Written by Ivo Dominguez Jr • Narration by James C. Welch
Chants: “Lady of the Winter Night from “ Awakening The Dream:” and “Sun Return” from A Dream Whose Time Is Coming by Ivo. Performed by the Assembly of the Sacred Wheel.
Pathworking:
The Spark Of Sun
Close your eyes and move inwards. Take a deep breath and become aware of any distractions from the outside world— sounds, sensations, thoughts and feelings that came with you to this moment. Gather these distractions together ••••• and bid them depart until you return from this journey. •••••
Open your eyes briefly and then close them again holding within yourself the image of where you are in the here and now. See a sparkling mist rolling, slowly filling your vision. See it grow thicker, and thicker, and thicker until you are enveloped in swirls of pearly mist, rosy mist, that glistens with sparkling motes. ••••• Although you are still, you feel motion all around you. Although you are still, you feel the fog swirling all around you.
The air is chilly and the fog turns into a scatter of snowflakes. You feel the weight of a thick cloak wrapped about you. • It is night and the stars above have the sharp bright glint of Winter. • • You look down and around and see nothing but the night sky. • What you thought was a snow covered lane is actually clouds. •• Remarkably as you walk you feel steady, and feel the weight of your steps. •• The stars seem almost close enough to touch. •
There is a deep and enduring peace, a tranquility, that fills the night. The dark itself is velvety and inviting, with a glory to equal that of the stars ••
As you stride forward among the stars, you know that you are journeying to the heart of Winter. • As you walk the cloud covered path you feel that you are descending with each step. • • Every few steps downward the clouds are thickening. •• Downward and forward you move. •• Downward and deeper in you move. •
The layers of clouds are beginning to look like a snow covered landscape. • You realize, it is a landscape not just shapes imagined in the clouds. •• Lower and closer and you can see the outlines of trees. ••
Another step down and another and you are on a broad road in a landscape of evergreens and holly trees. • You feel you are being watched. You look around and then up and see a black bird circling above you. • It is too dark to see if it is a crow or a raven. • You see it circle you thrice then fly down the road. • The bird turns around and comes back to circle you again. It calls to you, asking you to follow. • Definitely a raven. •
You follow the raven down the road. It loops back often to make sure it does not lose you. • It seems to be getting darker. ••
Yes, slowly darkness is growing •• The horizon is getting closer, or it may be the velvet of the night has spilled down and is covering the landscape. • You pick up your pace walking down the road. •• The stars are going out one by one or are obscured by unseen clouds. • The circle of space that can be seen continues to shrink around you. ••
The darkness feels like a heavy weight pressing down upon the land. •
Through the murk and growing shadow you see a spark of light atop the next low rise. •• There is a hillock encompassed by a ring of old holly trees. • People are standing in a circle within that green ring. • In the center floats a golden acorn crowned with a spark of light. ••• You join the circle of people. ••
Several of them have begun to sing.
<Lady of the Winter night chant> Long pause count to 22
As the chant continues the spark slowly brightens. • You feel a tingle in the air. •• A sense of something arriving and settling atop the hillock. •• You see a huge outline, a ripple of light • that marks the silhouette of the Lady of Winter. • •
The raven lands on her shoulders, larger than a natural bird would be and with eyes like the stars. • • The Lady reaches out her hands to cup the spark and it grows bright. ••
People begin to approach the spark in groups of two or three. • Some reach out there hands to offer energy to the spark. Some sing to the spark while others offer soft words of encouragement. All offer a gift to the Light in their own way. ••••
It is time for you and you step up to the spark. ••• You look at the golden acorn and its nimbus of light and watch its rippling light. ••• You steal glances up at the Lady and the Raven. ••••
You feel the joy and the weight of being Mother to all. •••
You feel the dark truth of the world and the mischief that sets it right in the Raven’s gaze. ••• You feel measured by both, but affirmed by their judgement. ••••
You offer you gift in your own way. •••••• Then you step back. •
A Wave of light bursts forth from the spark. •• Waves upon waves of light spread outward and push back the darkness. • With each wave of light more of the landscape returns. The foam from the crashing waves of light rises up to relight the stars. •••
The Sunspark Acorn, • The Lady of Winter, • and the Raven of the Void rise upwards and are gone. ••
A drum sounds, ••• people cheer, ••• and someone says, “Join us in this procession to carry the Light to all the places and spaces that need it now!” •
The singers lead us out and down the hillock. A great song rises and grows. •
<Sun Return Chant> Count to 16
As you walk all the stars return, •• the Moon returns, ••
and lastly the color of dawn tints the Eastern Sky. ••••
A fog swirls around you. All is a soft dove gray. • You feel the swirling and the turning all around you. ••
Little by little, the fog lifts and you flutter your eyes open and find yourself back in the here and now. Back in the place where we began. Back in the place you held in your memory so that you could return. •••
Take a deep breath. Move your toes and fingers. Be here and in the now. Be here and in the now. And you are here!