Every year the Missing Witches Coven gathers together at Yuletide to share our warmth, our cheer, our hopes and our fears, our stories, songs and poems, to light each other's paths through the dark time of the year. Welcome to The Missing Witches Winter Solstice Celebration and Yuletide Special!!
Listen now, transcript below
Joy Chose You by Donna Ashworth
Joy does not arrive with a fanfare
on a red carpet strewn
with the flowers of a perfect life
joy sneaks in
as you pour a cup of coffee
watching the sun
hit your favourite tree
just right
and you usher joy away
because you are not ready for her
your house is not as it should be
for such a distinguished guest
but joy, you see
cares nothing for your messy home,
or your bank balance
or your waistline
joy is supposed to slither through
the cracks of your imperfect life
that’s how joy works
you cannot truly invite her
you can only be ready
when she appears
and hug her with meaning
because in this very moment
joy chose you.
The Missing Witches Yuletide Book List
These are the books that the Coven brought to the cauldron in this recording:
The Shortest Day by Susan Cooper
The Bunnies' Get Well Soup by Joan Elizabeth Goodman
Witches' Brew: Horror & Supernatural Stories By Women - Ed. Marcia Muller
The Winter Solstice: The Sacred Traditions of Christmas by John Matthews and Caitlín Matthews
Fierce Fairytales by Nikita Gill
A Wild Woman Is Not A Girlfriend. She Is A Relationship With Nature by Allison Nappi
The End of Night, by Paul Bogard
The Wild Will Call You Back by Gina M. Puorro
The Missing Witches Yule Carol
O Yuletide, O Solstice
O longest night of the year
We gather together
to share our hope and our fear
Cuz we are witches
in the night
We are witches
we bring our own light to the
Solstice at Yuletide
On the longest night of the year
Please bring us together
to share our warmth and our cheer
Cuz we are witches
of the night
We are witches
we make our own light
On the Solstice, at Yuletide
On the longest night of the year
Please bring us together
to share our warmth and our cheer
Cuz we are witches
of the night
We are witches
we make our own light
we are witches
We are witches
Solstice, at Yuletide
On the longest night of the year
Please bring us together
to share our warmth and our cheer
Cuz we are witches
of the night
We are witches
we bring our own light
TRANSCRIPT
Oh Yuletide, oh solstice, Oh longest night of the year. We gather together To share our hope and our fear Cause we are witches In the night. We are witches. We are witches, we bring our own light to the solstice .... Welcome and Merry Yule. Merry Yule. I feel so out of practice from doing podcasts, don't we?
It's been so long. It's been a minute. It's been a minute. But I feel like, you know, it'll, it'll come right back to you. Like riding a bike, as they say. Yeah. I fortunately don't feel like it's been a long time since we've all been together in the coven, those of you I can see. Which feels homey and nice, but this is the Yule special.
Yeah, this has become a bit of a tradition where we invite the Coven to have a sort of new tradition of, of a different kind of family gathering, a chosen family gathering centered on the Winter Solstice. instead of the birth of baby Jesus. And so we invite the coven to share poems and stories and songs and ideas and thoughts and that becomes our Yuletide special.
For the first time ever, Amy's bells work in this audio format, and it's delightful. Zoom has some new settings. I think in the past I had to, like, edit in my jingle bells in post. Which is also a delightful exercise, but, you know. Well, let's quickly open so we can get straight to all of the different, um, I don't know, whatever we brought.
It's like our family talent show, this episode, and that gives me so much joy. Um, I want to just open with a little reading from the Yule Chapter, but Amy, do you want to light a candle? I do. For those of you who are listening, um, this is how we start. All of our meetings with the symbolic and ceremonial lighting of a candle.
And this is something that we do as a reminder of the covenant that we make when we enter this space. That we are collaborators. We are not each other's competition. We want each other to succeed. We want to be in a space that is as unhostile as possible. And in this world, when you can't find something, you make it yourself.
So that's what we did. This candle is a reminder that nobody came here to judge you. And we hope that that compassion you can also extend to yourself. We didn't come here to judge you. I didn't come here to judge myself. I came here to be who I am. And for some of us, this is the only place that we get to do that.
Sometimes we raise our candles to our cameras in the Zoom room, just as a silent uplifting to each other. And also to make our own light at Yuletide. This is from the Yule chapter of Missing Witches, Reclaiming True Histories of Feminist Magic. Here is one secret of why they burn witches. Witchcraft and activism are one.
With our acts, words, and rituals, we summon a better world, and we fight inequality. Yes, we summon it for ourselves. Personal healing, joy, and fulfillment, all acts of love and pleasure are our world changing rituals. Finding our own peace and safety, a room of one's own, honors the fight that came before, and gives us strength to press forward again, to take the knowledge of our luck and strength and beauty with us into the next entanglement for justice.
Individual healing from trauma helps set a piece of the pattern of the universe into a new ancient rhythm of resounding care. Care deviates the drumbeat of trauma on repeat. Quote, caring for myself is not self indulgence, it is self preservation, and that is an act of political warfare. End quote. Self care, changing the world for ourselves, is only half of the work of a witch.
This is low tide, a drawing in of breath, a rest, a gathering of strength, a necessary withdrawal. After low comes high tide, we gather our power to challenge the violently empowered and to act for the source of all power. As Monica's show makes clear over and over again in her writing and research, magic comes from the earth.
She wrote, I believe that we are conscious and alive only because she is. Earth is our great planetary mother spirit. We have to spiral from self love, nesting, and nurturing to the work of resistance, and of remaking, and of re enchanting the world.
I brought as my offering to this circle, the Jynx and Daela holiday special. Um, Which is a delightful romp, and I encourage you listeners and Coven to check it out. It's all about how forcing each other into our traditions, because we think that that's going to make them happy, ultimately doesn't work.
And that a beautiful way to celebrate the holiday season is to create new traditions. There's one tiny bit that I just wanted to play for you all right now. I believe in things. Real things. Tangible things. Like attuning myself to the natural rhythms of life's forces, marked by the phases of the moon and the seasonal quarters of the year.
You know, real stuff! So, I want to thank Jynx and Dayla for that. If you brought a song, a poem, a story, a well wish, an idea, a thought, we invite you to use the raise hand emoji under the react button, and then we'll get started. Yay!
