Opportunity to Orient in Time and Space
What does the Trickster, 2 different Compasses, and Winter Solstice have to do with interconnectedness?
This post concludes the last full lunation of 2025 and begins the one that will straddle the end of this year and the beginning of the next. According to Ojibway moon names, we are heading to the deep spiritual Full Moon of winter (on January 3, 4:02 am) where darkness and winter encourages quiet times of reflection. During this moon, we can take stock of both the lows and the highs and trust the universal truth of interconnectedness.
Speaking of Interconnectedness
I recently listened to a conversation between Heather Cox Richardson and Diana Butler Bass. I am a dedicated follower of both of women—HCR because I love the way she connects American current events to their historical contexts and DBB because has written quite a bit about Christian Nationalism in America and I really connect with what she has to say. I have long been looking for a way to explore my Christian background/interest and between the compelling above-linked conversation about the history of Christianity that I listened to last week and an invitation from my neighbor Carol to attend ISAIAH’s organizer training for #ALightintheStorm movement this past weekend, I feel like a path may be coming into view.
ISAIAH is a statewide organization that holds multi-racial, multi-faith communities under one roof in order to build people-power in the fight for economic justice here in Minnesota. They held an event last Saturday at the Minneapolis Convention Center which gathered many communities together. There were churches from all over the state, many mosques, childcare centers, Black Barbershops. I saw Buddhists represented. They described the storm we are living through with this administration’s militarized attack on cities, gutting of health care and food assistance, dismantling of public education, targeting of entire communities to engender fear, and masked terrorist forces in the streets. There is a contradiction in what we have been promised and what has been playing out in our lives since Trump took office. They are using this spectacle of cruelty to turn us against each other and ISAIAH and Faith in Minnesota are providing a compass for action as we head into the new year. We work together to elect representatives who will repeal the so called “Big Beautiful Bill.” We must work with everyone. It doesn’t matter how they voted in the last election, or if they agree with you about everything, the only thing we must agree upon is choosing people over billionaires and protecting dignity for all. ISAIAH will be leading caucus trainings in January with Minnesota caucuses happening February 3rd for both republicans and democrats. I invite you to join me in getting involved in the political process wherever you are. While ISAIAH only operates here in Minnesota, there are 23 other states with similar organizations partnering to lead similar campaigns. Let us know if there is something going on in your state. Please ask questions about this either in the comments or replying to this email if you want more info. Everyone is invited to join.
Winter Solstice
This lunation will also hold the Winter Solstice, coming right up on Sunday (12/21/25 at 9:03 am). Now is the time to sit with that juncture between fall and winter and mark what has been, while opening up to what’s ahead. If you are someone who sits down to make note of our transitions through the seasons and has been following along using Slideshow Sisters’ handy dandy Journal Pages, here is the link to where you can find them including the meditation that I recorded to go along with Winter Solstice. These worksheets are a gift to paid subscribers.
The Winter Solstice happens for everybody in the northern hemisphere at the same time. Here we are tilting away from the Sun. I imagine it’s like riding a swing through space. At the apex, we pause for a moment and hang in the sky, before beginning our arc back towards the Earth again. The sun stands for a moment directly over the Tropic of Capricorn, named 2000 years ago because that was the Zodiac constellation the Sun appeared to be in at the time of its naming. Since then, due to the torque of the grasping Sun and Moon, the celestial poles have shifted, changing our view, changing our seasons. Not only are we tilting, but also pivoting in the sky, and the Sun has moved on from the house of Capricorn to other houses, not to return again for another 23,800 years more or less.
To our ancient scientist-ancestors who marked the patterns of each year, the Sun appeared to hang low and still on the horizon, just like the swing pausing at its zenith before beginning the fall downward. It was this appearance of a Sun poised in space, stuck, confused perhaps about which way it would go, up, down or sideways, that inspired our rituals around the darkness. My ancestors prayed for the Sun to come closer once again, bring back the light and heat, and so that we may not starve, and our civilizations would live to see another day. So began our celebrations of solstice, bringing the evergreens in doors, lights to dispel the darkness, celebrations of new beginnings.
From here the days begin to lengthen even though winter has just begun.
Rolling right into the New Year
In the auspices of “good in the beginning, good in the middle, and good in the end,” here is a link to a FREE booklet to help you usher out the old year and usher in a new one. It’s called YearCompass and I found it to be a great guided journalling exercise to wrap up the year last year. I did it for the first time and I am preparing to do it again this year. The first part looks back at the year we are leaving behind, a reminder of the year’s parameters. The prompts guide through specific areas and then you compile those experiences into sentences. The second half of the booklet has you looking ahead and doing that same process into statements for the new year. When you are finished you have a little pamphlet that incapsulates your experience of the year behind and your desires for the year ahead.
I recall the effort of filling out last year’s. The muscle of my brain had to stretch in order to remember and fit my year into the blank spaces. But this year beckons me already and the touch point of last year makes this year a lot easier to reach into. It has already created a more cohesive experience of time and I only have one year under my belt.
My Trickster’s Lessons from the Past Lunation
I tried to write about closure the last New Moon post, but, as often is the case, it’s comes time to mail my letter before it has completely coalesced. It often takes more than one moon cycle to do so. I prioritize keeping you, dear subscribers, in tune with the moon over making complete sense. Possibly to all of our detriments. So thank you for your forgiveness even when my words come to you still jumbled. And I send them out as notice, so you can frame yours by the moon as well, whether you do so is up to you.
The phases provide a frame for recording and studying what each lunation brings. Bringing this “good in the end” attention to closure (and the wolf in my Animal Medicine deck) has led me to take the trickster’s view of the lunation as a way to evaluate what I learned. The past moon was sticky with doubt for me. I was lucky enough to experience it with awareness and have my accountability partners, Judy and Mel, provide wise reflection on a schedule. Sometimes Doubt so completely covers my mind and sucks me in. This particular lunation, I had the sense to remember its ways (with their help and our dedication to gathering), after the pattern asserted itself again and again. I got better at cutting through Doubt’s shenanigans with my awareness. Big thanks to them!
Here is a final Inner Troll Yoga truism: Attention is ever the healer, if you can harness it along with your capacity for love and forgiveness, the future will be yours.
See you in the new year.