Celebrate Winter Solstice

There are so many festive and wonderful ways to welcome back the Light into the Northern Hemisphere! This is a beautiful day of anticipating hibernation and building fires for warmth and glow around you as you go deep with your medicine.

• Make a releasing bundle to put into the fire with all that you are letting go of in your prayers, to be taken up by the smoke.

• Register for SouLodge Earth Medicine School, only ten days left! Commit to going deeper with your medicine for the work you plan to do in the world.

• Place a tiny offering of organic, loose tobacco in the North to honor the Season of the Elders.

• Spread birdseed in the East, so the winged ones have nourishment through the lean months.

• Drink meade or a non-alcoholic version of it to drink same-day as Storm the Castle makes it.

This is a non-alcohol mead recipe that is ready to drink the same day you make it. There is no yeast or fermentation involved. While I haven’t tried this recipe yet it looks pretty good. And is real easy to make. If you give it a try send me an email and let me know how it tastes.

The Basic Recipe Ingredients:

• 1 Part Apple Juice
• 2 Parts Honey
• 3 Parts Water

If you want to make about One gallon of this mead here are the volumes:

• 21 ounces apple juice
• 42 ounces Honey
• 63 ounces water

If this is a little too exacting you simple use the cup method! two cups of apple juice, four cups of honey and six cups of water. Gives you 96 ounces or about three-quarters of a gallon.

Mix these ingredients in a pan and bring it slowly to a boil then let it simmer for about half an hour. After it cools you strain it into a container and refrigerate it just before serving it.

I got this recipe from this blog here thanks! And the author has some great suggestions for spicing up the mead (These spices also work well for traditional mead) Here are her suggestions:

-Add cloves, cinnamon, or orange slices for a spicier mead

– Add Ginger and Herbs for a soothing tonic

– Add mint to make it a lively social cocktail

• Gather your loved ones close and share your wishes for the New Year.

• Clean out your drawers, closets and cabinets, and smudge them. Clear out the cobwebs and dust bunnies which may be collecting stagnant energy you don’t want to carry into 2016.

• Feast on cakes made with your store of grains and jams from the Fall.

 

Most of all, enjoy your time in connection with the spirits and the Earth. Count your blessings and plan to live into your 2016 with energy and vision.

Do you choose a guiding word for the year? What is yours?