The Spiritual Meaning of Winter: Rituals, Rest and a Storm in a Jar

The Season of Frost and Fire: Finding Magic in Winter | Rebecca Beattie

Listen to the full episode above, then read on for what it stirred up in me.

I own two cauldrons.

I love all things witchy. You could leave me in Glastonbury for five hours and I'd still be amused. When Rebecca Beattie's new book arrived and I held it for the first time, something in me went: oh, hello. I know this.

I've long had a feeling that I was a witch in a previous life. I can't prove it and I wouldn't try. But I know what I'm like. I burn sage and sandalwood. I love putting together my own mixes, different ingredients blended for a particular intention. There's one I burn for clairvoyance, made from bits I picked up in Glastonbury. Give me a bowl, some dried things and a purpose, and I'm a happy man.

So when Rebecca came back onto Soul Sync to talk about The Season of Frost and Fire: A Witch's Winter in 13 Rituals, I wasn't a neutral interviewer. I told her on air that the book has a powerful energy just sitting in my hands, and I meant it.

It's out on 8 October, which is perfect timing. The clocks are about to go back and most of us are already bracing.

This is a reflection on that conversation and on the season we're walking into. I want to tell you what Rebecca changed my mind about, and why I'm planning to do winter differently this year.

Why this has always felt like a magical time of year

I've always looked at this time of year as a magical one. The light goes gold, then thin. The air smells of smoke. Something in me wakes up just as everything else is supposed to be shutting down.

[JASON: add a line or two of your own here. A memory, a place, something you do every year at this time.]

The more I read, the more I think that feeling is very old. Here are a few things about this season that I find wonderful.

• Winter used to start now. In the Celtic calendar, Samhain on 31 October marked the end of the harvest and the beginning of winter, the dark half of the year. Halloween is what's left of it.

• It was the season of the dead long before it was the season of sweets. At Samhain the veil between this world and the spirit world was believed to be at its thinnest. As a medium, what strikes me is that this is the one time of year our culture gives everybody permission to think about the people they've lost.

• The shortest day is Monday 21 December. London gets 7 hours and 49 minutes of daylight, and the solstice itself falls at 8.50pm. The word comes from the Latin for the sun standing still.

• The evenings start drawing out before the solstice. London's earliest sunset is around 13 December, a week before the shortest day. I love that. The turn begins before you can see it.

• People built for this moment five thousand years ago. Newgrange in Ireland is older than Stonehenge and the pyramids. At sunrise around the winter solstice, light enters through an opening above the door and reaches the chamber at its heart. It's a tomb. Somebody made sure that on the darkest morning of the year, the light reached their dead.

• We're closest to the sun in the depths of winter. The Earth makes its nearest approach to the sun in early January. Our winter comes from the tilt of the planet, not the distance. Nothing has moved away. We're only leaning the other way for a while.

I find that last one a comfort, and not only about the weather.

Winter isn't what we were told it is

I'll be honest about where I started. I'm a baby about winter. I belong to a walking group that barely sees me between November and April. When it's dark at four o'clock my instinct is the same as everybody's: heating on, door shut, see you in March.

There's a whole shelf of lovely books telling us that's the right instinct. Hunker down. Light a candle. Wait it out.

Rebecca's challenge to that is what I've been chewing on ever since we recorded. As a practising witch, she said, it's a very odd way to treat a season. Nature hasn't died. It hasn't even gone to sleep. There's an enormous amount going on out there. You have to train your eye and your senses to catch it, because in winter the energy runs under the surface.

Then she compared it to psychic development, and that's when it landed. That is exactly what developing your awareness is. Nothing gets added. You learn to perceive what was already there, being quiet.

I know she's right, because the days I do get out are some of the most magical of the year. The way the frost sits. The dew. A bare tree that looks dead and absolutely isn't.

Rebecca grew up on Dartmoor and lives there now, where the logic is simple and brutal: if you won't go out in the rain, you won't go out. Her spaniel doesn't accept excuses. So she's out every morning, often without seeing another soul, which suits a self-confessed horrendous introvert perfectly.

