22/12/2025
Winter Solstice Reading
A threshold reading for the longest night and the returning light.
1.What has been washed away in the previous season: Something that’s finished, cleansed from your life/psyche, something you no longer need.
Queen of Swords: Dissolution. The Ice Queen, logos without eros, loosens her grip. A season of hardness, emotional frost, and necessary sharpness comes to an end. In fairy tales, ice queens ruled static realms where little grew. They’re guardians of boundaries which must eventually thaw. Discernment isn’t being washed away here, just the emotional frostbite.
2. A message from the Darkness of the Longest Night: Something you need to know in order to move forward.
The Lovers: Conjunctio. The Lovers at the darkest point of the year is fitting as a sacred marriage that happens in the darkness, not in the daylight. The way forward is through relationship, reciprocity, and integration. Relate rather than judge. In the Winter Solstice myth, this indicates work that happens when nothing appears to be happening.
3. What to bury: Like a bulb that will flower in Spring, something to prepare for, work on; a new possibility to consider.
Judgement: Putrefaction. Old perceptions are laid underground like a bulb. Perception will change. What’s buried isn’t the old self but rather an old, interpretive framework. Vision must rot before it can become revelation. Most importantly (like the last reading), no action is necessary at the moment, but one can trust that perception IS changing.
4. How to support root growth: What you need in order to feel rejuvenated/rested for the next season.
Eight of Pentacles: Cibatio. This is a re-education of the nervous system. This work is fed through repetition, devotion, and embodied care. In the Winter Solstice myth, roots grow because nothing else can.
5. Rebirth of the Sun: What will be revealed as the light returns.
The Fool: Fermentatio. Not naïveté, but new materia. A return to life without armor. The Winter Solstice does not crown the king; it births the child sun.
Winter Solstice Spread by A Small Collection of Specialized Spreads, Vol. 2 & 3