By Lady Saoirse
Bright Blessings,
Y’all- I didn’t grow up as a Yankee. I grew up in the glory of the American South- where winters are warm, and the sun shines brilliantly year-round. If you have never had a winter in a warm region, let me tell you, it’s nice. By the time I was in middle school, though, we moved to Ohio permanently.
Winter hated me. Cold weather, dim light, and dead vegetation depressed me. I was tired, I stayed sick, and I thought I needed out of the cold North. So, I moved to Arizona for a year. The winter was fabulous there, but the other months were not. Back to the cold North I came, and I have never moved out again.
I struggled when I came back in wintertime. I was diagnosed with something called Seasonal Affective Disorder, and pills and extra Vitamin D milk don’t cut it. I thrived in Spring, Summer, and early Fall, and struggled from early Fall until the following Spring. It is estimated that about 5% of American adults struggle with this, and a plethora of remedies from sitting in front of solar boxes, to vitamins to LONG vacations to somewhere sunny are used to treat it. I found another remedy- embracing the Cailleach.
Just hear me out.
No, faith in the Goddess did not “save “me from my own body. What it did was get me into her domain, and all of the sudden, I could function. I got the idea from another Pagan. This woman, who I will call Red, was online chatting me one cold winter day. I can’t remember what all we talked about, but she told me she wanted to sign off and talk to me later because it had snowed beautifully. She said she wanted to go outside “and fully experience the Cailleach.”
How ridiculous! Who wants to go out and do all that when they can stay inside, warm and dry, bitching about the weather like I did all winter? Well, I got bored one day and I tried it. My first walk with the Cailleach was not very long. I bundled up and went maybe a half of a block. The snowplows had not been out yet, and the snow was still coming down. It was cold, and everything was white. The sky, the ground, the tree branches, everything.
It was absolutely gorgeous.
I started doing it about once a week- and I started shoveling the walk where we lived too. A few years later, we got a dog, and I HAD to be outside. All the time, I would talk to the Cailleach. Something began to happen. I was not as cold as often. I was not as tired as often. I was not freaked out by the winter landscape anymore- and I started calming down. Before, I had fought winter, resisting something ancient people knew they had to do- REST.
Think about it- before modern roads and electricity, wintertime was spent surviving. Snow and ice had to be removed from the home so it was not damaged. Fires had to be kept burning to keep warm. Cows, horses, chickens, and other domestic animals had to be cared for. Nobody worried about going out of town for events, impressing their boss at a business office, or doing other things to act like it was Summertime.
They fell back with the season because they understood that human beings were just one of the species on the planet and therefore, part of the ecosystem. We are in the Cailleach’s domain in winter, and there is nothing that can be done about that. Some say she is a goddess who washes the colors out of her plaid in a mighty whirlpool in Scotland and when it is pure white, she spreads it across the land, covering the earth with snow. Others say she strikes the ground with her staff, freezing it to create winter. Some say she imprisons Brigid, goddess of the warm months, keeping her in a cave to make winter happen. However she does it- she does it, and she does it every year. No amount of struggling or complaining will stop her.
It took a few years and a lot of conversations with the Cailleach, but I learned to adapt, be a part of winter, and embrace her in all her terrible magnificence. I learned her wisdom. She teaches that not only are human beings one of many beings in creation, but we don’t rule the earth the way Christians believe we do. We are not in command. One winter storm can kill and no amount of modern technology can prevent that.
Yet the Cailleach is not merciless or cruel. She watches over those she loves, and brings peace and rest for a season. Without her, we would never slow down. We would never behold the silence of nature in the peaceful slumber of winter. And for me, as a woman in middle age, I feel my own body drawing closer to the earth, closer to reincarnation, and like the earth in winter, I have learned to be still and silent.
If you have not yet taken Cailleach’s hand, walking through winter with her, light a candle, and call to her. She will hear you and come to you with her wisdom and peace.
Blessed Be.
Lady Saoirse has studied magic and lore for most of her life but started walking her own magical path after being spiritually reborn in the desert. Today she is a High Priestess for The Temple of the Goddess, she is a psychic advisor and spiritual counselor, she is a member of the spiritual family at the Magical Druid in Ohio, and she shares her gifts as a Psychic and Content Writer for SpiritualBlossom and Mysticsense and she writes for PaganPages.Org emag.