Let's start with Melissa. Hi, Melissa. Hi everyone. Merry you all. Merry you all. I have my merry tinsel baubles for everyone today. So I have a poem, um, I don't know if anyone else brought this poem, um, but I put my hand up first so I get to say it first. It's called The Shortest Day by Susan Cooper. And so the shortest day came and the year died.
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow white world came people singing, dancing to drive the dark away. They lighted candles in the winter trees. They hung their homes with evergreen. They burned beseeching fires all night long to keep the year alive. And when the New Year's sunshine blazed awake, they shouted reveling through all the frosty ages.
You can hear them echoing behind us. Listen, all the long echoes sing the same delight. The shortest day as promise wakens in the sleeping land. They carol, feast and give thanks. and dearly love their friends and hope for peace. And now, so do we, here, now, this year, and every year. Welcome Yule!
Melissa, you got a bit emotional reading that poem. Do you want to talk about it a little bit? Oh, I think I always get emotional just being in this space, no matter what we're talking about. Seems to be, um, sharing is like, I don't like being in the spotlight for anything, um, which is so strange, because I started, um, I wanted to be a journalist a long time ago, um, so, I think it's just that.
And I'm just so grateful for everybody, so, I, I often get emotional. But the peace part, definitely, you know, hope for peace, you know, within ourselves and within the world, that sort of just got me in the feels there. Thanks, everyone. Thanks, Melissa. Thanks for bringing the tears of this great overwhelm of peace, you know?
You're not alone in that. I want to lay those absolutely on the snowy altar of this Yule fire, you know? Thank you. And thank you for that poem. Brienne! Hello! Merry Yule! Merry Yule! So, I brought my lady Bafana. Is this, you know, she is the Italian Christmas witch, and, uh, there we go. See, she even has her little tiny broom.
Oh my. Yeah, I've had this for decades. Uh, I'll kind of spare the story of her. I used to, every Christmas, Winter read my twins the story and it's yeah, it's kind of a terrible story She goes to find the wise men and they leave her in the dust because she's busy picking up sticks and so then she searches through the night to try to find the baby Jesus and and You know written from a very religious kind of background so I always like to kind of now bring her out and into our life to You Remind us that, you know, this old haggard lady is still a beautiful being.
She is all parts of the triple goddess. She is the mother. She's the crown. She's the maiden. And she flies through the sky and brings hope and courage and kindness to the kids who need it the most. So that's it. That's all I have. Just that. Bafana wanted to say hello. Can you describe her? Describe what she looks like and why, I don't know, what you see that's beautiful in her, like, so we can see her through your eyes.
Oh, absolutely. So she is always, um, always depicted as she has a head shawl and a shoulder shawl. She's always wearing a dress and she has a tiny broom with her that she flies on and she has her, her pack of gifts. And, but her face and, and to me what I always find so beautiful about her, and even in the stories that kind of make her even look more haggard, is she has such kind eyes.
And she's kind of a, a winter force to be reckoned with, but she's so sweet and this tiny lady, but she flies on this broom through the night, through the storms, through everything. And it just, her love of wanting to be there for. For the kids, naughty or nice, um, I think is the most beautiful part. She does this all by herself.
Just one lone little lady flying the skies and bringing hope and cheer to everybody. There you go. I hope I described her well enough.
You absolutely did. Um, I put this in the chat, but I'll ask you anyway, can you send us a picture of her for the show notes for the webpage? Oh, absolutely. Yes. Thank you. Thank you so much. Mary Ewell. Mary Ewell. Happy solstice. Another Melissa. Hi. Hi, Mary Yule. Hi, beautiful Coven. Um, hello. Uh, I brought a book from my childhood.
So, I won't read it. I'll give a quick synopsis. If anyone is familiar with The Bunny's Get Well Soup, it's not only written, it's also illustrated by Joan Elizabeth Goodman, who wrote some other books, but Um, I rediscovered this book going through stuff and when I read it, I was like, it's a mutual aid story.
And it, I think, influenced who I was and why I wanted to bring it is that I'll quickly just synopsize. So, Mother Bunny wakes up and Mother Bunny has a bunch of sick bunnies, but Mother Bunny doesn't have anything to make the get well soup. So Mother Bunny, in this terrible snowstorm, runs around town and visits all her neighbors.
Each neighbor has an ingredient. So maybe someone had beans, somebody had turnips, etc, etc. Mother Bunny gets back to her house and tries to put a soup together and realizes that she doesn't have enough ingredients. She gets sad. Sad Mother Bunny. But then there's a knock on the door and the whole neighborhood has shown up.
And everyone has brought ingredients for the soup, including homemade root beer, there's badger, there's the families of, uh, I think they're skunks, that's the other cute family. But at the end of the day, they all get together and make a huge vat of soup. And I ended up being a professional chef. who also spent a lot of time in nutrition and, uh, kind of culinary education.
This book starts with a recipe in the front, but on the longest of days, I think it's such a blessing to remind ourselves that we can do so much with so little. especially when we're supported with community. Um, so, I love you all. Happy Yule. Thanks for letting me share. I'm so glad to hear this, um, Bunny's Get Well Soup version, because the version of that story that I'm kind of familiar with, Um, is stone soup or sometimes nail soup.
And the idea of that one is that the soup maker is kind of a scam artist. You know, and he's like tricking people into giving him ingredients for the soup. But the bunnies get well soup is this, this mutual aid story that you're talking about. There's no trickery. There's just a community coming together to pool their resources.
And again, especially at this time of year, you know. We, we live in a very convenience based society, right, but back not that long ago, we really, really, really needed each other to get through this time of year, you know, like our harvest is maybe starting to dwindle. And I wonder about that as like part of the gift giving, the spirit of giving, like lore of this time of year, if it really does stem from this.
Bunny's Get Well Soup idea of mutual aid that is so important in the, the dark, long, winter months. I think so. I'll do a jingle bell for that while Vermillion unmutes. Hi Vermillion, Merry Yule. Merry Yule, everyone. I am so, so, so excited to be here. And I don't really have anything specific that, um, I was able to find.
I was going to, um, I wanted to find like a poem or something, but it just didn't end up happening. So I guess my message today is just gratitude. I'm so thankful to have gotten to find all of you and the space and the ability to you. participate so frequently and with such love, um, in a group that isn't judgmental.
Like there's so many amazing people here and I have a tendency to, um, be super shy and not want to be on camera. I'm actually very well known in other groups for not being on camera. Um, But with this group, it was never difficult for me to feel comfortable doing so, um, which is honestly unheard of, uh, for me.
