Yuletide Blessings
Yuletide Blessings my friends,
I send my heartfelt wishes for a meaningful holiday and a hope filled New Year to each and every one of you. December 21st is the longest night in the Northern Hemisphere. Since ancient times, Winter Solstice had been honored with ceremonies using some form of light. All over the world folks have gathered for bonfires, lit torches, candles, and oil lamps. The traditions reassured them that the days of more light would be returning. Today, rarely do we appreciate what the effect of long dark nights would have been.
Yule has always been the time when tribes, clans, families and communities have gathered together. People often trekked many miles to spend time with kin, feasting, drinking, and telling stories around the huge hearths where the Yule log provided warmth and light. They were strengthening bonds, creating a sense of deep Belonging and bringing good cheer as together they faced the long nights and winter weather.
The most important theme of this time, for us, is honoring the light within.
Forms of meditation including deeper experiences assisted by psychoactive plants has been practiced by our ancestors for thousands of years. Brian Muraresku author of The Immortality Key, spent twelve years investigating these spiritual traditions that go back to Neolithic Times.
Brian’s results are the most revealing research into world-wide ceremonial practices of our ancestors ever published. Our predecessors wanted to understand this inner world of our consciousness, especially with regards to what happens after death and these mysteries were illumined by various kinds of plants, remains of which have now been tested where ever there were archeological artifacts and frescoes at sites where such rituals were shared communally. His book is well worth reading.
My wish for us all is to enhance this Light within. Let ritual, prayer, breath-work and meditation become our steadfast daily practices. And if you choose, there are communities where such plants may be experienced in a safe container with experienced guides.
May Blessings of the Light be yours, Linda