The Wintering Sky

Monthly newsletter, December 2022

Please read on for news and course discounts, as well as the usual monthly recommendations and poem.

Dear friends,

Winter, for me, is filled with so many gifts, and the greatest gift of all is the presence and prominence of the night sky. Years ago, when I lived on the Isle of Lewis, the most difficult about being in that place was the fact that, for four months of the year – two each side of summer solstice – there was no proper darkness. You couldn’t see the stars; the moon was a pale shadow of her usual self. In late August, when the nights slowly began to grow darker, I would head off with a sleeping bag down to the headland to sleep out on the rocks by the shore, so that I could wake up in the middle of the night and see the stars again in all that dark-sky glory. It was an annual ritual: a welcoming back of night, of the moon, the constellations. Because this transition point was so deeply rooted in the cycles and seasons of that particular land, that particular place, that particular latitude and longitude, as well as my own needs and inclinations, celebrating that time of year became much more important to me than keeping the ‘traditional’ Celtic seasonal festivals at other times – especially those that didn’t much relate to the seasons and rhythms of my own days. And although the absence of summer dark has been very much less extreme in the places that I’ve lived in since, it is still an annual ritual for me to celebrate the return of the night skies at the end of August.

At this time of year I’m even happier, because I can wake up in the dark and go to sleep in the dark. Darkness wraps itself around my days like a soft down quilt, and makes me feel safe and held. And secret; I guess I’ve always loved invisibility. And with all this comes a daily ceremony which is important to me at this time of year: marking the rising and the setting of the sun. Which is strange, really, because I’m not by nature much of a ceremonialist. Rituals and ceremonies only make sense to me if they emerge naturally out of the texture of my life, and in the context of things that I care deeply about, or that bring me joy – which is precisely what happens during these dark-sky winter days.

I care deeply about the dark, and it brings me joy. I want to celebrate it more than I want to celebrate anything else, ever, at any time of year. I am in love with the night skies, with the naming of the constellations, and the stories and myths that are attached to them. When I look up on a clear winter night, I feel as if I’m surrounded by ancestors, archetypes, sky-beings of all kinds. They’re always there, of course – but they never feel quite as close as when they’re visible, shining down on me, demonstrating that deep connection between sky and earth. Because in loving this beautiful earth, in honouring the land, we mustn’t lose sight of all that surrounds this planet, all that holds it and circles it and cradles it. We should equally celebrate the sky and the rest of the cosmos around us.

When I was writing my book The Enchanted Life, I did quite a bit of research into contemporary panpsychism, and one of most delightful ideas I encountered came from the research of Gregory Matloff, a physicist at New York City College of Technology. Matloff (especially in his 2015 book, Starlight, Starbright: Are Stars Conscious) has argued (not, of course, without some controversy) that a ‘proto-consciousness field’ might extend through all of space. Stars, he suggested, might be ‘minded’ entities which purposefully control their paths through space. And indeed, he suggested (and of course!), the entire universe might be self-aware. But it was this idea of animate stars dancing an intentional path through the cosmos which has stayed with me ever since. And so winter, for me, is a time to immerse myself in the night sky and celebrate that great dance. Hydra slinking across the sky; Draco in a two-step with Ursa Minor.

In more mundane news: it’s almost Winter Solstice, and life is quiet by design! Three months in, the rush of interviews and events for Hagitude is mostly done with, the membership program is underway and thriving, and I can begin to focus in on new writing. The Rooted Woman oracle deck for Hay House, which is based on If Women Rose Rooted, is in progress – for publication at Imbolc 2024. And there are two more book projects in the offing – more of which in the New Year.

And so on that note, as always, I wish you the fruits and the flourishings of whatever season you find yourself living through: winter or summer, according to hemisphere.

