In the expansiveness of deepest night, we reconsider the binaries of light versus dark, unfoldment versus resolution, and progress versus sacred pause.

We visit with solstice customs sprung from the rejuvenating blackness of winter as much as the rebirth of the sun, and appreciate how the magic of both can foster a more collaborative, heart-centered, and complex transformation of the spirit, in place of typical New Year’s resolutions.

||0:03|| Prelude prayer-spell

||1:39|| Opening notes, field diary, invitation to rethink the binaries of light and dark

||7:17|| The dark helps us to see: Saturnalia, Kalends of January, Burusho Thumushelling, Alpine/Slavic spinning bans, Makahiki, mock kings and cross-dressing

||13:33|| Beholding the light: Inti Raymi, Chaumos of the Kalash, Yaldā, Yule logs, Lohri

||19:06|| MUSICAL INTERMISSION “Gloomy Winter’s Noo Awa” from the album Highlander’s Farewell on Culburnie Records. To purchase all Fraser & Haas albums, including Highlander’s Farewell: https://culburnie.com/alasdairandnatalie.html And to support their current “SYZYGY” project: https://culburnie.com/support.html

||25:19|| Eschewing typical New Year’s resolutions and sense of timing, in favor of a more collaborative, heart-centered, and complex transformation of the spirit

COMING SOON: This lunation's companion episode, where we’ll join the wild hunt and their mistress who rides at the fore, the Dark Mother.

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Image credit: Alphonse Mucha, “Star”