So just, uh, thank you all of you for being so open and welcoming and Fun! I've had so much fun the last, like, week that I've been here. This has been wonderful. So I just wanted to say thank you so, so, so much to every single one of you, and, and to everyone listening to the podcast. Like, you're all amazing, and I love you, and Merry Yule.
Ah, Vermillion, I'm so happy to hear that. That means so much. And you're so fun, and we're so glad you're here. We're so glad you're all here. It's just, I mean, we feel the same way about you. Just so relieved that you're all here. And you're such, uh, such an ease to the spirit. Yeah. And don't hesitate to let us know if we, uh, as a group, if there's things we can do, like to describe things better, to experience, like to be more accessible to you and to each other.
That's like something we really care about and have talked about for a long time. So we always want to know and it makes it more fun. And we know, you know, so that's for everyone.
Um, Love for joy. And also, wait, Vermillion, thank you for opening the door to anybody who didn't bring anything and just wants to say something. This is welcome and always delighted to, and we want to hear just what comes out of your mouth. Michelle. I'm having internet problems today, so if I stop talking, it's because I had to log off, log back on, don't need to circle back around to me.
Um, Michelle, uh, started going within the app by love for joy. So put it that on my, as my name. So you'd know who I was. I live in, um, the colonized name of Raleigh, North Carolina, land of the Tuscarora. And today I've got on a olive green tank top, pink stretch pants, short Brown hair, Brownish, blondish, curly blue eyes, female, white presenting.
Okay, I think I got the intros right. I wanted to share with you all, um, a family tradition that's also kind of unique to North Carolina. Some of the settlers that came through our state were of Quaker background. So there's still a sizable number of Quaker congregations in the Piedmont area of the state.
There's also Moravian churches. And they always put on a candle tea, uh, event around Christmastime and invite the public in. So you go in and they are in their original colonial outfits. They usually have a brass band that plays within the church. They make this really good tea and coffee cake and sugar cookies.
And then, um, they also make candles. from hand with the molds and the beeswax candles. So I bought some of those. I use those for ritual things. But one of the things I found when I walked in, because I have got an upper bazaar with a craft, and I'll hold this up and then I'll try to explain what it is. So it's about two foot long, one foot across.
It's actually the cutout of a turtle. But what they did is they took a wooden outline of a turtle, painted it gold, and then took oyster shells that they painted in blue and white and glued it on to the tortoise. So it's upcycling, right, of like used products. Ties in with all the times I talk about water and just got a chance to listen to the recent podcast drop that you guys did with the water witch.
I can't remember her name. That was a very good interview. Thank you for sharing that with all of us. And when I walked in, this was the only turtle there. Most other things were like, single individual ornaments, one shell and had like, uh, something from the Nutcracker painted in it, for example. So the turtle was kind of hanging out all by itself and they were a little shocked when I walked up and I was like, I want that.
I think they'd probably been hauling this around for who knows how long as like a centerpiece on the table and nobody had ever bought it. And so I'm hoping my husband didn't hear too much of this. This is his gift. This is his Christmas gift because turtles have lots of connections. I like how they have to dive deep for things, but we've also had some things in our relationship that connect back to turtles.
And then you've always got Terry Pratchett's world. That's the turtle is involved in that as well. So, I just wanted to share that, but also share a little bit of the Moravian Christmas tea traditions. My mom still makes a trip. They've all moved to New York now down from New York to go to this. Candle tea each Christmas.
And so I'm like the lone relative that lives here and we make a big deal out of it and a weekend fun event in a very strained, torturous relationship of many, many years. It's like the one time we can, um, agree to get along and set aside our differences is that the Moravian church around their candle tea.
Thanks, everyone, for letting me share. Thank you, Michelle. And yeah, let's shout out Omi. Um, she had a lot to say about water, so if you're listening and you missed that episode, definitely check it out. And I love your turtle. I do hope that your spouse is surprised. Please send us a picture of it so we can put it in the show notes.
I may calm down with the jingle bells as we keep going, but I'm just, I'm just so delighted to have them that, you know, I'm going to keep shaking them. I'm Megan, Mary Ewell. Mary Ewell. Um, Thank you guys for having the space today. Um, I was looking around also for things, but actually, um, I'm going to share something I wrote after yesterday's dance party.
Um, I did a little reflecting and, um, I listened to my body a lot after that. And it was like, Super relaxed. It was like I had been letting go of a lot of stress and I've been having some health issues and just letting go of a lot during that session. So thank you, Amy, for for that. Um, so this makes me a little nervous, but I am dancing in the darkness, beckoning the light.
Opening my heart to these witches, strangers once but now my coven. I have danced in the darkness so long and now I find my light. I suddenly see a thousand stars shining all along. I feel free and a belonging to the universe, a sense of renewal full of peace and power. Merry Yule, everyone. Thank you for letting me share.
Merry Yule, Megan. I love that that emerged out of you spontaneously after shaking it. That is correct. So beautiful. Thank you. Tess? Mary Yule, Mary Mother's Night, Mary Solstice. Mary Yule, or should I say, Scary Yule. I'm here to just encourage everybody, um, to take up the, um, the tradition of telling and reading ghost stories this time of year.
Um, Not so much probably in the U. S., but in other countries, particularly the U. K., this is the time they tell ghost stories. This is the time they gather around the fireplace or wherever and read a ghost story aloud, tell a ghost story, whatever. Um, People who know me recognize my statement. That is a statement of fact.
It's always a good time for a ghost story, but particularly now when we're, you know, heading into the darkest time of the year and and ready for them to emerge out of that darkness, it's always a good time to, you know, In a way, not just have the little, you know, um, delightful thrills that a good ghost story can bring us, but also to explore a little bit of our shadow side through that, that means of storytelling.
So whether it's something that has actually happened to you, something that you've heard. Um, a story that you'd like to share with, with folks, invite some folks over and, um, just say, let's just get together and have some apple cider and some mulled wine and tell some ghost stories. Um, I have like dozens of anthologies of ghost stories that I've collected over the years.
And some of my fondest memories have been having people over or being asked to read some ghost stories out loud and just pouring over my anthologies and finding just the right ones to do that and sharing them with folks who maybe have never heard something like that before. Um, it's just a real delight.
