Solstice Morning: Sitting at the Ocean with the Moon and the Mourning

Solstice morning, I will go to the ocean. I will go to the place of water, sky, and land — the place of connection and the place where my shadow tips into light.

I will go the place where the moon will shine down on me, even if She is behind clouds. I will go to the place of cold and waves. To the place of dreaming and becoming awake again.

I will breathe in the morning and release the night.

I will sing up the sun because I don’t celebrate this precious moment as much as I could.

I will sing to the passing of the day because I don’t do it as much as I could.

I will sing because all of there is a spell that wants to be sung into the world.

A Ritual under Solstice Moonlight

But not all of the songs are songs are joy and hope. Some are laced with longing. Some of them are of loss that aches across the bones of my body and the tunnels of my heart. There are things that no song will drown out.

This is a space of mourning and being with the grief that life offers as a reminder of what you love.

I mourn those who have passed and stepped away.

I mourn for those who are lost and alone.

I mourn for those who are silenced and struggling.

I mourn for the wide open hearts who have too much to feel.

Perhaps I will create sacred space. Perhaps I will simply know the space to be sacred.

Perhaps I will call to the godds. Perhaps they will emerge on sea foam and star trails.

I will allow the waves of my own mourning to guide the way.

I will leave flowers on the shore, gifts to the ocean in all of Her vastness and knowing.

I will write names on the sand so they can be swept up and taken out.

I will feel the release. I will allow myself to feel the release.

I will sit in the sand until…the tears come. I will add them to the ocean’s knowing.

I will gift them to myself as sweet relief.

And I will remember that mourning always comes when your heart stretches to hold.

This is a spell of remembering.

This is magick of being quiet enough to hear the spaces between what I know and what I don’t know.

To be present with it all. The questions and the silence.

A tipping point into whatever happens next.

Solstice magick.

A Song for Release

If you’d like to sing with me on Winter Solstice, here’s what I plan to sing for a while:

The ocean is the beginning of the earth

The ocean is the beginning of the earth

All life comes from the sea

All life comes from the sea

–Delaney Johnson, Starhawk