Turning the Wheel

Turning the Wheel through Personal Myth
Santa, Squirrels, and More

Backstory: I live in faerie tales. This lifetime, I’ve never heard of turning the year wheel with one’s personal myth (in this context, I mean a myth of one’s own making or a myth not generally perceived as related to the year wheel). I remember it from past lives.

Below, you will not find a theoretical exposition on turning the year wheel with one’s personal myth. I prefer to live in my faerie tales, not in my (albeit fabulous) theories. So, I share a little piece of my myth here. You mystics are smart—you don’t need someone lecturing theory at you from on high; mystics usually learn more watching—and feeling—how people actually embody their theories. Equally important, when I talk about my adventures, some people join me in them—I long for shared escapades.

Telling my own myth is no suggestion that it is the best one for you, or the right way for you to turn the wheel. End of backstory.

I blog about Yule starting in September. It is not the crass commercialism of stores that promote Christmas items way too early. It’s actually the opposite; it rescues me from holiday madness.

In Autumn, squirrels gather nuts to store for the winter. In the same vein, I plan my dark months in Sept or Oct. (I have been planning my dark months in the autumn for decades, so cannot remember whether I made the practice up or was taught it.)

According to Chinese philosophy, unresolved issues are more likely to bubble up from the subconscious in the winter. Experience has taught me that, if I do not plan my dark months before they start, I lose my mooring, and easily sink into holiday frenzy, codependent gift-giving, etc.

Every September or October, I get in touch with what I truly want for the fall and winter this year. Eg, Do I need to focus on a major inner healing? If so, is there a theme I can use for the healing rituals? Do I want to decorate the house for the holidays? If so, a little or a lot? Which holidays do I want to celebrate? Do I have the time to cook for the holidays? And so on.

It’s not that I stick to these plans rigidly. But when I lose my center, the plans helps me regain it. Then I can make sane decisions.

An additional piece of my process is relevant to why I blog about Yule so early. As I said, I live in Faerie tales. They are often myths of my own creation. One is that I am a Yule elf. Come autumn, Santa’s elves are very busy planning what’s going to happen over the next few months.

This planning, including what I’ll craft the next few months to put in Santa’s bag, aka my Etsy shop, is part of my turning the wheel of my personal year. I am an artisan, not a manufacturer, so fall—at latest!—is when I need to start planning and making the handful of items I will add to my shop before Yule.

I blog from the heart. I start blogging and posting from the North Pole as early as September. I want to share my real life—the day-to-day of my myths.

I am also spared holiday madness because, being one of Santa’s elf, I instead can spend the dark time focusing on service: I focus on the joy of crafting goods in the North Pole’s elven workshop, high quality craftsmanship, purposeful creativity, and Yule elf tweets/blogs/posts that help people smile during holiday grumpiness. I also get true holiday joy from my absurdly happy Yule elf meditations and costumes. I am turning my personal year wheel, connecting with the season of Mama Earth.

(I mentioned being a Yule elf as a myth of my own creation. I do not have space in this post to thoroughly portray what I’ve created about Yule elves. Nor could a library of printed word hold it because 1) some things can only be conveyed in oral tradition and 2) some things are so integrated into one’s life that they become too extensive to thoroughly share in words alone. But a lot of what I created plays out in my meditations, which feels important to say because, when we take time to really sink into our mythic stories meditatively, we can live them the rest of the day.)

More of how my myth turns the wheel:

Most of the year, I am in my tinker’s wagon, traveling between the worlds. I am a shut-in but my wheelchair has wings, and so do I. Astrally-traveling shamanic guide and fey artisan.

When weather gets cold, I retreat to Santa’s warm, cozy workshop. I still counsel and teach, from my snug Arctic home.

Claus is in my pantheon. So I pray to him any month. One way I turn the wheel through myth is, the past few years, I’ve made my winter plans by writing a letter to Santa in September about what I want for the dark months.

Every year, I have new elven adventures. And my other myths grow a bit. All my faerie tales are more extensive than this post. And are deeply personal. But I risk posting bits online for two reasons.

