Winter Solstice & Yule Spell Jar for Rebirth

The winter solstice, also called Yule in Germanic traditions, is the longest night and shortest day of the year. It is the time we have the most darkness, and after the winter solstice, the sun returns — growing each day.

Because of this darkness and the return of the light, the solstice is deeply associated with rebirth. A kind of new year for witches, if you will. In this blog post, I’ll share how to make a DIY spell jar for rebirth in honor of the winter solstice. This would be a great practice to do on the winter solstice or in the days after it! 

So what are spell bottles or jars? Spell jars are a form of folk magic that can be used for many different purposes. I share more about spellwork below - keep scrolling to read it!

A LITTLE ABOUT SPELLWORK

To me, spells are about directing energy in a specific direction. They’re about using magick, which Dion Fortune defines as “the art of changing consciousness at will,” for healing, manifestation, and connection. 

I believe that they can be simple, and all you really need is yourself and your energy. Other items, like the ones we’ll use in this spell, are supportive in infusing some extra magick and energy into the work — but you don’t need them to do spells.

WHAT YOU’LL NEED

For this spell, you’ll need:

As with all spells, use what you have. Feel free to substitute items, and don't worry if you're missing something from this list. Your intention is the most important part of any spell!

• A glass bottle/jar of any size 

• Salt of any kind for protection

• A piece of paper and pen to write your intention

• 3-5 drops of oil that supports rebirth like eucalyptus or peppermint 

• Stones that represent rebirth to you like moonstone, green aventurine, and howlite for peace as you transform. Other stone options could include malachite, citrine, moss agate, or quartz.

• Dried or fresh herbs that support rebirth like spruce, pine, or nettle.

• Dried or fresh rosemary for clarity and protection.

• Cinnamon stick for luck

• Dagaz rune, which represents dawn. This can be placed inside your jar or drawn/painted on the outside of your jar.

• White candle

• Any other representations of rebirth for you 

Let yourself be intuitive with your spell ingredients, and feel free to use what you have around you! 

SPELL STEPS

1. Like any spell, you’ll want to center and ground yourself before working the spell. You might spend a few minutes meditating, letting your eyes drift around your space, or doing breathwork or anything else that feels grounding to you. Find ideas for grounding here. 

2. When you feel ready, cleanse each of your items. You can use smoke, sound, salt, or another cleansing technique you align with.

3. Write your intention for the spell on the paper to add into your bottle.

4. If you’d like, you can paint your bottle with symbols that represent rebirth to you.

5. After your bottle is ready, take your time to place each item inside your bottle intentionally. Raise energy as you do this, either with deep breaths or chanting. I recommend coming up with your own chant that focuses energy on connecting to your intuition and developing your intuitive abilities.

6. When you’re done filling your bottle, seal it, hold the vessel in your hands, and keep chanting or breathing as long as you’d like.

7. Light your white candle and place it on top of or next to your spell bottle. Be mindful of your candle surroundings and never leave your candle burning unattended. Tip: Melt the bottom of your candle with a flame to make it stick to the top of your jar.

8. Spend time meditating on your intention as your candle burns. Connect with the feeling of rebirth. Visualize rebirth moving through your cells, making you whole. What would it feel like, look like, even sound like, to be reborn?

9. Ground the energy after your meditation by placing your palms on the ground and returning any excess energy to the Earth.

I recommend placing the bottle on your altar, keeping it at the forefront of your consciousness while it works its rebirth magic. Keep your Yule spell bottle out for one lunar cycle, until Imbolc, or when you feel ready to take it down.Want more ways to connect with the season of Yule? Check out these articles from our blog: 

• Oracle or Tarot Card Spread for Yule

• 4 Ways to Honor the Winter Solstice

• 3 Ways to Bring Meaning to the Winter Solstice

Seeing the unseen // Scrying 101

Scrying is an ancient divination practice where you connect with your intuition and work to make the unseen seen by gazing onto a reflective surface.

Scrying is a broad practice, therefore mentions of it pop up in a variety of places throughout history. Scrying is referenced in ancient Egypt, England, Greece, and Persia (to name a few.) Nostradamus reportedly relied on scrying for many of his predictions as well. 

