The cross quarter day of Imbolc has come and gone, but the season of light is just beginning in the northern hemisphere.
Recently, I was honored to lead a ritual in my favorite online group, The Way of Witch. Together we welcomed the Imbolc sun with a progressive candle lighting and tea ceremony. But embracing the season of light doesn’t end there. As the hours of sunlight and warmth increase each day, we can continue to tap into the light around us, rekindling our inner fire.
Sunrise Grounding Practice
I know, it’s no fun getting out of a warm bed when winter’s chill winds are still rattling the window panes. Make the effort, because this simple devotion will align you with the season of light where you live, and put you in harmony with the nature around you. You’ll begin to notice just when and where where the morning sun first cuts though your windows, where the light falls across a room, and how it moves with the progressing days.
My daily sunrise ritual includes connecting to earth, sky, sun, moon and water. I offer gratitude, ask for blessings, and set my spiritual intention for the day. Taking this time to be preset, to be aware of the light not only in the spring, but throughout the year, attunes me to the greater life force, or Spirit. These few simple moments, connect me to my soul self.
Your sunrise ritual can be whatever you like. Prayer, meditation, coffee or tea and journaling. You might try doing a few sun salutations, or simply stretching and bending to get your blood flowing.
When it’s warm enough, take your practice outside, let your body drink in spring’s awakening with all your senses. Listen to the chatter of chirping birds, whether from their highwire perch in your urban neighborhood, or from the tree branches in your suburban backyard. Breath in the scent of moist earth, feel the nip of cool air on your face. Just like the sap rises in a tree, feel your own lifeforce ascending again, after the long descent of winter.
Follow The Season of Light
If you’re an organized, detailed type witch, install one of these apps for tracking the sun on your phone or other supported device. Depending on which app you choose, you can get simple, location specific times for sunrise, sunset, and hours of daylight. Or you can go full scale with apps that include astrological, nautical and civil time variations, as well as twilight, golden and blue hours.
I opted for the Calendar: Sun and Moon app. It has a clean, simple interface that gives me quick access to a monthly calendar with daily sunrise and sunset times. I can toggle for daylight hours, moonrise and setting times, and moon phases.
I really like checking the daily sunrise times and the increasing duration of daylight hours at this time of year—it reassures me that warmer days are indeed coming, even if I can’t feel the change yet. Along with the information on moon times and phases, this app comes in quite handy when planning spells.
If you’re less techy and more organic, consider placing a sundial in your yard or garden. This ancient timepiece calibrated to the sun is both accurate and attractive. I’ve had one in the center of my thyme bed (pun very much intended) for decades. It’s a magickal place for burying spells that need to work over time.
Brew A Cup of Sunshine
The kitchen witch in me never passes up an opportunity to draw on the magick of herbs and spices. I created this blend for my Imbolc candle ritual, incorporating the herbs associated with sun and fire to infuse body and soul with the spark of light. Milk and honey are associated with Ibolc, and in many cultures considered an offering to the deities.
Imbolc Sunllight Tea
1 ginger tea bag
1 small cinnamon stick (or generous pinch of ground cinnamon)
2 cardamom pods
1/2 tsp dried orange peel (or 1/4 tsp fresh, grated)
Milk and honey to taste.
Add herbs to a cup of hot water and let steep for a few minutes. Add milk, cream, or milk substitute, and sweeten with honey. For the simple witchery version, use either Celestial Seasonings Bengal Spice, or Constant Comment tea.
Get comfortable, sitting in the light of a sunbeam if you can. Sip the tea and envision your body filing with golden light. See the light flowing into every cell, passing through your skin and surrounding your body with a warm, glowing radiance. As you finish your tea, see the light receding into your heart space. Know that your inner fire is always there, waiting to be stoked.
Music Hath the Power
Make a playlist of your favorite summer jams, the tunes that make you instantly remember your best summer days as soon as you hear them. My list always includes Here Comes the Sun, by the Beatles, 98.6 by Keith and especially In The Summertime by Mungo Jerry. I can still hear my brothers’ garage band belting out their rendition.
Rites Of Spring
Everybody has their own sign of spring, whether it’s snow melting off the roof, dripping down in long icicles that glitter in the sun, seeing fuzzy headed pussy willows popping out on the tips of slender branches, or spotting the first robin hunting for worms.
Or maybe it’s a seasonal activity that signals spring for you—taking the ice fishing house off the lake before the ice breaks up, packing hats, scarves and mittens away for another year, or raking the winter mulch off your flower beds.
These are the rites of spring, and our connection to the elemental magick in the season. Use an icicle in a releasing spell. As it melts and the solid object disappears, so goes that which you desire to release. Bring pussy willow branches indoors. Place them in a vase of water and work an increasing spell as the leaves bud and open. Use the spirit of robin, the early bird that catches the worm, to manifest what you desire.
For me, I know spring has finally arrived when I get my little blue VW Bug out on the black top, to race through the puddles of water coming from the mounds of melting snow. I crank up the volume on my play list, hit the gas, and send a ten-foot spray into the air all around me. It’s my personal ritual for vanquishing winter.
However you recognize spring, or celebrate its arrival, take some time now to align with the season of increasing light and tap into the elemental magick all around you.
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