So I just wanted to share that with you and also, um, something that I pulled off my shelves that I had forgotten that I have is this book. It's called Witch's Brew. And it's an anthology of horror and supernatural stories by women. So there's actually even an anthology that specializes in, um, these types of tales that are written by female.
So there you go. So that's all I've got to share. And if anybody wants a ghost story in the middle of the night or where, whenever it's some evening, get in touch with me via the Coven circle. And I'd be happy to have a phone call with you and tell a ghost story. You must tell us a ghost story. Well, I will when we have some more time, we should actually have like a dedicated time to do that.
And in the middle of winter, let's do it. I'll set up an event and let's just do it. That would be actually a lot of fun to have as an event. Yeah, that sounds perfect for a season when we'll be dealing with terrors and horrors or darkness or who knows, you know, who knows? Great joy, spectacular unifications.
Let's tell stories. Yeah, I'm thrilled to hear it. I wanted you to come out with like your best. 32nd ghost story, but it doesn't really work, does it? No, because then I'd have to think about, you know, what are the ones that are so famous for being told around the campfire, and it's usually the little lady who's, um, Some baddie has taken, um, her, her finger bone, um, from her place of rest and taken it as some kind of a souvenir or whatever, and she's not happy about that, and so she comes walking gradually.
Down the sidewalk, walking up the pathway to the front door, walking up the stairs of the front porch, and scritching on the front door, let me in! I want my finger back! So there's always that one. Perfect. Ideal. Uh, very well. Very mother's nut. Mother's nut. For letting me share. Oh, thank you. Lori, did you bring ghost stories?
I did not bring any ghost stories, but I was thinking that, um, The Little Match Girl is kind of a sad Christmas ghost story. So, yeah, I'm going to be brave and come on camera, even though I just woke up and I'm like in pajama nap mode. Um, I wasn't going to share and I was like, I don't know, I have little bits and pieces.
So there's this book, The Winter Solstice, that's, um, really fun and it just talks about, like, how prophecy was the first gift of Yule, like, way back when. And, um, And that also made me think of another one of my favorite witches. A lot of you are probably familiar with Daniel Dulsky. So, she has, she has several books, but this is one of my favorites.
One of her most recent ones, um, Bones and Honey, a heathen prayer book. So, this doesn't rhyme. I really wanted to find something that rhymed, but it just really speaks to, to how I'm feeling at this time of year. It's Prayer 3. 5. This fallow, this fallow ground, a song to our inner snow days. A heathen soul is a wild ground, and we must leave the loud fallow for a time, that it be better seeded when the warmer winds return.
May our winter tears bless this barren snowscape. May our weary songs be heard by the land spirits. And may the corpse of our despair be buried swiftly with great care, its grave dug deep under the thick ice of winter's silent weight, its leathery flesh ripped and nibbled away by its ravenous elementals.
May our grief seed our gratitude, these early dusks, and may this fallow ground be consecrated now in its emptiness. Come spring may our will bloom lush and green like the woodland forest full of lust. And so it is. So yeah, that's just kind of a, this time of year is honestly like super depressing and I'll give another ode to Danielle.
She talks about like the depression that we feel in winter, but it's also a need for like deep rest. So as opposed to being depressed, it's just like, we need that deep rest in winter. And I just absolutely feel that like I've been. Crying and napping a lot lately. So yeah, that's kind of where I'm at. So thank you for seeing me Thank you for letting me share.
I Love that homonym of of of trading depressed for deep rest We love a homonym and that that one's really good But I can't let you go yet Laurie because you said kind of in a laissez faire way that You're reading about how prophecy was the first gift of Yule. Um, one of our mottos around here is people often apologize for rambling or going off track, and we're more likely to want you to talk longer than shorter.
So, please expand has become one of our, our little catchphrases. Can you tell us a little bit about this, like, idea that prophecy was the first gift of Yule? I actually, I think I heard about that in another book that I read from Danielle, but then she recommended this, um, The Winter Solstice by John Matthews, and it really talks about that, but I think, I think a lot of it goes back to the story of Odin, and just, like, him being kind of, um, linked to Yeah, like the first the first Christmas tree and like he was hanging upside down in the tree And so he he gained like prophecy for the year and so I don't know there's some really cool pictures in this book if I could find them of kind of like The first st.
Nicholas like dressed in kind of like these like ancient I don't know, like, Robin Hood type clothes, I guess, if you will, like, that's, I think it stems from, like, the story of Odin, honestly, and, yeah. That was great. We don't need you to write us a dissertation. I just want to know, like, a little bit more about what you're, what you're talking about.
And thank you so much. Thank you so much. I'm curious if anyone who's here or anyone who's listening has, like, um, a specific divination practice. around Yuletide. Um, something to think about and maybe something to investigate as we go forth. A Yuletide divination. Hi, Liana. Got it.
Took me a minute. Oh, wait, did I mess up the audio? No, no, you're good. You're good. Okay. Um, so that kind of tracked. Um, I'm kind of glad I got after the other two, because I didn't, wasn't really going to share because. Holidays for me are the same, very depressing. Um, I actually have two different ones that I'd like to share then, since I'm not the only one struggling.
Um, if any of you have ever read, uh, Nikita Gill. She is fantastic. She does poetry. Um, Wild Embers is also amazing. Um, the first one is called Difficult Damsels. Not all girls are made of sugar and spice and all things nice. These are girls made of dark lace and witchcraft and a little bit of vice. These are daughters made claw first and story mad, tiger roar and wolf bad.
These are woman made of terrible tempest and savage storms and the untamed unwanted. These are damsels made of flawless fearlessness. made of more bravery than knights have ever seen. These are princesses made of valor and poison alike. They are, and they are here to hold court as your queens. Um, I've been in and kind of in the shadows and I've had the opportunity to kind of listen from afar to a lot of you and there are so many amazingly strong women in this group.
It is just mind blowing. And I hope that you all see the strength in yourselves as much as we all do in each of you. Um, and the other one is a little bit longer, but it's called the healing, and that, for me, is what winter is, um, especially when there's snow, and it's just like this blanket of comfort, and everything sounds differently, and it just, Um, sometimes healing is the way you become yourself.
A path made of thorns which could lead you to your own incredible destiny. Sometimes healing is how Little Red Riding Hood became the wolf. Because every woman has a howl trapped in her chest. Sometimes healing is how Cinderella never gave up on herself. Because she knew deep down how to love herself.