The tools you can use for scrying are as vast as its history. You can use crystals, water, the moon, fire, smoke, a mirror, or really any reflective surface. 

Artwork copyright Cassie Uhl 2020-infinity, please credit if shared.

Though clear crystal balls work for scrying and are commonly shown as a scrying tool, it is not the only kind of crystal used for this practice. Black obsidian mirrors are commonly used for scrying, but really any crystal with a reflective surface will do. You may even decide that you'd like to use a specific crystal in alignment with your desires for a scrying session. Sphere, larger palm stones, and flat mirrors or slabs all work well for this practice. 

As varied as scrying is, the piece that remains consistent is the desire to reach an altered state to receive visions. The visions you receive from scrying could be from spirit or your subconscious. That’s for you to decide. 

I love scrying for its power and simplicity. In this post, I’ll be sharing how to scry! Keep reading for five steps to try scrying for yourself.

A note on working with the moon. The full moon and the dark moon are ideal times to try this practice. I like scrying with the full moon to help illuminate and the dark moon for going within and accessing intuition. Don’t let the phase of the moon stop you from trying this practice; these are just suggestions. 

Getting started with scrying:

1. To begin your scrying practice, create a ritual space for yourself, and gather your bowl and water. (As I walk you through scrying, I’ll be using the example of a bowl of water, but remember that there are many other ways to scry that I shared above.) 

2. You’ll want to be in a dark room with only one or two candles lit. 

3. Once your space is ready, enter a trance state through meditating, energy work, drumming, chanting, breathwork, or any other practice that helps you drop into your subconscious mind. 

4. Once you feel like you’re in an altered state of consciousness, relax your eyes and gaze into your bowl of water. Breathe deeply, let yourself soften, and ask a question silently (for example, what is holding me back in X situation? Or what do I need to know about Y?). 

5. Gaze into the bowl and let yourself see what you see. It may take time for images to come up, but if you stay focused and present, they will. Allow the images, words, and sensations to flow, rather than holding on to them tightly.

When you feel like you’re done, you’re done! Spend some time journaling about what you felt and saw to help you answer the questions you came to receive answers for. 

Remember, the subconscious mind works with symbolism, so don’t discount anything that you see even if you’re not quite sure what it means at first! Think of the information you receive, like the symbolism in dreams: sometimes we are left with more questions than answers. Sometimes the questions are the answers. Sometimes a thread is what you are offered, and you can choose to follow it or not. Sometimes symbols may not mean anything at first but are asking to be engaged with over time. 

Let the process unfold, and see what comes up for you! 

4 Ways to Perform Chakra Readings with The Ritual Deck

Your chakras are a primary energy source in your subtle energy body. They connect to your physical body and the rest of your subtle energy body, like your aura. If you'd like to connect with your chakra energy in new ways and learn different rituals for balancing your chakras, I created The Ritual Deck to help you do this. This oracle card deck is extremely versatile!

In this post, I will outline four ways to use this deck as an energy and chakra reading tool. If you have the Ritual Deck already, some of this is outlined in the guidebooks (along with other useful card spreads, like working with the moon phases.) Update 2022: The original Ritual Deck is currently discontinued but we're working on having a similar version eventually! 

The four techniques I’ll outline in this post are: 

1. Daily chakra reading

2. Chakra assessment card spread

3. Seven chakras balancing card spread 

4. Using a pendulum with the chakra cards for an energy reading

If you want to learn more about the chakra system in general, you can deep dive into the chakra system, explore my new book, Understanding Chakras.

Keep reading to explore four ways to use The Ritual Deck to work with chakra energy.

Daily Chakra Reading

One of the simplest ways to use the Ritual Deck with your chakras is to separate the seven chakra cards and work with just those seven cards. Shuffle the seven cards and ask any of the following questions. 

1. Which of my chakras is overactive? 

2. Which of my chakras is underactive or blocked? 

3. Which chakra should I focus on today? 

You could also spread your cards out and hover your hand over them to make a selection. Here’s a video I shared with these techniques if you’d like to learn more about selecting your cards.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Cassie Uhl (@cassieuhl)

Select a card when you feel ready. Now that you have an idea of where you should focus your energy, you can separate the cards with that chakra and choose a ritual. For example, if you chose the throat chakra card, you would separate all of the cards with the throat chakra symbol in the correspondence bar and select a card (either intuitively or as a personal choice) to focus on for that day. 

