The Longest Night

Today marks the both the winter solstice and the new moon. The solstice happened at 3 in the afternoon, meaning that I spent it with my mother and sister. This is fitting, as the first real witch holiday we spent together as a family was a winter solstice many years ago - my sister had just moved home after breaking up with a real douchenozzle. So it's always a bit of a special family holiday for me.

After my mom left, I brewed myself some mushroom tea - I mixed it with the African Mint I bought from David's Tea, which has both mint and ginger to negate any nausea brought on by the mushrooms. I banished and cleansed the house, then drank the tea while reading Women of the Golden Dawn.

It took some time for me to actually notice the effects - I was convinced the dose was too low right up until I realised I'd been mesmerised by the ceiling for an unknown amount of time. I didn't have anything specifically planned for the duration of the trip, but I certainly had expectations for the energy of it - I was thinking of sacrifice and wisdom, shades of the dead and glimpses of the future, maybe a visit from the old One-Eyed Bastard. Nope. Instead it was a very sensual, primal energy - I felt like Rosaleen Norton. Not what I'd planned for, as I tend to me more cerebral, but it was a fascinating experience. As is usual with this sort of thing, the physical events themselves read as utterly dull, but the things that cannot be conveyed well made it worthwhile.

After a while I found myself talking to the cat too much, and apparently I got both cold and jealous of her fur since I wound up going to the closet for my fur coat. I got a bit nauseous then and so I curled up and waited it out with deep breathing. Some time after that I got out my Vertigo deck and did a Journey of the Fool spread, which was a bit more intense than I'd anticipated. Apparently my new year's theme card is The Star. This is a card I've always had a hard time with, so I plan to meditate on it for the rest of the month.

I had my sister come over once her boyfriend was gone to his gig, and she brought her Froud oracle - the very one I'd bought her for that first Yule all those years ago. She gave me some more insight into my reading, and then we just sat around and watched a lot of Degrassi Jr. High while I ate pizza.

I closed up the evening with a bath and another banishing, and a cup of ginger tea. All in all, not a bad way to spend the longest night of the year.