Sometimes healing is the story of a villainess who was not a villainess at all. Just someone hurting from their trauma. And not having a good friend to call. Sometimes healing wears the name of a human when you are stuck in a tower with no other way down but your own long hair. But on most days, healing wears your own name, painted in your own blood, messy, hard to tame, but the only way to learn self love.
Thank you so much. And yeah, that's that candle energy that we're talking about, where we're all looking at each other in awe and admiration, but not in a way where it makes us feel small, like we're not as smart as, as confident as, as whatever as, but in a way where we're all in this boat that's being lifted up together by the waters of our love for one another.
Oh. Let's take a second now. Um, we have a dear friend who usually comes to these Yule recordings. Baba Yaga could not come and be here live, but she did send us a greeting. And so we'll hear that now.
Hey kids, it's Baba Yaga. Somebody wrote something about me that I'm going to share with you now. It's called A Wild Woman. is not a friend. She's a relationship with nature. Can you love me when I drink from the wrong bottle and slip through the crack in the floorboard? But can you love me in the deep, in the dark, in the thick of it?
Can you love me when I'm bigger than you? When my presence blazes like the sun does? When it hurts to look directly at me? Can you love me then too? Can you love me under the starry sky, shaved and smooth, my skin like liquid moonlight? Can you love me when I am howling in fury? Standing on my haunches, my lower lip stained with the blood of my last kill.
When I call down the lightning, when the sidewalks are singed by the soles of my feet, can you still love me then? What happens when I freeze the land and cause the dirt to harden over all the pomegranate seeds that we've planted? Will you trust that spring will return? Will you still believe me when I tell you I will become a raging river and spill myself upon your dreams and call them the surface of your life?
Can you trust me even though you cannot tame me? Can you love me, even though I am all that you fear and admire? Will you fear my shifting shape? Does it frighten you when my eyes flash like your camera? Do you fear that they will capture your soul? Are you afraid to step into me? The meat eating plants and flowers armed with poisonous darts are not in my jungle to stop you from coming.
Not you. So do not worry. They belong to me and I have invited you here. Stay to the path revealed in the moonlight and arrive safely to the hut of Baba Yaga, the wild old woman. She will not lead you astray if you are pure of heart. You cannot be with the wild one if you fear the rumbling of the ground, the roar of a cascading river, the startling clap of thunder in the sky.
If you want to be safe, go back to your teeny room. The night sky is not for you. If you want to be torn apart, come in. Be broken open undevoured. Beset ablaze in my fire. I will not leave you, as you have come, well dressed, in finely threaded sweaters that keep out the cold. I will leave you naked and biting and clawing, leave you surrounded by owls and hawks and flowers that only bloom when no one is watching.
So come to me, and be healed in the unbearable lightness and darkness of all that you are. There is nothing in you that can scare me. Nothing in you that I will not use to make you great. A wild woman is not a friend. She is a relationship with nature. She is the source of all your primal desires, and she is the wild whipping wind that uproots the poisonous.
Corn stalks on your neatly tilled farm. She will plant pear trees. In the wake of your disaster, she will see to it that you shall rise again. She is the lover who restores you to your own wild nature. That was by Allison Nappy IDE and Solstice. Blessings to you all. Thanks Baba Yaga. I do. I did bring a short poem.
We've been talking so much about embracing the darkness. You know, again, like, electricity is really new in the grand scheme of things, but if we think about what our lives would look like without it, it's crazy that it's only been around for like 150 years and it's changed the world so much. So something that we often do on the solstice is to Turn off all the electricity, turn out the lights, turn off our devices.
We are lucky enough to have a wood burning stove, so we sit by the fire with a couple candles and kind of bask in that warm glow. And it's amazing to me how psychologically calming and rejuvenating it is to do that. Um, but it's hard. It's hard to turn off our devices. It's hard to turn off all those lights.
So I make it a specific tradition. My spouse is like, you know, he's not really like a fuck around kind of guy. He's very, but I'm If I'm like, it's tradition, then he'll go along with whatever insanity I come up with. So I set certain days and make them for certain things, and then we know to do them. Every year we have at least two hours where we sit in the beautiful warm glow of darkness.
And on that note, I brought this very short poem by Wendell Berry. It's called To Know the Dark. To go in the dark with a light is to know the light. To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight. And find that the dark, too, blooms and sings and is travelled by dark feet. and dark wing. So I encourage everyone who is here and who is listening to see about knowing the dark.
How do we combat that fear of the dark? What do we do? Maybe slip into it slowly, one little toe at a time, like into warm water.
Does anyone else have a message for Missy Mitch's listeners or for each other? I just wanted to share that I pulled two cards out of the missing witches deck. I did a split. So the one is like the main message. Then the other one would be that what's influencing the message just to see what the deck wanted to say to us as a group.
Um, but before I read that I was on a retreat in Colorado in October and I left my deck with my friend. that was on the trip with me. And so I finally have the deck back. This is my first time using it, but it's a, it's a new deck to me. So the main message was Toni Morrison, Perception, is who came out first.
And next to her in the split deck was Lady Frida Harris, Perspective. So those are the messages according to my shuffle for this Yule for the Missing Witches. Can you read what the message word is? And maybe a little bit of the back. You want me to read from the back of the deck? Is that what the back?
Okay. So for Toni Morrison with Perception, the first Black woman editor at Random House Fiction, and the first Black woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, Toni Morrison conjured a new generation of writers and readers. Her novels sat on bestselling lists for record breaking weeks and showed the world as it was to her, full of magic, misery, and everything in between.
She grew up in a family that told folk tales and ghost stories and laughed to stay sane. She said, my own use of enchantment simply comes because that's the way the world was for me and for the black people I knew. There was this other knowledge or perception, always discredited, but nevertheless there.
Enchantment is in the world, tap into other perceptions now. So that speaks volumes to me as to what this Missing Witches Coven has meant to me since I've joined, and I hope it resonates with others as well. Later, Lady Frida Harris. Perspective. As the bombs rained down on London, she dyed her hair red and navigated between the House of Lords, the world's most famous occultist, and experimental mathematicians.
Drawing a new understanding of the universe. She studied projective geometry. She painted insights from the mathematical worldview, where all lines meet and all parallel worlds converge. She painted symbols from science, mythology, and different mystery traditions into the 78 images of the Thoth Hero. I don't know if I pronounced that right.