Chakra Assessment Card Spread

This technique works well if you’d like to gain general guidance about each chakra. It can tell you more about each chakra's health and where you may want to focus your energy to help each chakra. You’ll be using the entire deck for this method. This spread works well for yourself or others. Follow the steps below to try it out. 

1. Start by gathering the chakra cards and placing them in order (either vertically or horizontally) from the crown chakra to the root chakra. 

2. Hold the rest of the card deck in your hands and begin shuffling the cards. As you shuffle, ask aloud or in your mind, “What does each chakra have to share with me right now?” or “What do I have to learn from each of my chakras right now?”

3. When you feel ready to stop shuffling, start at one end of the chakras (either crown or root, wherever you feel called) and flip one card over for each chakra card. 

4. The card you selected for each chakra is the guidance that the chakra wants to share with you. It could share a celebratory card indicating it’s happy and open or a card that may indicate that it needs some extra attention. 

As with all card readings, rely on your intuition first and your guidebook second for what each card means for each of your chakras. If, after this spread, you feel like you have some chakras that need some extra love after performing this card spread, check out the one below for help balancing your chakras. 

Chakra Balancing Card Spread

This card spread, outlined in the guidebook, works like a charm to balance specific or all of your chakras. This spread is great to use on yourself, or to use with other people. Follow these steps to perform a chakra balancing card spread. 

1. Start by gathering the chakra cards and placing them in order (either vertically or horizontally) from the crown chakra to the root chakra. 

2. Separate all of the cards that correspond to each particular chakra and place them into piles. For example, all of the cards with a root chakra correspondence will go into a pile together. You should end up with seven piles (one for each chakra). There will be a different amount of cards in each pile. Tip: Use the correspondence legend at the end of the guidebook as a quick reference if you like. 

3. Place each pile on top of its coordinating chakra, shuffle them, and turn them face down.

4. Allow your intuition to guide you in selecting one card from each pile. 

5. Now you have seven cards, each corresponding to one of your seven chakras. Perform the ritual for each card to balance and restore your chakras. 

You can use the same technique for one chakra, the upper chakras (crown chakra, third eye chakra, and throat chakra), or the lower chakras (solar plexus chakra, sacral chakra, and root chakra). If you’re focusing on one specific chakra, you may decide to select multiple cards to practice more than one ritual.

Performing a complete chakra body balance spread will require time, so feel free to spread out the rituals over the course of an entire week. This applies to any other lengthy card spreads outlined here. 

Using a Pendulum with the Chakra Cards for Energy Readings

This is a technique I outline in my new book, Understanding Chakras. You don’t technically need the Ritual Deck to perform this one, but it does come in handy! You’ll also need a pendulum for this technique, preferably one that you’re already comfortable with using. If pendulums are new to you, you can read more about them here. 

Using a pendulum for chakra readings may yield different pendulum movements than you usually receive. Your pendulum will usually react in one of three ways when using them to read chakra energy. The pendulum will circle clockwise, counterclockwise, or be completely still. 

These are not firm guidelines and rather soft suggestions. Energy is unique and fluid. Use your intuition and trust your instincts when using this technique to determine chakra health. 

• Clockwise Spin: Chakra is healthy and open.

• Very Large Clockwise Spin: Chakra may be overactive. 

• Counterclockwise Spin: Chakra may have a disruption or could be releasing negative energy. 

• No movement: Chakra is blocked or has experienced extreme trauma.

Follow these steps to try this technique. 

1. Start by gathering the chakra cards and placing them in order (either vertically or horizontally) from the crown chakra to the root chakra. You won’t need the rest of the deck for this technique.

2. Hold your pendulum in your hands and ask it to help you determine the health of each of your chakras. 

3. Hold your pendulum over each chakra and make a note of its movement for each. Using a notepad or journal is helpful for this technique. 

4. Once you know each chakra's health, you may decide to back to the previous technique to help balance any chakras that need balancing. 

I hope you feel even more empowered to work with your chakras using The Ritual Deck! Chakra energy is one of many ways to use this versatile oracle deck. You can use these techniques in similar ways with the five elements and the moon phases.