Sharon

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Course discount for subscribers

As a special gift during a season in which so many are facing economic challenges, for the month of December I’d like to offer a 50% discount on all of my ‘legacy’ on-demand online courses. You can find them all linked to at the ‘Work with me’ page of my website: https://sharonblackie.net/work-with-me/

The discount coupon may be used for the following courses:

This Mythic Life (now £60)
Courting the World Soul (now £60)
Sisters of Rock & Root (now £40)
Celtic Studies: Myth, Tradition, Spirituality (now £60)
Any individual Bone Cave session (now £12.50 each)
The Bone Cave Bundle consisting of all 8 sessions (now £60)

The ongoing live Hagitude membership program and membership of The Mythic Imagination Network are not included in this discount.

Your discount code is: DEC22-50
This coupon will expire on December 31, 2022.
IMPORTANT! Please enter the discount code carefully, and be sure that it has been applied before you make your payment. We can't give partial or complete refunds for errors. Just underneath the box in which you enter your last name as you sign up for a course, you'll see a link in pale orange: 'Have a coupon?' You must click here to enter your coupon code before you go to the payment section. If after you've entered the code and passed to the payment section, you refresh the page, or decide on a different payment method, the coupon code will need to be applied again. If in doubt, just check that the final amount you're paying is 50% less than the advertised price before you complete your purchase.

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Music recommendation

A few weeks ago, I was contacted by the folk band Wise Woman, with news of their upcoming EP. I especially loved their song ‘Fen Woman’, and they told me this about it: ‘It’s about connecting with those who shaped your past (in our case Welsh and East Anglian witch women) and unapologetically roaring into your own future.’ Listen to this and other songs, and find out more here:

https://www.wearewisewoman.com/

(They wrote another beautiful song called ‘Mara’ which, I’m told, was inspired by my selkie story in If Women Rose Rooted.) Here’s what their website says about them:

Hailing from the wilds of East Anglia and South Wales, power-folk four-piece Wise Woman bring lush vocal harmonies, cinematic strings and 90s girl power to the airwaves and eardrums. Formed during the dark depths of a pandemic winter, the band's sound is forged from a decade of joy-filled musical friendship, a healthy dollop of Boudicca-style rage and numerous collaborations as individual musicians with artists as varied as Anna Meredith, Mediaeval Baebes & the LSO. (They may have also starred in a very famous West End musical ... such rumours ...). It turns out, that sound has enchanted headline slots at institutions including Green Note & Folkroom.​ Their debut EP Thread (released 28th November) champions female stories in folk form. Weaving together misogyny, magic, motherhood and madness, from the East Anglian wildlands to the smoky underworld of New Orleans, Thread is a rallying cry for all womxn to take what they deserve and roar into their own futures.​ Wise Woman are Anna Pool, Lydia Bell, Charlotte Vaughan & Maddie Cutter.

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Reading recommendations

I was delighted recently to offer a cover recommendation for the reissue of the magical American storyteller/maker Daniel Deardorff’s book, The Other Within: The Genius of Deformity in Myth, Culture and Psyche. Daniel (1952-2019) was a much-loved mythsinger, storyteller, ritualist, composer and producer. A polio survivor and early teacher about Otherness, he toured extensively with renowned soft-rock band Seals and Crofts, and produced award-winning albums for other artists. When post-polio sequelae required change, he became an independent scholar of myth, teaching internationally with Robert Bly and others.

If you don’t know about Daniel, you can find more here:

https://mythsingerlegacy.org/

You’ll find video and audio recordings of his beautiful tellings and musings. Here’s the publisher’s more detailed info about the book:

There is an ‘other’ that lives within each of us, an exiled part that carries wisdom needed for ourselves and the culture at large. Having survived disabling polio as an infant, Daniel Deardorff knows the oppressions of exclusion and outsiderhood. He guides readers on an initiatory journey through ancient myth, literature, and personal revelation to discover our own true identity.

