I stepped away from social media last night, and what a relief it was. I’ll be away from IG and FB for all of December, and I’m already reaping the benefits – I’ve read for several hours (started the new issue of Mslexia and A Literary Christmas: An Anthology.) I haven’t misused my time stressing whether I should post something on socials. I’ve been present with my daughter (who usually makes a swipe for my phone and demands I put it away, which she’s entirely in her right to do), and I slept through the night, which hasn’t happened in a very long time.
Making space and time to be fully present this month is one of the few things I’m sure I should be doing. Much else in my life feels unstable and painfully uncertain. Doing this, being here in this most sacred of seasons, reaching for a book instead of my phone and being there immediately when my daughter says ‘mum’ instead of being distracted by, quite frankly, a shit ton of nonsense.
The other day, a friend said, most enthusiastically, ‘Winter! This is Katie’s time! Winter is when you come out.’ And he’s right. It’s been that way since I was a kid – I ‘come out’ of myself during Winter. I’m ‘coming out’ of the nonsense I find myself typically tangled with and I’m getting serious about giving myself permission to devote myself to this season in the most nourishing ways I know how.
My daughter Saga (6) and I were supposed to go to an Advent Spiral today, but the car journey is somewhat lengthy, and Saga and long car rides don’t see eye to eye. One of my first noteworthy memories of Advent was in 1993 when I started attending a Waldorf School and went to my first Advent Spiral, followed by a candlelit tea of stollen, lebkuchen and warm elderberry juice.
The Advent Spiral (a Waldorfian ritual associated with finding our inner light in the darkness) takes place in a darkened room, with a spiralled pathway of evergreen boughs on the floor and a tall pillar candle in the centre of the spiral. Each child is given an ‘apple lantern,’ a cored apple with a candle inside; then, one by one, they walk the evergreen path to the centre. They light their candle from the big candle and position their apple somewhere amongst the greenery then walk back the way they came and out of the spiral. (Amazingly, in all the years I’ve attended, very few apples have ever toppled.)
While the spiral glows ever brighter with each new lantern, everyone sings carols accompanied usually by a piano, lyre, harp and violin. Four carols in particular moved me as a kid (often to tears) and continue to do so. Though ‘moved’ isn’t the right word. I felt much more than that. Something to explore in another post perhaps.
These carols were the ones I hoped were chosen when the whole school gathered to sing in the morning before class and the ones I always hoped would be sung during the Advent Spiral – In the Bleak Midwinter, The Holy and the Ivy, Green Growth the Holly, and There Comes a Galley Laden, the latter more so for the melody than the lyrics.
In the bleak mid-winter
Frosty wind made moan;
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter
Long ago.
– Christina Rossetti
The holly and the ivy,
When they are both full grown,
Of all the trees that are in the wood,
The holly bears the crown.
The rising of the sun
And the running of the deer,
The playing of the merry organ,
Sweet singing in the choir.
– Unknown (Which bugs me)
Green grow’th the holly
So doth the ivy
Though winter blasts blow na’er so high
Green grow’th the holly
– Attributed to King Henry VIII (Which I did not know until today!)
At the end of the spiral, each child gets to take an apple and eat it or take it home. No matter your spiritual leaning – I’ve been a Pagan since before I knew the meaning of the word – attending an Advent Spiral is one of the gentlest, most moving, beautiful experiences you can have.
A Wyrd Of Her Own 