Tarot Wisdom for the Winter Solstice

During any other year, I’d be on my way to a small park in downtown Toronto, bundled up warm in the darkness, waiting for my annual winter solstice tradition to kick off.

I usually like to welcome in the light half of the year with fire and illumination. Community artists band together to make a papier mache effigy, which is then burned in the park for all to see, all of us in a huddle with lanterns and puppets, ready to bid farewell to the shadows. I love this ritual, and can always be found in the front row of the throng, in a poofy jacket and oversized touque, dancing from side to side to stave off the chill.

With the global pandemic, winter solstice looks a little different for me – and all of us – this year. I won’t be going to any solstice fire in any parks, and I won’t be in proximity to any groups! But I do have a Christmas tree – my first ever – wrapped with threads of warm and cool white lights. This year, that light is inside with me at all times, my tree a giant night light I didn’t realize I needed.

Whatever your usual Winter Solstice traditions, I invite you to take some time to create some light in the darkness – the longest night of the year, for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere! – and reflect on what you’d like to release, what you wish to summon.

Perhaps appropriately, the card I’ve drawn for all y’all in a lil bit of Winter Solstice Wisdom is the Page of Wands.

As you likely know, the suit of wands is all about fire – literal flames, but also symbolic ones: what motivates us, enlivens us, excites us; what connects us to our passion, our purpose, our drive and determination to create and manifest. This suit is particularly holy to artists, creatives of all stripes, entrepreneurs, and anyone who does work around sex and the primal side of our lives and bodies.

The pages are students, newbies, learners. In many ways, the astrology of this moment is all about harnessing that ever important ‘fresh start’ energy. No matter where you are in this wacky journey of life, it does benefit us to stay connected to the wonder and curiosity inherent in a beginner’s mind and approach. Whether you’re award winning in your career, on your 10th year as a successful entrepreneur, whether you’re in the crone stage of life, whether your connection to your expertise and authority is hard won – still, you have something to learn and welcome into your life by embracing the energy of the page.

The Page of Wands asks:

What excites you?

What motivates you?

What are you just beginning to learn?

What lights you up?

What creative pursuits bring you joy?

I’d encourage you to take some time to really reflect on these questions – personally, spending time with a notebook, pencil, some chilled out tunes, and a coffee gets me in the perfect contemplative headspace. The physical act of writing by hand also helps us remember and internalize what we’ve written. I don’t know about you, but I’d prefer my insights and intentions about myself not be fleeting. Write that shit down!

And – I hate to say it – but reflecting and writing on all of this is only the first (albeit critical) step.

In order to harness the potent energies of this moment, I’d also recommend making a battle plan for the coming year.

Can you list three main ways you’ll commit to stoking your fire of inspiration, passion, and joy?

Maybe that’s spending some time on your writing or art every Sunday, for at least a few hours. Maybe it’s spending the first hour of your days in bed with books, so you can learn a little bit more about what you love. And maybe it’s making some big changes: switching your career, cutting out toxic family, moving countries, adopting an animal.

Insight is crucial, but for the power of our intentions to ride with us into and throughout the new year, it needs to be propelled and boosted by action.

Much love to you in this transition from the darkness into the light. May you leave some of your shadows behind, and cultivate a greater capacity to bask in your own radiance.

Interested in learning more about tarot? Click here for instant access for my guide to to 4 Easy Tarot Spreads.