Welcoming Winter

The solemn veiling of The Great Queen as Winter's Widow, and the exchange of her golden crown for her crowning of thorns; mourns her Passing Through The Gates and return to The Temple Beneath the Earth (thus beginning the Underworld Era of the Sabbat Cycle), and the subsequent loss of the land's fertility until the coming Overworld Era when she returns to restore The Unknown King.

It is also a time to mourn the other dead or missing; a quiet, dark pause of weeping, grieving, mourning, and loss. Here we contemplate the finality of flesh, and the symbolic death of spirit. During this time we must honor what is shed to whither and die, commune with that which has passed, and grieve- releasing the heavy emotions of loss so that we are able to look within, look back, and then look forward with a renewed clarity; knitting our bones and finding healing among the warmth of hearth fires of Winter, readying ourselves for our own resurrection (just as The Green Lady herself will be reawakened at Spring), and the revival of the Contracts.

During this time a ceremonial walk is made from home to Cemetery with lanterns and bells, while singing songs associated with death, loss, grief, and related themes. Once arrived offerings of flowers, cloth, coins, bread, and water, are made to the Dead at the gates as well wishes on their journey to the Afterlife, and dirt is symbolically tossed over them as if "burying" them.

Inspirations

The Ukrainian Pokrova; images of Mary the Virgin of Mercy; Old Irish Samhain (as I interpreted it regionally as an Irish Reconstructionist); Mexican Día De Los Muertos; Catholic Allhallowtide.

Associations