Rebecca's book follows that old calendar, from the first frost at Samhain to the thaw of early spring, with thirteen rituals along the way.

One chapter is about resting. Nearly everything else gets you outside.

The research agrees with the witch

I went looking to see whether any of this stands up. It does.

A psychologist called Kari Leibowitz moved to Tromsø in northern Norway, where for part of the winter the sun doesn't rise at all. She went expecting to study winter depression. What she found was a town that looked forward to winter.

In her study of 238 Norwegians with Joar Vittersø, the further north people lived, the more positively they thought about winter. And the people with a positive winter mindset reported greater life satisfaction and more positive emotions.

It's a small study, and it shows a link, not a cause. But it matches something every medium knows. What you expect shapes what you perceive.

The second piece is daylight. A study of more than 400,000 UK adults found that each extra hour spent outdoors in daylight went with lower odds of depression, less low mood and better sleep. That one is observational too, but it's a lot of people pointing the same way.

So how you think about winter matters, and getting out into what daylight there is matters. Rebecca has been saying both for twenty-five years without needing a research grant.

The storm in a jar

Of everything in the book, this is the one I fell for.

In her chapter on winter storms, Rebecca gives a recipe for making a storm in a jar. The idea is that you can call on the energy of a winter storm whenever you need it: that feeling of wanting to shake everything up, and then let it settle. I told her it sounded like a snow globe with a hell of a lot more power.

I'm not going to give you the recipe. It's hers, and it's in the book. I want to tell you why it got me.

First, because it's play. To test it, Rebecca had her best friend and her editor all making jars at once, experimenting until they worked. She calls herself a creative bunny who likes getting her hands mucky, and described the whole business as sparkly mud pies.

I think spiritual people forget to play. We get terribly earnest. But when I'm blending something to burn, a pinch of this and a bit of that with a clear intention behind it, I'm not being solemn. I'm a child with a potion. That's when it works best.

Second, because of what a storm actually is. I've been in one. For a long stretch my tarot cards were all Tower and Devil. My dad died. I left the company I'd spent ten years building. And the first thing I did afterwards, before I could even sit in my own office, was clear the house. Trip after trip to the tip. I couldn't work in that room until the energy had changed.

That was the shake. What I'm in now is the settling. Everything that got thrown into the air is coming down in a new arrangement, and it's a better one.

A storm in a jar is that whole truth held in your hand. You shake it and it looks like chaos. Then, if you leave it alone, it clears. Nothing in the jar has been lost. It's just somewhere new.

I can't think of a better thing to keep on a windowsill in January.

Resting on purpose

None of this means Rebecca is against rest. The ritual I was most drawn to in the whole book is her ritual for deep rest.

What I love is how physical it is. I've got my box of incense like everybody else. She has you go out and gather what is actually growing in winter: holly, bay, rosemary. And she pairs it with the Hermit card, which she greets like an old friend. Oh good, she says. Let me hermit for a while.

There's a difference between resting and going flat. Hibernating is something that happens to you. A ritual of rest is something you decide. You gather the greenery, you light something, you mark the moment. You're telling yourself: this is rest, I chose it, and it counts.

That's how I think about what I burn at home. The sage, the sandalwood, the clairvoyance blend from Glastonbury. The ingredients matter less than the moment of deciding. Energy follows thought, and a ritual is a way of putting your thought somewhere on purpose.

Rebecca was disarmingly honest that she has to relearn this all the time. She told me about marching through a beautiful wood with her sister, reciting her to-do list, until her sister pointed out that she writes books about finding calm in nature and might like to leave her phone in the car.

We teach what we need to learn, Rebecca said. We write what we need to read.

Her measure now is a chair. She bought herself a really good one for the garden, and the test is whether she's sitting in it and looking at the clouds. I asked whether it had cobwebs on it. I think we both knew I was asking about mine.

I also confessed that my crystals have stopped sparkling under the dust. Her advice was to take them outside and let the wind blow it off. Which is the whole book in one sentence, really.

