As I’ve mentioned before, I tend to dread this time of year. This time around, however, December has been pretty amazing. It’s also been incredibly busy and full of hustle and bustle and socializing and some delicious experimentation. I’ve been enjoying myself and loving life.

Photo by graywacke/A Landing a Day

I have, however, noticed a certain theme coming to my attention more than normal: that this time of year is ‘supposed’ to be about quiet, silence, reflection, ‘going inside,’ etc. I agree — normally I’m all about those things, especially right around now. But this year the hustle and bustle has felt good. I haven’t felt like I’ve been missing anything.

I went to a ‘sacred sexuality’ gathering this past weekend. It’s a group I’ve been meaning to attend for a few years, but hadn’t due to timing and apathy and general hesitance to walk into situations where I can’t gauge what the energy will be. The focus of the group this time around was “the fallow time,” and we just did some really simple ritual. Nothing at all sexy, although it was quite intimate.

When the lights went down for the ritual and the silence began, the simple candlelight brought me into that familiar light trance feeling. I realized there, in a small group of strangers, that I have been neglecting the inner in favor of the outer and that it’s important that I change that. I sank into how good the silence felt. Listening to a poem. Listening to personal offerings from my fellow ritualists. I just remained silent.

I realized that I had an instinct at the beginning of the month to plan for the last two weeks of the year to be quiet and reflective in honor of the torrent of change that has been 2014 (And much of 2013 too, for that matter. Well, shit. I guess it goes back to like 2009?). Time for integration and healing and hopefully some long steeps in tubs of hot water.

I also realized that I haven’t really committed at this point to doing anything like that at all. I see myself happiest in the forest with maybe a friend or lover and a lot of silent simplicity. I could probably keep rushing through the month and be just fine (although I can feel my immune system starting to disagree with that), but there are several astrological events in the next week or so that are such fantastic opportunities for ritual, intention setting, reflection and honoring of all that has happened this year.

I am hard pressed to let opportunities like these go by unmarked. The solstice, New Moon in Capricorn, and Uranus stationing direct all happen in the same day (today!). And then there’s that blessed event I’ve been giggling about for a month now — Saturn getting the hell out of Scorpio. Hooray!

Writing a weekly column on the topic of ‘spirituality’ has been an interesting adventure for the past six months. Most weeks I can find a thread that sparks my heart and makes the words flow. This week, however, I’ve felt a flatness whenever I try to write. Or a lack of time when inspired to write about something more in depth that could use some academic backup or research. I’ll admit, sexy explorations have trumped writing this week. My heart (and my body) is quite happy about that.

So in light of the above, and in reverence for the fact that we are heading into a week during which the astrology is inviting us to re-frame our narratives, as both Ms. Painter and Mr. Wallick have said, I have an invitation for myself and for any of you who’d like to join in.

Let’s make a point of reflecting in the next week, shall we? Perhaps that means an exploration into the events of the year and a re-collection so that we can begin the integration process. Perhaps it’s something deeper than that, an inquiry into our shadows and attachments so that we can consciously let things go during this potent phase. How can we reframe our personal stories, and how have we? How can we celebrate that?

Next week I’ll share with you what I’ve learned. I’m grateful for a forum like this that promotes accountability. I’d invite you also to share something about what you learn in the process, at whatever level you’re comfortable with. We have a wonderful container here at Planet Waves, and there’s nothing quite like the power of being witnessed.

May you find joy, comfort, silence, or whatever it is you need at this time.

By Sarah Taylor

For a long time, it felt like you were carrying it all alone; holding things together, shouldering the burden of an experience or task that seemed to give you space for little else.

Three of Disks, Nine of Disks, The World from The Röhrig Tarot deck, created by Carl-W. Röhrig. Click on the image for a larger version.

Now, things have shifted, and opened, and there is a feeling of that burden being shared — or at the very least a spaciousness that had heretofore eluded you.

You can look up, and see ahead of you; you can feel the support of those around you. Those, perhaps, who have been with you through your time of trial, but who were also caught up in their own “Work,” equally involved in a task that called for their attention.

I drew the Nine of Disks first, and put it at centre. Very clearly this is the point at which you find yourself. A lack of perceived equality in the Three of Disks (the card of apprenticeship to life) — a needing to learn — is in the past, and there is a dawning knowledge of a ‘standing together’, where each entity is its own, and nothing holds authority over anything else. The only authority to be held is one’s own, over oneself.

The landscape in the central card reflects this evolutionary step from Three to Nine (three times three; three figures bringing shared experience in the spirit of equality): fecund, blooming, the sky colours soft, a light radiating from the heads of the two men and woman, and from behind the mountain range in the distance. The inner light meeting the outer; as within, so without.

“the more I give the more I get,” “association of love wisdom and creativity.”

That connection was always there, but, bent double, it was nearly impossible to see or to know it. There is a ‘pay it forward’ feeling to the Nine, where all aspects are in co-operation to bring it about.

However, the central card would not have been possible without the card to its left. A card that combines both “effort” and “success.” The seeds of success were held in the effort itself. It might have felt like it was too much to carry, or that you were alone and forgotten. You were not. The Three and Nine are intrinsically linked, serving the same purpose, which becomes clearer in the final card to the right.

The World. The closing of one door and the opening of another. What better card to see in the Solstice? What better planetary correspondence (The World is associated with the planet Saturn) when Saturn is in the last degree of Scorpio, and just about to move into Sagittarius?

The writing on The World is in German, but one of the phrases stands out to me:

“The conclusion of karma.”

The woman, who is The World, is liberating herself from the chains of karma. You, who are your own world, are seeing yourself in this mirror. The snake is freed too, and works in unison with the woman: the unleashing of erotic energy that is held comfortably and yet allowed its own expression. There is no controlling; no runaway uprising.

Both are in co-operation — and this is reflected in the co-operation in the Nine of Disks. Except this time it is the co-operation of one aspect of self — a sense of place in one’s world that has been hard-won — with another: that mysterious, root connection to a primal creative force that lies at the foundation of everything.

This might feel strange at first — difficult, even. You have a handle on it; and if you don’t, you have the ability to acquire it. It is at your fingertips.

You can own this experience. You, and your band of brothers and sisters — whether inner, human, material- or resource-based — have been working a long time for this.

Astrology/Elemental correspondences: Three of Disks (Mars in Capricorn), Nine of Disks (Venus in Virgo), The World (Saturn)

If you want to experiment with tarot cards and don’t have any, we provide a free tarot spread generator using the Celtic Wings spread, which is based on the traditional Celtic Cross spread. This article explains how to use the spread.