Chains of Belonging
Chains of Belonging
Weaving ourselves into winter..... literally and figuratively
The Winter Solstice.
The shortest day of the year.
The most sacred day, I think, on the Wheel.
This day is the culmination of the steady waning of day, waxing of night that’s been unfolding bit by bit since the Summer Solstice. This day marks that point when, although winter will still get colder and bleaker, each day from now until the Summer Solstice will become a little longer and each night a little shorter- a mirror image of the last six months.
And simultaneously, miraculously, while we’re in the depths of the fertile void, the other half of our world is experiencing the peak of summer. For some reason, that always blows me away. That our Earth not only demonstrates these extremes, but that the two opposites happen at the same time in different places, always perfectly orchestrated. It’s a magnificent celestial dance, and we get to exist here at the very center of it.
Another wonderful aspect of the Winter Solstice is that it belongs to absolutely everyone, regardless of religious beliefs, nationality, ethnicity, etc. Regardless, even, of species. All beings on this planet experience the shortest day of the year and all are entitled to celebrate it.
Though evergreen trees, reindeer, and elves large and small have been incongruously folded into the Christian holiday, there was nothing of the sort in Bethlehem 2,000+ years ago (and anyway, it seems Jesus was actually born in September). In colonial America, Puritans even outlawed the celebration of Christmas because of its Pagan practices. And they weren’t wrong! Well, they did call it ‘satanic’ so they were wrong there. But then, they considered most things that didn’t adhere to their strict definition of Christianity to be satanic.
Which brings me back to the magic of the Solstice. Whether you go with the ‘traditional’ ‘Christmas’ trappings of Scandinavian/ Arctic origin (tree, elves, reindeer), uncover the traditions of your ancestors or the ancestors of the land you live on, or create your own traditions, there’s nothing strict or puritanical about it. The most important thing is deepening your relationship with Nature and, hopefully, opening yourself to some of the wonder and reverence that are thick in the night air.
To that end, I bring you a simple, sacred craft that will nourish your spirit and your nervous system while orienting you to the depth of meaning inherent to this time of year, but so often obscured by consumerism and busy-ness.
And better yet, you probably already have everything you need. So gather your supplies and enjoy this activity on the Solstice or really anytime during these shortest, darkest days
So what’s sacred crafting? And why should you care?
In my work with women who are suffering under our current paradigm I’ve found that crafting/ making/ creating can be a very effective and incredibly accessible therapy. It combines the rhythmic aspect of a somatic practice, the observant stillness of a meditation practice, and the experience of beauty and creation that many of us are dangerously deprived of. When you also use natural materials- wood, clay, wool, paper, cloth, paint- you’re re-connecting to the web (or chain ; ) of life that our modern conveniences and global supply chains have almost completely severed us from. And then at the end of your crafting experience, you have something that you made with your own two hands. You have something tangible, something infused with your energy and effort to show for your experience. Even if that something is a little wonky, it’s usually much a more satisfying takeaway than just a vague sense of maybe being a failure at meditation.
And that’s just crafting on its own.
When you take it a step further into the realm of the sacred, the experience becomes that much more potent through the presence of reverence and intention.
The two main points for creating sacred space are to 1) turn away from ordinary reality- turn off any podcasts, audiobooks, tv shows, regular music; clear your head of the day’s clutter; avoid clamorous places- and 2) invite in non-ordinary reality- light a candle, burn incense, say a prayer or sing a song, go to a special place. The sacred is always accessible- the process of getting there can be as simple or elaborate as suits you.
As for today’s craft, it’s something a child could do, and there’s a pretty good chance you’ve done it before. But you probably didn’t do it like this. I’ve taken an incredibly simple activity and kind of reverse engineered it to add back in the layers of meaning that I imagine it might’ve once had. I’m not basing this on any information except my own intuition, humanity’s tendency to create meaning, and society’s tendency to drain things of it.
I have no data to suggest that this child’s craft was once a ritual or a ceremony- it’s unknowable and really doesn’t matter anyway. What does matter is that we can take any number of mundane activities and infuse them with richness and mystery. This, my friends, is what I call magic.