She created with Aleister Crowley. Then she moved to India to live in a houseboat. She triangulated between worldviews. This card invites you to change your perspective, study something brand new, alter your trajectory or velocity. Notice where the lines converge. So I think those cards very much complement each other into what a lot of us get out of this coven based on the things that I hear people share in circle.
So thank you everybody for showing up and sharing and helping to change each other's perception and perspective. Perception and perspective. May we see it radiating out from all sane places. Vanessa. Me, um, I'm gonna, I was about 15 minutes late, but I heard Michelle, I think it was. I'm going to try to introduce myself.
I'm coming from, um, unseated occupied Pomo and coastal Miwok land, otherwise known as North California, San Francisco Bay Area. And I have long brown, curly hair, glasses. I'm wearing, um, kind of a burgundy troll neck and I'm sitting in what probably looks like a very black and white room right now. I just have, um, two, oh, white skin.
Um, I just have two things to read. I kind of just pulled some books off my nightstand and they were relevant to other things I'd heard discussed. Um, I'm gonna start with actually this book from the end of night. Um, he's talking about darkness, and I just, I just kind of did like a bit of blue mancy. I just opened it to these pages, so I'll read just a short part from each book.
Oh, and I, and before I forget, I want to say that, um, I'm tending a fire behind me in my woodstove, so that's why I keep turning around and checking on things. Um, I, There was the Geminid meteor shower. Um, I think it was Friday night, maybe last night. I'm not sure if it's still visible, but I learned that what's really interesting about this one is that it tends to have the most colorful meteorites, like blues and greens and oranges and stuff because of the various, I think, gases that are in this particular
Of the universe that we fly through every time of year. So I thought that was kind of cool. Um, this, uh, is from, um, the end of night, and it just is talking about Van Gogh. Van Gogh lives in a time before electric light. This is why it's so cool. sparked my interest. In a letter from the summer of 1888, he described what he'd seen while walking a southern French beach.
The deep blue sky was flecked with clouds of a blue deeper than the fundamental blue of intense cobalt and others of a clearer blue like the blue whiteness of the Milky Way. In the blue depths, the stars were sparkling, greenish, yellow, white, pink, more brilliant, more sparkling, gem like than at home.
Even in Paris, opals, you might call them, emeralds, lapis lazuli, rubies, sapphires. So, the author goes on to talk about how remarkable it is, and he would reference stars like that in Paris at that time. And then this is from The Wild Will Call You Back. It's a palm winter solstice.
And I'm not sure who it's by, because I think this is a, it's all Gina M. Poro, actually. Winter solstice, the rebirth of the sun, and the slow, slow return of the light. Tis the season to turn inward, stoke the fires, nourish, snuggle, reflect, rest. The time to tend our roots. That will feed the blooms yet to come.
Sip broth of bone, fat and root and simmer yourself right down to the bottom of the pot. Revel in beeswax, lit lullabies, the smell of old books and tea kettle conversations. Tuck yourself in and hibernate in the sweet blanket of darkness, in the moonless snow, in the long cold nights. Take some time to slow down and stop.
Doing, doing, doing, and just be. Undress the heaviness from your bones and dance with your ghosts. Sink your teeth into this long night. Let the moon howl at you and slowly sing you back from shadow to light.
Both relevant to the conversations that came up. That's all. Happy you all in solstice and I love you all.
What a perfect poem. Um, I want to say you said Gina and Poro because that poem kind of hit. so many of the things that we've already been talking about tonight, so I'm definitely going to revisit it again and again, add it to the traditions. Good, uh, evening and afternoon, wherever you are, uh, settling from somewhere, somewhere, somewhere out there in Connecticut, one of the oldest, horrifically colonized places in New England.
So, yes, this is the first, um, verse of In the Bleak Midwinter, which is, is a Christmassy Jesus song, which I never actually knew, because we never sang that part in Klee Club. I very much like, um, and have used this on my Solstice cards before.
In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan, Earth stood hard as iron, water like a snow stone. Snow had fallen snow on snow. Snow on fallen snow in the bleak mid winter long ago.
Thank you. I invite everyone to unmute so that Satline can hear your applause. Thank you, Satline, for your bravery. That was beautiful. I knew that you're an excellent singer and you were just being shy. The most beautiful. What a gift. I think that we should have a Missing Witches, um, Glee Club of sorts.
And for anyone we could call it whatever we want, but you know, it doesn't have to be called a singing group. And, I mean, you know, Satlene, I still haven't received your Yule Carol recording, so I'm making a face at you right now. Um, but this is something that I would love to do. And if someone can figure out the technology of a Zoom choir that isn't just total chaos and cacophony of delays and various times, then I would love to hear it.
As soon as we have the technology. In the meantime, you are invited to join the Missing Witches. choir by way of sending me a recording. That goes for everyone. I'll cut this out, but deadline's tomorrow. I'm so glad you all get to experience Amy bullying you to make art. I'm so glad we can all have that experience.
You know, like we maybe in the midwinter could be our first, our first, you know, official Missing witches, singing choir, no chorus group, whatever, you know, could be the first one. I love it. I love it. And you know, as witches, like, we are comfortable in paradox. And one of those paradoxes is, for me, anyway, um, is that I want everyone to feel very safe and very comfortable.
But I also want to push you a little bit. I also want to push you to be a little bit uncomfortable and try something new and do something that you wouldn't necessarily do if I didn't make a face at you, so I'm always kind of You know, walking that tightrope of everyone wanting to feel safe and comfortable, but also, like, let's be brave.
Let's be brave and try things that make us feel outside of our comfort zone. So, I'm glad that, uh, that Risa likes it anyway. I love it. The bullying practice. It's my favorite thing, because you are, you're not like this. For here, you're like that across the board as a human, like just to like people we just meet and are hanging out with.
And you're like, you should do. Yes. What about yeah. Make it a big magic. And I just see like, I've never met a person where I didn't see in them infinite potential. And maybe that's what I'm trying to draw. So Satleen, thank you for being brave and your singing was so beautiful. And I really appreciate that.
I just want to sample that first and last bit over and over. The haunting, beautiful tone of your voice was so, so beautiful. Thank you so much.
Anyone else feel brave and haven't see shanty or witch song
or a message for the darkest night of the year,
the day of the light return. I
just had a thought that always makes me feel better when I feel like I'm lost in the dark. And it's those, that quote where
Those who sought to bury you didn't know you were a seed.