These 10,000-year-old stories contain sacred medicine with insights that release imagination and restore wholeness amid trauma, exile, climate chaos, disability, illness, death, and grief. Illustrating how archetypal figures of the Other – the Trickster, Daimon, Not-I, etc, Deardorff teaches us to reframe disparities of self/other, civilization/ wilderness, form/deformity – and so transform the experience of being outcast. Synthesizing lessons from shamanic practice, quantum physics, alchemy, social justice and his own lived experience, Deardorff affirms the disruptive and transgressive forces that break through dogma, conventionality and prejudice. He discloses blessings of outsiderhood and gifts to culture by those who are marginalized. Through mythmaking (mythopoesis), the experience of Otherness – cultural, racial, religious, sexual, physiognomic – becomes one of empowerment, a catalyst for human liberation.

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This month I particularly enjoyed Megan Hunter’s The Harpy. Here’s the description, from the publisher. It’s a pretty dark novel, but I found it impossible to put down.

Lucy lives with her husband Jake and their two boys. Her life is devoted to her children, her days mapped out by their finely tuned routine. Until a man calls one afternoon with a shattering message: his wife has been having an affair with Lucy’s husband. He thought she should know.

Lucy is distraught. She decides to stay with Jake, if only for the children’s sake, but in order to even the score, they agree that she will hurt him three times. Jake will not know when the hurt is coming, or what form it will take. And so begins a delicate game of crime and punishment, from which there is no return . . .

Told in dazzling, musical prose, The Harpy by Megan Hunter is a dark, staggering fairy tale, at once mythical and otherworldly and fiercely contemporary. It is a novel of love, marriage and its failures, of power and revenge, of metamorphosis and renewal.

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This month’s poem

Middle of the Way

Galway Kinnell

1

I wake in the night,
An old ache in the shoulder blades.
I lie amazed under the trees
That creak a little in the dark,
The giant trees of the world.
I lie on earth the way
Flames lie in the woodpile,
Or as an imprint, in sperm or egg, of what is to be. 
I love the earth, and always
In its darkness I am a stranger.

2

6 A.M. Water frozen again. Melted it and made tea. Ate a raw egg and the last orange. Refreshed by a long sleep. the trail practically indistinguishable under 8" of snow. 9:30 A.M. Snow up to my knees in places. Sweat begins freezing under my shirt when I stop to rest. The woods are filled, anyway, with the windy noise of the first streams. 10:30 A.M. the sun at last. The snow starts to melt off the boughs at once, falling with little ticking sounds. Mist clouds are lying in the valleys. 11:45 A.M. Slow, glittering breakers roll in on the beaches ten miles away, very blue and calm. 12 noon. An inexplicable sense of joy, as if some happy news had been transmitted to me directly, by-passing the brain. 2 P.M. From the top of Gauldy I looked back into Hebo valley. Castle Rock sticks into a cloud. A cool breeze comes up from the valley, it is a fresh, earthly wind and tastes of snow and trees. It is not like those transcendental breezes that make the heart ache. It brings happiness. 2:30 P.M. Lost the trail. A woodpecker watches me wade about through the snow trying to locate it. The sun has gone back of the trees. 3:10 P.M. Still hunting for the trail. Getting cold. From an elevation I have an open view to the SE, a world of timberless, white hills, rolling, weirdly wrinkled. Above them a pale half moon. 3:45 P.M. Going on by map and compass. A minute ago a deer fled touching down every fifteen feet or so. 7:30 P.M. Made camp near the heart of Alder Creek. Trampled a bed into the snow and filled it with boughs. Concocted a little fire in the darkness. Ate pork and beans. A slug or two of whiskey burnt my throat. The night very clear. Very cold. That half moon is up there and a lot of stars have come out among the treetops. The fire has fallen to coals.

3

The coals go out,
The last smoke wavers up 
Losing itself in the stars. 
This is my first night to lie 
In the uncreating dark.
In the human heart
There sleeps a green worm
That has spun the heart about itself, 
And that shall dream itself black wings 
One day to break free into the black sky.
I leave my eyes open,
I lie here and forget our life,
All I see is that we float out
Into the emptiness, among the great stars,  
On this little vessel without lights.
I know that I love the day,
The sun on the mountain, the Pacific 
Shiny and accomplishing itself in breakers, 
But I know I live half alive in the world, 
Half my life belongs to the wild darkness.