Our craft? The humble paper chain. But think for a bit about the symbolism of chains and the potential for something deeper emerges.
At its foundation, a chain is just a string of individual pieces, often metal and round, linked together into a creation that is greater than the sum of its parts. Circles themselves are symbols of wholeness; of the cyclical nature found in the seasons, the phases of the moon (and women’s bodies), in life cycles and more. A chain takes this deceptively simple symbol and pierces it, transforming its perfect roundness into something incongruously linear.
Chains are used to bind and hold and have obvious associations with slavery and imprisonment. Indeed, there are chains of grim heaviness, of cold defeat, chains that have been employed by the forces of domination- but we’re following Nature’s model here and she doesn’t work like that.
I think my favorite natural chain may be this: that when a woman is pregnant with a daughter, all of the eggs- the oocytes- that daughter will have form inside her body while she herself is forming inside her mother’s body. In other words, your first home on Earth wasn’t your mother’s body, but your grandmother’s; your mother earliest form was in your great-grandmother’s body. And if you are a woman with a daughter, then you grew the seeds of your grandchildren as you were growing her. I visualize this as a long chain of women, grandmother to granddaughter, stretching back through all the millennia of humanity.
There are also chains for safeguarding things that are precious to you; delicate chains for adorning wrists, ankles, waist- a chain around the neck can be used to suspend something close to your heart. The folk embroidery of some cultures, though elaborate and fanciful, is really just a special chain designed to hold valued qualities in and keep negative influences out. I’ve heard this is the origin of stripes: bands of protective embroidered chains.
Braids are a relative of the chain that in some cultures would hold a person’s power close to them and protect it from being infiltrated or diluted. And from there, it’s easy to see that knitting, crocheting and maybe even weaving are kinds of chain too- chains upon chains that take the single circle or loop, first into a line and then keep going into a plane.
Now let’s take this symbol of joining, holding, connection and protecting and fold in the symbolism of winter, queen of the seasons.
Winter is a time when Nature’s visible, easily accessible abundance goes underground. The apples have all fallen and rotted, most of the animals are nested down, color has drained away or even been completely whited out. The above-ground world that you rely on- energy, light, activity- withdraws and if you don’t have anything else to root into then you may find yourself desperately adrift. Winter invites us to seek the invisible.
For our ancestors, the Winter Solstice would have meant that scarcity and hunger were imminent. And yet, at the very brink of the void, rather than carefully rationing every last thing they’d harvested and preserved, they would feast! How incredible is that?
These aren’t the actions of people who were ‘scared the sun would never come back’, but of people who had a deep faith that everything would unfold just as it was meant to because they were part of something far greater than just themselves. Almost like links in a chain….
These people- on every inhabited continent- had an unshakeable sense of belonging, to Nature and to each other, that we can only faintly imagine.
And so I asked myself: how can we get some of that? Can we, in this season when everything material and familiar falls away, use this as an invitation to find something deeper and older to root into?
Could there be some way to symbolically join or bind ourselves to this world we live in?
Maybe the chain can symbolize your connection to all those things that be*long to you in the deepest sense, that are part of you no matter what: your memories, your spirit, the elements, dreams, ancestors, songs, stories, strength, energy, family, love, grief, endurance, and so on.
Maybe also it can symbolize all the things that you’re entitled to as an earthling: water, air, sky, trees, soil, beauty, dignity, moon, sun, sleep, laughter, flowers, movement, play, wilderness, adventure, companionship, growth, change, and more. Even if some of these things aren’t accessible to you at the moment, claiming your right to them is a powerful act. And what about your self? Your lungs and heart, your teeth and tongue and toes, the crinkles around your eyes and the silver hairs sprouting from your crown? These are yours when nothing else is. And be-longing to ourselves teaches us a lot about be-longing to others.
