This is the first year of my adult life that I’ve decorated for the winter holidays. I grew up with agnostic-y, atheist-y parents whose backgrounds were in both Christianity and Judaism. I loved celebrating the holidays growing up but it was the watered down, Americanized version - devoid of deeper spiritual or cyclical/seasonal intention. The past few years I’ve been trying to remember the forgotten truths hidden beneath the capitalistic facade of all our major holidays. I’ve been delighted by the research that points to Santa being an Amanita Muscaria shaman and am planning on making some kind of Amanita tree topper this year - for my first Christmas tree in 12 years! (See a few posts back for more info on the Santa mushroom shaman situation)

How do you celebrate the darkest time of the year? What myths have you learned about or created yourself?

P.S. this painting of Green Tara was done by an amazing mentor I had in college, Lara Marshall. She sells prints of it!