Telling my myth is a fun way for this shut-in to share her wanderings.

I am dedicating to helping my students find and/or further evolve personal myths, and live them fully to connect with Mama Earth and Divinity. I posted today in hopes I might do that a bit for my dear site visitors. For one thing, I believe that speaking my life supports starry-eyed seekers to trust their own unique mythic being.

EtsyBotmBnrYule

5 thoughts on “Turning the Wheel

  1. Chelo, thank YOU for reading it. I am glad it was helpful. And your response is so beautifully penned, as usual with you. I am sorry that it’s been such a hard month for you. You are in my heart. I think you know, I suffered two deaths recently, one of whom we share in our heartbreak. The positive attitude and wisdom of your post is a role model. And your wit and well-wishing is wonderful for me, as always. As to February, that will be lovely if we can do some work together. Did you see my upcoming distance transmission that starts Monday? Check it out at http://www.outlawbunny.com/2013/11/30/winter-joy/ because you can be in your winter cave, while receiving support for what you do in there. In sisterhood and love, I am yr fellow stardusted traveler.

  2. Dear Francesca:
    Thanks for you beautiful guidance. I do not always live in faery tales but now and then i slip between the pages of the book of life and make myself some space in the palaces, forests, caves and wonderful landscapes that faery world present to us. At the moment I’m just exiting trauma -filled November where I experienced three important losses through Lady Death’s hand/time of the crone. It’s been a sobering and deep month where my heart has lost a bit of its armouring and my soul has got a bit more of a shine.
    My plan is to visit moma Bear’s cave for a bit of rest, nourishment and dream doing. I also got a bit of your winter transmission magic which I believe will help keeping me quiet for a while enjoying the silence of the mountains and my doggies company…and inner smiling to my belly button and beyond…then some activity and visit to my beloved in his own cave and return to my own I hope renewed. I hope to book you some time in the early spring. Nothing like charging the batteries for Brighid’s day…but for now, to Santa, the elves and moma Bears cave…Probably we will have snow. Today it is the first time I feel the cold Irish winter but it has been amazingly mild till now. So pumping in the vitamin c as one thing that’s not in my plan is the flue…as there is no such thing in faery tales I hope to skip it this year. I wish you the best myth ever dear faery lady. Enjoy your journey and have a wonderful time in the North Pole.

  3. SO glad you wrote this! I have been receiving guidance about surrendering to belief and healing disbelief. Because part of me has been holding a whole bunch of stuff at arms length. I do ritual and pathworkings and still, some little part of my heart (the part raised by 2 college profs) says, “Really??” and whispers to me that if I truly jump in with both feet, I am going to go crazy. But I am split, because the other part of me reads “I live in faerie tales,” and thinks, “Oh, THAT’S what I am supposed to be doing!” So you mentioned considering whether or not big healing is in the offing for the yule season, and clearly for me, it is! Any suggestions on where or how to start? Healing is what I do but I feel a bit at sea with this stuff.

    • Jeanine, Thanks!!! When you attended my free ritual and, afterwards, we bounced some solutions around re what is going on with you, I was really really hoping this blog would help. Even before that, when we discussed all this online, I thought of this blog in terms of it possibly being useful to you. (I wrote it months ago but didn’t get to post it til now.) So I’m delighted to see your response. (The blog took forever to write so I am also happy someone likes it, LOL!)

      My words “I live in faerie tales” are weird, so your using them as guidance rocks my soul, bc they truly work for me. I constantly tell people, “I live in faerie tales” bc, as Disney says, faerie tales can come true.

      As to where to go from here, how about booking an appointment with me? I can counsel, do a healing, etc. You mention being a healer who is “a bit at sea with this stuff.” A lot of my clients are healers. I really admire healers who know when to request support from a colleague, eh? Good for you! Here is a link: http://www.outlawbunny.com/pastoral-counseling/ and if you have questions about my work, feel to call me, 814-337-2490. Hugs.

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