Winter Solstice Ceremony (and an Alchemical Marriage)

Sent to my Asheville elist.

Dear Lovers of Natural Cycles of Light and Dark,

Winter Solstice is here, a powerful moment of rebirth.

I am hosting a meditation on Sat. nite Dec. 20, 2009, at 7pm to 11:30 pm.

Afterwards, at midnite, I will be donning my silk robes to perform an alchemical wedding ceremony for Mike Teeters and Michele Knowles, who are both Healing Tao instructors. (My non profit is registered with the IRS as a Taoist Temple/Church, and I am its high priest :). Mike is my tech/duplication expert for all my DVDs. They met and fell in love at Heavenly Mountain summer retreat in 2007. Despite some stormy delays, the I Ching predicted this marriage, and we know the I Ching is never wrong…. 🙂 The wedding ceremony will be based on the principles of Kan & Li. Taoist primal Water and Fire alchemical forces will be invoked to sanctify and bless their union.

Because of the large number of Taoist wedding guests, remaining space at this meditation event is unfortunately very limited, maybe room for another 5 people. Everyone is of course invited to stay on for the wedding ceremony afterwards, which weather permitting, will happen in the Stone Circle outside (bring some warm clothes – but its only 20 minutes long). Refreshments served and party afterwards.

Please note that a RSVP is REQUIRED as well as my CONFIRMATION.

If I have already confirmed your notice of intention to come, you are already counted as confirmed. So if you are NOT confirmed, but wish to attend, please email me and I will get back to you by Friday evening.

Preference will be given to those who can attend the full evening’s meditation starting at 7 pm to 11:30 pm. Staying on for the wedding is of course optional. I regret having to turn anyone away, but you can still tune in and do your own ceremony at home or with others. See information below.
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For more good reading about Winter Solstice:

Information about the energetics and history of Winter Solstice (from 2005 Tao News):
http://www.healingdao.com/cgi-bin/articles.pl?rm=mode2&articleid=73
(to get onto articles page, your computer needs a cookie, so you may have to sign in)

From a 2002 newsletter, practical suggestions for a Winter Solstice Ceremony you can do at home:

It is that magical time of the year again, my favorite. We get to sink into the
dark, mysterious arms of the Dark Goddess, who then rebirths the Light God of
the Sun. I am speaking of course of Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the
year, when the six month Great Cycle of Yin magically turns into the six month
Great Cycle of Yang.

This solstice event has been recognized by many major religions as expressing
some divine power, and they have aligned their major holy-day celebrations
around it. Its interesting that they chose winter solstice over summer solstice
– perhaps the need of patriarchal religions to honor their yin side and process
of maternal birthing. Thus did the Romans declare that Jesus was born around
this time, and so on.

The Taoists simply stuck to the natural facts, since that suited their natural
cosmology – no need to dress it up with a humanized divinity. Why not just have
each human being BE that divinity? Well, if you are like the typical excess-yang
Westerner, who is stuck in a dominant head mode, it is not so easy to experience
your body as that divinity. It takes a lot of qigong or other body centered
practice and body-centered meditation like inner alchemy to get deeply in touch
with that Dark Goddess.

If we do our ceremony at that dark moment on midnight Dec. 20, we can
plant our seed-intention deep into the womb of darkness, when it is most fertile
and fecund. Farmers know well that if you plant by the new moon, the earth chi
is stronger and your crops grow much bigger. (It’s not a superstition, but a
fact supported by numerous studies). Similarly, if like the farmer we plant a
seed using ceremonial movement, a focused thought, a strong feeling, a color
seen within and our breath released without – the Life Force will more
powerfully respond to our request. The Life Force will hear us more clearly,
because our intention has penetrated so deeply into the womb of Nature.

The Power of Physical Movement in Ritual

I feel the most powerful ceremony includes a ritual qigong (chi kung)
form. The movement of the physical body invokes your deepest soul essence
(jing) if you are deeply centered while moving. When you combine a
movement ritual with specific intention, it becomes nei kung
(neigong), or “internal skill in cultivating the life force”.

My favorite ceremonial form is one developed by the Taoist sage Chang
San Feng, the creator of the original tai chi form and its esoteric
sister, wuji gong. Wuji gong I translate as Primordial Chi Kung or Tai
Chi for Enlightenment. (For more about its origins and efficacy, see
http://www.taichi-enlightenment.com. Its available in dvd, and has
an optional audio training as well).

The Yang family tai chi chi kung 8 movements/5 directions form taught
by Mantak Chia is also a lovely ceremonial form, and very grounded. It
circles left and right and interacts with the chi of all five
directions. But it doesn’t evoke as much heaven chi as wuji gong does.

The Deep Healing Qigong form (available on dvd) is also very
ceremonial in nature. It faces all the directions and harmonizes the
center of the Sun with the deep center of the Earth Being. Doing just
one of its six movements – the three part mandala of Sun-Earth exchange
– transports me into an altered state. It’s called medical qigong
simply because it was developed with that intention. But it could be
directed to any other goal, or used to add power to a solstice
ceremony.

You don’t have to know a qigong form, although doing the same form
every solstice/equinox is more powerful. Using the same form
“programs” and empowers your energy body to contact the yuan chi at
those times. It helps to capture/embody the elusive yuan chi, which
our polarized egos don’t want to notice because it threatens our
illusory belief that we are an island. Original Chi is boundary-less,
so it challenges our belief that the energy we feel is uniquely
‘mine”, under “my” control.

The key is to have a clear intention of what seed you want to plant deeo within the Energy Body of Mother Earth for the upcoming year. Your request must be for YOURSELF ONLY, or your role within some larger or collective/group process. You cannot ask for someone else – that violates their free will. So ask for whatever it is YOU sincerely NEED (no superficial “wants”). It can be material and very specific, or energetic or a spiritual quality.

Get clear on your intention BEFORE you practice your qigong ceremony, which is most powerful just before midnight on the night BEFORE the actual Solstice time. It’s a big event, so the ceremony will still be powerful the a day before or after, don’t sweat it. State your intention either out loud or mentally, send it to the four horizontal directions and to Heaven above and Earth below, and to the heart of Humanity within.

Then perform your qigong ceremony, holding the intention that the Life Force will help you birth that seed intention over the next year. At the end of the movement ceremony, call forth the Golden Dragon of the Center Direction of Earth (its core) and release your intention, ask the Life Force or its agent, the Dragon, to ascend to Heaven with your request.

If you want to make the ceremony even more powerful, prick your finger to get a drop of blood at the end of your qigong ceremony, state your intention, dissolve the blood into a small bowl of water, and then pour the water onto the earth or into the sea or a stream or river, again repeating your intention and releasing it to the large chi field. It’s very important that you RELEASE your intention to the larger field.

The truth is no one owns the chi field, and it is not controlled by
any one deity or external agent/God. It just IS. It is self-generating
and self-regulating. Everyone can use its abundance if we have the
skill to do it. We use it unconsciously all the time. But if we
consciously use it to promote harmony and balance in our life, the Tao
will give us more chi to play with. If we abuse it or over control for
selfish ends, a natural contraction occurs. We will face increased
resistance in our life and chi flow, resulting possibly in suffering,
disease, or death.

Love, chi, blessings,
Michael Winn