like to see manifest in the New Year? Hmmm, lots to ponder about there….for me, for those I care about, for the world in which I live, peace, love, harmony, joy and much abundance! AND gratitude for all that is already abundant in my life.

Once I've sat in meditation, focusing on the qualities I would like to bring in to my life for the upcoming year, I focus those thoughts into a Quartz Crystal. I find it helpful to hold the crystal close to my heart, generating a feeling within me of these qualities. When I feel complete in this, I give thanks to the crystal for carrying the vibration of all I am focusing on. I place the crystal in the ground, allowing it return back to the earth from where it came, knowing that it holds this  positive energy. I have a sacred space devoted to ceremony, ritual and meditation in my yard and this is where I bury the Crystal. As I place the stone into the earth, I know that I am planting the seeds for the coming year.

I invite you to connect to that place of knowing that all things are possible. In the moment of darkness, the light, as always, is born again.

I also find it helpful to read some inspiring words connected to this time of year. I'd like to share part of an email that was sent to me by Jade Wah'oo Grigori a Shaman from Arizona. You can visit his web site by going here: http://www.shamanic.net/index.php/home

"Considered to be the beginning of a new year, the ending of the old, the Winter Solstice is the time for the releasing of debts owed one, of grudges and hurt feelings, emotional wounds and petty grievances, and the release of attached entities. It is the time of opening to new direction, insights and blessings brought forth into the spaces and places that had previously been filled with those old attachments, now released.At the time of the Winter Solstice the days have descended into the depths of darkness. It is at this moment, however, that the Sun begins to return, and with it, the days begin to lengthen. As the days become longer more light radiates into the world. This natural rhythm of the dance of Earth and Sun is a trigger within our psyche. As all the things that have remained hidden in the darkness begin to be revealed in the greater light of day, so do all the things that we tend to hide in our own Inner Darkness begin to be brought forth into activity as the days lengthen, just as seeds left in the darkness beneath the soil begin to sprout and grow in response to the emerging light. Generations upon generations of experiencing this cycle of our own Soul's dynamic led the people of ancient cultures to utilize the very same patterns of nature to deal effectively with their burdens of pain and suffering, of anguish and trauma that had laid hidden within the Inner Darkness of their own Soul."

Take time to celebrate the Light returning. Plant seeds for the New Year.