Three Things to Share This Holiday Season


I wrote these some years back, but they are worth posting again. 'Tis the season! And blessings of the season to you all!

http://margiemcarthur.blogspot.com/2010/12/it-all-comes-down-to-mother-and-her.html

http://margiemcarthur.blogspot.com/2010/12/midwinter-night-wheel-of-year-has.html



And here is a vision journey with which to tap in to this season wherein the Dark Mother births the Light.

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The Chapel in the Clearing and the Blessings of the Light

To begin: Place a candle in the center of your working space and light it in honor of the One Divine Source from which all life and being emanates.

Vision Journey —
Take a slow deep breath, then exhale, and relax. Be still for a moment, and feel your body as you sit upon the couch, chair or floor. Take another deep breath…and let it out. And another. And with each one, you feel yourself relaxing more and more.

As you gaze at the candle flame in the center of the room, you feel your own, inner flame, the spark of  divinity within you, awaken in response. Close your eyes now and see the candle flame with your inner vision, and watch as it grows in size, strength, and brightness. Take another slow deep breath, and as you exhale you watch the flame growing...and feel your inner flame growing stronger and brighter as well, and your awareness increasing along with it.

With your inner vision, you watch as the candle flame increases in size till it becomes a wall of flame, a curtain of flame.

You step through the curtain of flame and find yourself to be in a very different kind of place. You are standing at the edge of a woods, looking into a clearing, in the midst of which sits a small stone building. It is a cold wintery night, and overhead the stars shine brightly in the deep blue sky. The tiny crescent of the waning moon is setting in the west, but the stars are bright and provide illumination.

You walk towards the stone building, and as you get closer you can see it is a chapel of some sort, with three wooden stairs that lead up to a porch and a wooden door. You spend a few moments looking at the carvings on the wooden door (pause), then climb the stairs, push the door open, and enter the chapel.

To your surprise, the chapel is roofless and the starlight gleams down, giving a dim illumination to the interior. You see a cobbled stone floor, a few wall decorations, some wooden benches, and at the front of the chapel, a stone altar. On the altar is a beautiful golden cup.

You walk up to the altar and go around it to the other side, so that you are facing the body of the chapel and the door through which you just entered. You feel pulled to place your hands down upon the stone altar and do so, allowing your awareness sink within the stone......

Suddenly you become aware that the chapel, which had looked empty and deserted, is actually full. You hear the rustle of a great crowd of beings. You cannot see them, but you can sense them. You sense animal spirits, plant spirits, tree spirits. You sense humans, faeries, elves. There is a sense of expectancy and subdued excitement in the room, and yet a feeling of reverence as well.

Then your eyes are drawn upward to the sky above the chapel. The great cobalt dome of sky sparkles with stars. But your attention is pulled behind the stars, to the vast sea of space itself, and within that great sea of space you sense a vast presence, and a consciousness almost beyond human comprehension. You feel tiny by comparison. Yet despite the vastness of this consciousness and your relative tinyness, you feel it’s attention and caring... as it gazes at you with its thousands of eyes. 

You look now at the stars, and notice that two of them seem particularly bright...brighter than the rest, and that these two seem to be moving slowly and majestically across the sky to a place where their paths will intersect. You watch as this happens....and as they come into conjunction, their lights blend together, forming one huge bright light, one enormous star. Beams of light begin to pour forth from this huge star, streaming downward toward the earth, and as you watch this, you hear music — a kind of wordless singing of many voices, in beautiful harmony.......

On instinct you place your hands on the golden cup that is sitting in the center of the stone altar. As you sense all the unseen faces in the chapel turning skyward, you lift the golden cup to the sky. The beams of light pouring down from the large star flow into the cup, filling it with a light both silver and golden, a light that fills the cup to the brim, and then overflows. The beams of light from the sky flow onto your head and into your body, as well. They splash onto your shoulders, run down back and front, run down your arms and onto your hands. The light is infusing your body, and you know it is infusing all the other beings in the chapel, as well.

And everywhere on and in you this light reaches, you feel warmed, cleansed, blessed, and healed. You spend a few moments allowing yourself to fully experience and absorb this……

After a while, the outpouring of light from the huge star slows….and it’s brilliance returns to normal. You lower the cup down to the altar, and as you do so, you become aware of the presence of a great and powerful being just behind you. The being steps up and places its hands upon your shoulders, and as this happens you feel a great powerful blessing pour through you, and into the contents of the cup...... Lifting the cup, you take a sip, then extend your arms outward and offer the cup to the unseen beings in the chapel. You hear a great rustle of movement as they all come forward. And as each comes forward to drink from the cup, you find that you can see them as they take their sip. As they take their sip, each one looks at you, and you look upon them — faeries, elves, plant spirits, animal spirits, nature spirits, and even some human spirits — and you feel the bond of joyful kinship that unites you with these other creatures of the earth.

When this is done you place the cup down upon the altar. You stretch your arms out again, and feel the power of blessing flow forth from you, and out into the world….You sense that the spirits in the chapel, who have also partaken of the starry nectar, are doing likewise. You feel the power of blessing streaming out of you and out of the other beings, out of the chapel and into the world, to places and beings who are suffering — in pain of mind or body. The blessings — of peace, of comfort, of joy — stream forth for a long time…..... till finally, it feels complete, and you slowly lower your arms.... 

A moment of silence follows....and then you feel the great presence behind you slowly withdraw its energy from you...... After another moment, you again hear a rustle of movement, as the spirits arise and depart from the chapel.

Finally you are alone in the chapel....all is silent and still. You look at the cup, and see that, despite all who have drunk from its contents, it is still brimming and overflowing with silvery golden light. In fact, this light continues to spill over the top, flowing down onto the altar, and to the stone floor of the chapel. It soaks into the stones of both altar and floor, and it flows in tiny gleaming rivulets out the wooden door and down the wooden stairs, where it soaks into the earth. And you are aware that it is infusing with blessing, cleansing and healing all that it touches......

You feel now that it is time to leave this place. You walk around the altar, through the chapel, and step over the threshold, out into the night, closing the wooden door behind you. You walk down the wooden steps and out into the clearing. After a few more steps you pause, looking upward again at the sky, and feeling the vast consciousness there.... The bright star still gleams above you; the other stars twinkle brightly in the dark sky. As you gaze upon them, your vision shifts, and you see that the stars outline the form of a woman swaddled in a long hooded cloak. Her womb is glowing, and she holds a child in her arms..... As you perceive this image, you feel her presence and her motherly love......

Then your vision shifts again, and although you still feel her presence, you see only a starlit sky. You begin walking across the clearing, and just past tree line, you see a fire burning in the distance...You walk toward the fire, and find that each step you take brings you more and more into your normal waking awareness. You reach the fire, step through the flames, and find that you have come back to this time and this place, into a room where a candle flickers and glows, brightening the darkened room.....You are back….and when you feel ready you may open your eyes.