And since our comfort and discomfort are as inseparable as dark and light, hunger and fullness, we can’t leave out the less pleasant things that equally make us who we are: the creepy crawlies that nourish the soil that feeds us, the fears and struggles that make us stronger and wiser, the pain that matures us. Inevitabilities like suffering and death that make space for peace and life.
Finally, maybe your chain needs some of those simple comforts that have been with humanity for longer than anyone can remember and that we especially value in these cold months: blankets, socks, soup, hot drinks, fires.
These are some of the pieces from which I forged my chain, by candlelight, with the rain falling outside (adds links for rain, candlelight, dusk).
I took my pretty papers and marked them with strips (I’ll give you step by step instructions below) and then, except for two sheets, I filled each little rectangle with one of the things that I want to bind to myself forever and ever. The barest of necessities, which don’t look so bare when you see them all heaped up together in many feet of chain. I thought I’d run out of ideas, but I ran out of space first. Such is the depth of our abundance even when scarcity reigns.
For the last two sheets I just repeated the same three words over and over: ‘me’, ‘love’, and the name of my daughter who, being a teenager, isn’t terribly interested in mom’s ideas of therapeutic sacred crafting. Then I cut out all the strips, mixed them around and started to join them together, interspersing love, my daughter, and myself throughout all of these little and big marvels that nature provides; linking us, spiritually and symbolically, to the web of life that we’re part of, dissolving some of the distance that society has wedged between us and the real world.
With each strip that I picked up, I read the word/s on it and said ‘I thank you and cherish you’ while gluing the circle closed. Then I picked up another, often delighted by pairings like sweetness + dogs or Grandma Liz + roses (which she grew and loved). Other times the strip would say grief or mosquitoes and speaking the words ‘I thank you and cherish you’ produced an interesting sense of acceptance and resolution. The empowerment that doesn’t come from leaving the sharp things out.
When I was done, I had a chain that was at least twice as long as myself!
Not only was the experience itself special, but now the chain draped across one wall isn’t just a decoration, but a statement of my place in this messy, complicated world.
The question I’m sitting with now is what will I do with my chain after the holidays? My nature is to hang on tight to the things I love. Forever.
Nature’s nature is to never stop moving or changing forms and I suspect that will be my next lesson here: that at the Spring Equinox or Summer Solstice, when Nature’s abundance is once again out in the open, it will be time to return my chain to the current of the seasons.
We’ll see. For now, I’m just enjoying a symbol of the season that runs far deeper than the surface. I hope you do too.
Wishing you a merry winter and a resilient nervous system.
❤️
Olivia
Make your own winter chains
Supplies:
paper (wrapping paper, kraft or butcher paper, paper bags, kid/ adult art overlfow, origami paper, even just plain old writing paper (because the most important element here is the spirit and intention, not the appearance)
pencil
ruler
a pen that won’t bleed through your paper or smear (unless you want it to!)
scissors
white glue
Steps:
If you like, create sacred space (ideas above) or just a peaceful, festive, environment.
On the wrong side of your paper, use pencil and ruler to mark out strips. I did mine 3/4” wide but then for the last two or three rows I just divided them evenly so I used almost all the paper and had hardly any waste. My strips were 7” long, but 6” would’ve been fine too.
When your pencil grid is finished, start filling it in with all the wild and wonderful things that are your birthright as an earthling. I used pen for this. Save a section to write ‘me’ or your name all over. I also wrote ‘love’ and the name of my daughter to make sure these were woven into the chain along with me.
Cut out all of your strips and mix them up together.
Start joining them randomly, watching the connections form. I kept the writing on the inside of each loop, but of course you can do it however you like. I also said ‘I thank you and cherish you’ for each strip- which felt quite different when it said ‘clouds’ compared to when it said ‘suffering’.
If you created sacred space, then when your chain is done you might close it up by holding your chain and offering a prayer (to the Great Mystery, the void, the universe, the land, your ancestors- whoever you feel connected to) of gratitude for the experience.
What’s next? Will this chain live forever with your other holiday decorations or does Spirit have other plans for it? I don’t think there’s a right answer, but I know the right answer for you will come to you if you let it. : )