I don't know. Gave me a, always gives me a little bit of peace.
Felt my breath get bigger as you said, peace. The idea of being buried and it being a seed to me is like infuriating to have to work through it all but also so exuberant and also so strenuous and also so, so to hear you say, Thank you. Peace. It gives me a sense of peace. Thank you
seeds in the dark in the dark season. It's very peaceful. It can be.
They won't bury us for too long There you go. We got off on a little tangent over here in the chat and Lori mentioned a divination practice the 12 divinatory days of yule And pulling 1 card, each of the 12 months for 12 days, and I learned about that from 1 of my teachers, Brianna saucy, and she refers to it as omen days and it's got something to do with Christmas and ends on epiphany.
And none of that means. Anything to me because I was raised Jewish, but I loved the idea of these omen days and I feel like it's for everybody. So the day after Christmas, you every day look for an omen, um, possibly out in nature around your house and the beauty of it is it's super accessible because if, you forget to, or if nothing presents itself to you, then you can pull a tarot card or an oracle card.
Um, so then I like to write down what the omen is that I've seen or the card that I've pulled and what it means to me, um, at the beginning of each month in my yearly planner. And, uh, me being me, sometimes Then don't even open up my planner on any given month, but it's interesting to look at in hindsight as well.
So And the other thing that I shared in the chat was one of my favorite things to say on solstice which came straight out of a Doctor Who Christmas special that involved lots of singing and flying a flying shark Which is on solstice halfway out of the dark.
Here's the halfway out of the dark Holly
Hi, everybody. I'm Solstice. Um, really quick for everybody who's at the dance party yesterday and sent some magic my way for the MRIs. Thank you very much. Appreciate that. Very grateful for you all. Bunch of badass, which is like, it's really nice to know that there are so many people who have your back and maybe you'll never meet them.
And yet here we are. This community is so incredibly amazing. So, um, I am Holly. I live in unceded Tongva land in Southern California, and I am a middle aged white witch, dark hair. And, um, I didn't bring any sort of poem or anything, but when you mentioned just different rituals or whatever, the last few years I've been doing something in the 12 days leading up to the new year, I will.
I've written down ahead of time 12 wishes for myself for the upcoming year on separate pieces of paper, and it's in the like, in the I statements or the things not I want or whatever, but you know, like, I'm intentional with my crafting the messages for it, you know, my body is strong like that kind of a thing, whatever.
Um, and then each of the nights. In the, in the 12 days before the new year, I will burn, I will like fold each individual one up and then I will pull a, whichever one, I don't even know what it is, and then I'll burn it, put it in my cauldron and just like send that message out to, to the ethers. And, um, the first one you, the, the, the ritual behind it that I've learned was the first one you burn, that's January, second one's February like that, but you just don't know what it is.
So you just kind of leave it up to chance of what, what wish is going to come through what, uh, what intention, what spell, however you want to phrase it. That's, that's that. So kind of fun. And then on New Year's Eve. During the day, I spend time cleaning my house and opening all the windows and sweeping, dusting, get the ceiling fans, get the corners, you know, go after that, you know, mop the floors, like, like do a, do a deep clean, but not in a like psychotic, chaotic sort of a way, just in a like energetic, like, let's just clear this shit out of here, get it out.
And, uh, and then before. Um, before the new year strike, um, I'll take out all trash, all recycling, like that. So it's like starting the brand new year, super fresh, not bringing in any of that stuff from last year. Dishes are done. You know what I mean? Again, like, not trying to be all like, oh great, now I gotta clean my fucking house for New Year's Eve.
Rad. You know, not that kind of a thing. But just, you know. You know, throughout the day, just doing some things intentionally. My partner's been on board, so that's very helpful. It's not all on me, you know, um, but anyways, it's just, it's just felt. nice the last few years of just like all right let's start this year with some just fresh energy and then so something to play with there yeah my my spouse and i do this at the beginning of december and it helps us with our consumption our consumerism for sure because when you're organizing all your fucking shit it really like makes you want to pare down that gift list like you're like oh my god Oh, I don't need anything.
And there have been times where I was like, oh, you know, I'm, I'm putting, um, oven mitts on my wishlist or whatever. I need some new oven mitts. And then we're, we're doing our organize and clean at the beginning of December. And lo and behold, there's like a pair of old oven mitts at the bottom of a drawer that I had forgotten about.
So, There are multiple, multiple reasons to do this, Holly, and none of them are psychotic. So I'm gonna give it a jingle.
Hey, Julian. Hi, everyone. I'm Julie or Julian. Pronouns are she, her, or they, them. Um, my visual description is I'm in a pretty dark room, but My low light is lighting up my face a bit. I'm a white person with fairly short brown hair that comes to the bottom of my ears, and I'm wearing a dark blue top. I, uh, missed the first part of this, but happy to participate in this part now and listen to the recording later.
Um, I'm inspired what Holly just shared to share a bit about, um, kind of what I do related to intentions this time of year. Which is, I take the period from the winter solstice to Imbolc to simmer on what I want my intentions to be. To be rather than putting pressure or whatever at this time of the year Partly because my birthday is at the start of february.
So I feel like it's from solstice to my birthday, but um regardless of that I view those six weeks as kind of I don't know interior time and You know, I I used to do this like all in one shot, but now I take my time to do it. Um Is to reflect over the past Um, kind of going through the different categories of my life, thinking through everything, like what happened in the social areas of my life?
What happened in the professional areas of my life? What happened with my health and body? Um, and then I go through the next 12 months with the same different life categories, kind of thinking about like, you know, what's on the agenda? What are my hopes and dreams? So then I have this like, backwards and forwards.
Um, and yeah, I used to, you know, just do this in one sitting, but now I, I just kind of dip into those reflections. I'll choose like one category for one day and then another day do another category so that by the time I reach in bulk at the beginning of February, I, yeah, I've like fully taken time to process and imagine.
Um, and then, you know, Sometimes throughout the year, I'll, I'll do like a similar check in, but for a smaller amount of time. Like at the summer solstice, I might do the past six months reflection, and then the forward six months reflection. And then at the equinoxes, I do like the past three months backwards, the next three months forward.