Six small things to try before the solstice

Rebecca's rituals are hers, and they're in the book. These are simpler ones you can do with every day items at home. They come out of our conversation and out of what I do at home.

1. Walk in daylight every day this week. Twenty minutes will do. Find one thing that is alive and getting on with it.

2. Light a candle on 31 October for someone you miss. Say their name out loud. That is all Samhain really asks of you.

3. Gather something green. Holly, bay, rosemary, ivy. Put it where you'll see it every day.

4. Blend something with intention. You don't need my cauldrons. A bowl and whatever herbs are in the cupboard will do. Decide what it's for before you start, and that decision is the ritual.

5. Do the chair test. Sit outside for ten minutes with no phone and look at the sky.

6. Mark the solstice. On Monday 21 December, watch the sun go down and remember that the afternoons have already begun to lengthen.

Three winters deep

Here's a detail I found quietly beautiful. This book took three winters.

The first winter, Rebecca lived it. She had just moved house and was getting to know a new stretch of her home landscape: the shape of the land, what's there, who's there. She walked it and kept a diary. The second winter she was editing, so she did every ritual again to make sure it worked. This winter is the third, when the book goes out into the world. She said it has felt nurtured into being, not beaten with a stick.

She has kept the Wheel of the Year for twenty-five years, and says that each time a festival comes round you go a little deeper. That changed how I think about seasons. They aren't a circle you trudge around. They're a spiral. You come back to the same dark afternoon in January, but you aren't the person who stood there last year.

I'm certainly not. This is my first winter as a full-time medium. Last winter I was running a recruitment business and rushing from the gym to my desk.

For years I thought of the spirit world as somewhere up there that I had to reach for. What mediumship has taught me, and what Rebecca said in her own way, is that the sacred isn't above us and gone. It's all around. The work is to sit, allow, and be present enough to notice.

Winter is good at teaching that, if you let it. There's less to look at, so you look harder.

Rebecca also told me she has never known an ending that didn't lead to something better. Winter is the year's ending, and the beginning is already underneath it.

If this is your first winter without someone you love, I know that can sound too neat. I'm not saying the dark isn't dark. I'm saying something is still alive under it, and so is the bond.

The question the whole book is built on is this: what do you need, not just to get through winter, but to enjoy it? Here's where I've got to.

• Mornings that begin by sitting quietly with my spirit team, before anything else gets a look-in.

• Turning up to the walking group when it's raining.

• A storm in a jar on the windowsill.

• Both cauldrons in regular use.

What's on yours?

Rebecca's parting words were to slow down enough to hear yourself think, and to have some compassion for where you are. I'd add one more. Go outside. It isn't dead out there.

Spiritual Takeaways

1. Winter isn't dead. The energy runs under the surface, and you train your senses to catch it.
2. Noticing winter is the same skill as psychic development: perceiving what was already there.
3. How you think about winter shapes how you feel in it. Get out into the daylight.
4. A storm shakes things up so they can settle somewhere new. Nothing is lost.
5. Rest on purpose. A ritual turns going flat into a choice.
6. The seasons are a spiral. You come back to the same place as a different person.
7. Slow down enough to hear yourself think, and have compassion for where you are.

If this winter feels heavy

If you're heading into the dark months carrying a loss, a mediumship reading may help. It can't take the grief away. What it can do is remind you that the relationship hasn't ended. If it's your own life you want clarity on, a psychic reading is centred on you. You can book either reading here, online from anywhere in the world.

And if you'd like to spend the darker evenings learning to trust your own awareness, Donna King and I start two live online classes this month: Psychic Development: The Power of You on Sunday 25 October, and Mediumship Development: Moving in the Intelligence of Spirit on Monday 26 October.

Rebecca and I also talked a lot about the tarot cards people fear. I've written that up separately in The Death Card, the Tower and the Devil: What the Scary Tarot Cards Really Mean.

