Neolithic Shamanism: Spirit Work in the Norse Tradition - Raven Kaldera 2012

Winter Solstice
The Golden World: Sun

The Sun goes through phases just like the Moon, and they reflect the Moon’s eight phases in their own way. We can measure them as well—the winter solstice is the Sun’s equivalent of the New Moon, when the Sun is at her nadir and the world threatens to be swallowed up in darkness; the summer solstice is the equivalent of the Full Moon; the equinoxes are the equivalents of the Quarter Moons; and the cross-quarter days (often referred to in modern Paganism as Oimelc, Samhain/ Winternights, Beltane/May Day, and Lammas) are equivalent to the Waxing and Waning Crescent Moons, the Gibbous Moon, and the Disseminating Moon, respectively. Thus we begin on Yule, the winter solstice, just as in the next chapter we begin on the New Moon.

Exercise: Burying Amber

This is the first half of an exercise in making one of the many substances that shamans in our tradition find it useful to acquire, charge, and bless. If you live in a climate where the ground is frozen by Yule, you will need to dig a hole in the ground about a foot deep and reserve the earth in a bag somewhere it will not freeze. Cover the hole and come back to it at midnight on the winter solstice, the longest night of the year. In the meantime, acquire a cup of mead and a small chunk of rough, raw amber. Amber is the stone of Day, just as jet is the stone of Night. Wrap it in black cloth and lay it in the hole, then pour the earth in over it, saying this prayer:

Spark of the Sun, I bury you

As Sun lies now beneath the Earth

And like a seed you will gather light

And be released when the year is right,

And rise again into rebirth.

As you scoop the cold earth into the hole, visualize the amber as a seed of the Sun, waiting under the soil for its destiny. While you kneel on the cold ground, ask the land spirit for its blessing on the Sun-seed you have just planted. Ask it to keep the seed safe until the high summer. Pour the mead—a solar substance—out onto the earth as an offering.

One note: This ritual can be performed in reverse for Night-affinity techniques by burying a piece of jet at the summer solstice and then unearthing it at Yule (assuming the ground is not completely frozen). However, if you carve or grind jet, wear a mask; its particles are much more harmful to the lungs than those of amber. (If you are more of a lapidary, you could do this with a moonstone.)