Our Winter Solstice Group Reading - Sacred Days of Yule

[Nemia]

This year, I have the strong feeling that our group readings are more important than ever - and maybe none more so than the Winter Solstice Reading. We are all going through the same crisis, all over the world. No matter where we live, we're going through ups and downs, rising and falling numbers of infected and victims of the virus. In the shadow of a world-wide pandemic that wiped out so many things we took for granted, Winter Solstice means so much more than a natural process we can rely on to return each year.

For me, this is a symbolic date. I won't spend the seasonal holidays alone with my husband, and I know that many of you won't be able to see their loved ones. I can't change this reality. But I can celebrate the symbol of hope, the return of light, and affirm my belief that we're all connected, no matter where we are geographically.

I invite you all to pick a deck you love, a deck that lifts up your spirits and fills you with the belief in the eternal light. (Okay, if you go for a macabre deck, I won't kick you out!) Take time to celebrate the Winter Solstice with others. For twelve consecutive days, we'll draw a daily card, based on international festive days of the season.

If you can't find the time for this little ritual every day, well, then simply do it when you have the time! We won't close this group quickly, you're welcome to add your reading whenever it suits you. Simply open a topic for your own reading and start to ponder which deck calls out for you right now. It's part of the fun

We'll start on December 20.

Here is the spread we'll use.



Sacred Days of Yule

This spread will help you to learn to apply the tarot to enjoy and enrich your passage through the twelve festive days from December 20th to 31st. The meaning of each card in the spread reflects the energy of the festivity associated with each of the twelve days.

1. Mother Night of Dreams: - Dec 20th
This card reminds us to look for a particular message in our dreams tonight. The ancients believed that our dreams on this night foretold some of the important events in the coming year.

2. Yule - Winter Solstice: - Dec 21st
This card shows us how best to connect to the Light within and without - it symbolizes the Birth of the Sun.

3. The Time of Beth: - Dec 22nd
This card points to the inner blocks and resistance that is holding us back from following our dreams.

4. Hopi Time of Renewal - Dec 23rd
This card indicates the best way for us to seek purification and renewal, and to build tolerance for others.

5. Feast of Mothers, Christmas Eve: - Dec 24th
This card shows how we can connect with the spirits of our ancestors for communion and to ask for wisdom and guidance. It is also a time for Christians to reflect on the birth of Christ.

6. Festival of Life, Christmas: - Dec 25th
This card shows us how to connect directly with Spirit.

7. Yuletide, Kwanzaa: - Dec 26th
This card shows us how to express nurturance, to attend to our families and to express the protective energy within us towards others.

8. Birth of Freyja: - Dec 27th
This card points to issues of love, luck, artistic and creative expression and female wisdom.

9. Feast of Alcyone: - Dec 28th
This card gives us a personal inner message - one that speaks directly to our heart and spirit.

10. Day of Nymphs - Dec 29th
This card encourages us to connect to our playful side, our inner child and how best to cultivate this aspect of ourselves.

11. Day of Rest: - Dec 30th
This card shows us how to walk our path in a relaxed and confident way....with the ability to deal with stressful situations in a philosophical, detached way.

12. New Year's Eve, Hogmanay - Dec 31st
This card shows us how to release the old and let in the new. This relates to both our external lives and our inner being.

[Amoroso]

I'll be joining this one. I plan to use the Tarot of Shadows though.

[Rachelcat]

I'm in! I don't know what deck though. I might go with Budapest again. It's all red and yellow, and it makes me smile!

Thanks for leading us!

[Nemia]

Welcome! I'm so happy to see you. I will use my new and wonderful New Liminal Tarot.

[Joan Marie]

I'm in and looking so forward to this. I am expecting the Deck Stork with several new decks this week and if things go right and she finds her way to me, I'll probably be choosing from one of them.

Thank you Nemia so much for hosting this here.

[dodalisque]

I'd like to join in. Maybe The Transparent Tarot is the deck to use, to pierce the veil of time to see what lies ahead.

[Ciderwell]

Hello Nemia,

Although new to the forum I'd like to join your reading group.
I thought about using the Ghost Tarot, I find highly accurate, though may be rather too bleak and shallow for Christmastime. I can use the Tarot of the Druids instead (they make me smile). And as the suit of Wands happen to be the traditional Yule mistletoe, that seems appropriate.

Cheers

[Nemia]

I'm very happy to see you all! And so interesting decks Two more days and we'll get started. Also very exciting: Jupiter and Saturn will stand close together at Solstice (they've been close together for many months now) and that's beautiful to see.

Best wishes to all of us. The world is a weird place right now but one day, it will be a memory. Tarot is such a good support system for difficult days.

[Joan Marie]

I have 2 really interesting decks on the way and I am REALLY hopeful that at least one of them arrives in time for this. If not, I will of course choose another. Really looking forward to starting this on Sunday!!

[Nemia]

Our sacred days of Yule are over. I have been celebrating the signposts of the skies since 2017, they have often been meaningful (often telling me the same thing all over again - but did you ever try to convince a Taurus of anything Taurus doesn't want to do????), and I'm always sad to let these special days go.

I haven't yet finished interpreting my own cards, we had some lockdown-related problems in the family, and I'll need some quiet and maybe a good sleep before I do the last step with my reading. For others, it may also take time to wrap it up.

It's a New Year now, 2021, and after the grief, fears and suffering that 2020 has brought to many, I look for hopeful signs.

When we go outside now at night, the great hunter Orion dominates the sky. always hunting for the Next Great Thing, it's so easy to identify with him. We humans keep chasing future projects, and that's good because we can improve ourselves and our slice of the world, we get a new chance when our planet turns and Orion goes to sleep and the Sun comes up.

But let's not forget the present. Because it's a present, a gift. If we have learned one thing in 2020 it's that things can be taken away from us easily, things we took for granted and then miss bitterly.

Let's all say a big thank you to Fate, Life, God, Goddess, the Divine, Chance, Lady Fortune, the Laws of Nature or whoever we believe rules this world. We recognize a small part of the pattern.


I feel like this is a moment for the Pharos Tarot's Star. Hope, vision - the beauty of the darkness and the lights that shine in the darkness. One can love both.

Thank you to all who celebrated this precious ritual together.