And then at the cross quarter days, I'll do like the past six weeks. And so then like all throughout the year, it's kind of like this back and forth and back and forth. Although I feel like this year I haven't been as on top of that, but that's okay. So I'm looking forward to catching up with myself as I, um, don't rush and take time to look back at the past.
the past year and look forward at the, at the next. So that's my practice to share. That's all. I love this idea of taking enough time to catch up with myself. Yeah. Yeah. Six weeks minimum. I'm not sure how to raise my hand. Can you hear me? We can! Oh, hello, I just pulled over. I'm gonna read a quick little poem.
Okay, be safe. Be safe first. Oh yes, I'm on a road, well, well now there are two cars passing, but here we go. This is, um, this is a poem called, it's by Donna Ashworth and it's called Joy Chose You. And, um, An elder shared this with me a couple years ago, and I think about it every year now at this time of year.
Joy does not arrive with a fanfare on a red carpet strewn with the flowers of a perfect life. Joy sneaks in as you pour a cup of coffee watching the sunlight hit your favorite tree just right. And you usher Joy away because you're not ready for her. Your house is not as it should be for such a distinguished guest.
But Joy cares nothing for your messy home. Or your bank balance, or your waistline, you see. Joy is supposed to slither through the cracks of your imperfect life. That's how joy works. You cannot truly invite her. You can only be ready when she appears, and hug her with meaning, because in this very moment, joy chose you.
That's that.
Merry Yule, all. Merry Yule, and thank you so much. Aww. I don't know if you can see everybody's face because you're in the car, but I felt like a visible relaxation, and And gratitude of that. I, even the possible opening of that idea, you know, Joy chose you. It's just there. You get to have it. Yeah. Thank you.
The line that stuck out for me, Jasmina, was, uh, Joy is supposed to slither in through the cracks of your imperfect life. I know! It just flies in the face of this idea that we have to somehow earn joy, that we have to like, you know, be very, very perfect in order to experience it and know it is supposed to slither in through the cracks in our imperfect life.
I am going to carry that in my back pocket for the rest of my life. Here, here. And I just went to this very Christian, um, lessons and carols at the school where my husband teaches and heard the passage about Eve and the snake and thinking about all the snake energy that's been moving through the coven and how beautiful that is and joy is a beautiful slithering snake.
Yeah. Um, all right. I'm going to keep driving. I love you all. I'm so, so grateful for this space. Marry you all. We love you too. We love you all. Drive safely.
What do you think, folks? Any last yule messages for the great extended coven out there in the dark? Oh, there we go. Um, I just, uh, was noticing in the chat someone asked, uh, what we had on our, uh, Yule wish list. Um, and for me, like, I think the thing that I've been focusing on the most as far as, um, like, a wish for, The coming year, and just for Yule in general, is peace.
Like, there is so much stuff going on right now that is affecting everyone. And I just, I wish for a calmness. I wish for that security and, you know, that light in the darkness for everyone who really needs it right now. That's, that's like the one thing. on my list that I just keep coming back to. But yeah, I just figured I'd share.
Peace on Earth, right? It's on all the cards, but how many of us are actually living inside that, that card? Peace on Earth. Julianne, did you want to share a closing question mark? Sure. Yeah, I put in the chat that I just remembered that last year at the Solstice, I During our meeting, channeled this blessing I wrote and like, read it immediately after.
Um, and figured I would read it again this year as a, as another offering. So I pulled it up. So this is a solstice blessing for our coven. May we spend time together in loving ways. May we embrace both joy and sadness as we gather throughout the year. May we celebrate when we have things to celebrate.
Amen. May we hold each other when we break apart. May we encourage each other as we birth new ideas into the world. May we learn and grow together. May we ask questions and share wisdom. May we, may we wonder about the unknown. May we sit in the discomfort of being wrong. May we tickle each other with glee, but only first if we ask for consent.
Or only if we first ask for consent. May we respect each other's boundaries around tickling and all other boundaries. May we acknowledge our privilege in having access to this community and that many cannot access it even though they may be the ones who need it the most. May we do the difficult work of challenging the inaccessibility and ableism that shows up in this space and the white supremacy in this space.
And the colonialism in this space and all the isms in this space. May we listen to those most impacted by these isms. May we have hard conversations. May we be accountable to each other. May we be activists together as we resist oppression in the world. May we include slowing down in our activism. May we soothe and fuel each other so that we are equipped to do social justice work.
May we offer care to each other in tangible ways. May we normalize asking each other what our needs are. May we organize to collectively meet our needs. May we play together. May we cry together. May we love each other. Blessed fucking be.
The end.
I'll leave the door open for another minute just in case someone has something last minute to say. Want to share? Go ahead, Vanessa. Um, it's along the lines of what Vermillion was saying. Um,
I'm, I've been thinking a lot over the past few months about how, how we can create a, a really care centered world. Um, We're all the most vulnerable of all of us, including the creatures and the plants and the insects are truly centered in how we all move through our world. And even the policies of our communities, you know, all the way on up to the top.
And it seems daunting a task, but I think in this time of darkness, which is soon going to be tipping back over into the light, um, a question I find myself asking. of myself and in various circles where I'm trying to make the tiniest bit of change is if you could imagine something better, like really better, what would it look like?
Um, and that's not a very specific question, but just how can we use our imaginations to create? Um, much safer and healthier and care centered communities and behaviors on this planet. Um, so I think as we're sitting in the dark, um, you know, maybe that's a question that we might all entertain. What would it look like if we really, truly had care centered policies?
Um, And how even just like one on one in our friends and families or in our communities and in the world. So, just put that out there to like use our power as witches to imagine radically care centered community. Here's to imagining radically care centered community everywhere we can. It feels like the darkest nights of the year, that's for sure.
But I know, I know we're on the wheel. We just always are.
And it will get brighter.
Amy, you got any last wishes for the coven? I do indeed. That's nice. Um, I just want to return to the lyrics of The Missing Witches Yule Carol.
You know, we're witches. We make our own light. So when we imagine peace on earth, when we imagine care centered communities, when we imagine beautiful, quiet spaces or warm, engaging hugs, I Or singing out loud. We can do that. We can make those things. If there's something that you're missing, what can you do to make it?
Because we're witches of the night. We are witches. We make our own light on the solstice.
Bless a fucking bee. And bless a fucking bee. Blessed fucking Billy! Blessed fucking B! Blessed fucking B! Blessed fucking B! Happy Yule! Yule, Happy Yule, blessed fucking Yule!
Be safe out there everybody! We love you. Love you all.
Love you all
