the heathen yule
WELCOME TO THE CAILLEACH OF WINTERTIDE’S BONE-HUT
May the longest night haunt the old shadowlands of the skull-faced storytellers, calling pine-and-clove rhymes forth from their boney depths and bidding red and wild songs spill straight from their cobwebbed hearts and onto the page.
The dawn of wintertide finds the heathen-poet calling darkness a trusted teacher and shadow a knowing friend. We listen to the intelligence of the wilds and become creaturely beneath the Long Night’s Moon, inviting our memories to mother our muse and slower rhythms to shape our dreamscapes. During this one-day, two-part workshop, we will reflect on this strange chapter in the world story, befriend wonder, and write pagan poems for the living and the dead.
For both sessions, the only materials required are a journal, writing utensil, and, if you can, an oracle deck of your choice.
If you don’t have an oracle deck or prefer to not work with one, this is okay.
Session One: THE HAG-POET’S GIFTING CEREMONY
Hail and welcome to that blue-skinned hag of winter. May she teach us well. During this first session, Danielle will lead participants through a pathworking ceremony into the bone-hut, inviting the mythic energies of the Cailleach to shape their vision and the ancient energies of Yule to gift them their language. Participants will create their “poet’s palette” out of the meditation experience and write three poems in reflection, each to be gifted.
Session Two: PROPHECIES OF THE WOLF-STORYTELLER
The original Yuletide gift of the Northern European shamans was prophecy. During this session, participants will weave a prophetic story out of memory and divination. Danielle will discuss the relationship between writing and oracle work, inviting participants to use an oracle in their solstice storytelling. Participants will write a short story curiously predicting the yet-to-come, opening their vision to the mystery and welcoming winter’s peculiar dawn.