About Dr Rebecca Beattie

Dr Rebecca Beattie is an author, witchcraft consultant and teacher who grew up on Dartmoor. She is a Wiccan priestess with a PhD in Creative Writing, and she trained in psychic development and mediumship at the College of Psychic Studies in London. Her books include The Wheel of the Year and The Way Through the Woods.

The Season of Frost and Fire: A Witch's Winter in 13 Rituals is published by Elliott & Thompson on 8 October 2026. She's touring independent bookshops this winter.

Listen to the full conversation

There's much more in the episode: lost goddesses, winter skies, singing your head off on Dartmoor, and why neither of us can stay away from home for long. Listen above, on the Soul Sync podcast page, or search "Soul Sync with Jason Paul" wherever you get your podcasts.

Episode transcript: jump to any chapter

Soul Sync with Jason Paul and guest Dr Rebecca Beattie, author of The Season of Frost and Fire: tarot, grief, winter and everyday ritual. Pick a chapter to read that part of the conversation. Lightly edited for readability.

03:27Welcome back, Rebecca Beattie, and The Season of Frost and Fire

Jason: Rebecca, welcome, welcome, welcome back to the Soul Sync.

Rebecca: Yay! Thank you very much, it's lovely to be back. And it just feels like ages ago. Since I was So, we've probably all forgotten everything that we talked about last time, but that's okay.

Jason: Well, do you know what? You came on in the very early days of Soul Sync and made, a real impression on me, actually, because I was at that point in my journey, full of just question after question after question, not really, Just soaking information in. And the last time you came on, you talked about one of your previous books, The Wheel of the Year, and one of the reasons you've come on today, amongst many, is to talk about your new book, which, I'll just say from the get-go, I'm holding it, and I just love the energy of it.

The Season of Frost and Fire: A Witch's Winter in 13 Rituals, and I can feel, energetically, this book, it's got quite a powerful energy, even just looking at it. So, to begin with tell the listener, about you, who you are.

Rebecca: Yep. I will start with if I'm asked to define what I am and who I am, I usually start with I'm a writer. I'm based in the southwest of the British Isles, so, near a national park, which is very zingy. And it's my home place, it's my soul home, so I'm plugged into all the right circuits. I am a practicing Gardnerian Wiccan, so part of the initiatory, tradition. But also a solitary witch. I also studied at the College of Psychic Studies in London many years ago, doing, psychic development and mediumship.

I went there thinking that I had psychic constipation and came out all, like, plugged in and everything was working in all the right ways. And it's, it's an interesting life, this one, that when you're plugged into circuits that Often, on an everyday basis, people don't always see, or they're not always aware of it gives us an extra layer of meaning to everything. So, I like this life, I like the plugged in to the weird stuff. Lifestyle. It suits me very well.

06:07Knowing you're in the right place: home, solitude and leaving London

Jason: Like we're living kind of similar lives, in a way, and I like that and I've grown to well, it's interesting, because I've grown to love my own company, and this is. Single man now. I keep saying to myself, oh, I'd love to be in a relationship, but even now, I couldn't imagine that because I'm, so, sensitive in so many different ways, and In my 20s, I was very much, absolutely craving to be around people, and it's, it's funny how, you end up where you're meant to be, and how you know when you are in the right place, because, I know I'm in the right place, because even when I'm away, I do miss where my home is.

Yes, yeah. And I get to a certain point where I go, yeah, I'm ready to get home. I'm a bit of a nightmare, actually, Rebecca. You know, I'm quite known, as my mum would, probably state, that I've been on many holiday destinations and places where I'll just sporadically say, okay, yeah, I'm ready to go home now, and just.

Rebecca: Yeah, it's funny, isn't it? I was having a similar conversation earlier with one of my best buddies, because we were talking about the fact that when I lived in London. I loved London, I loved the experience, I loved the culture and the food and the diversity and everything like that but I always had this sense of dread every time I went away and I had to go back again. I was just like, ugh, I'm exactly the same. I love it. I love coming home. It's the best thing ever.

07:32What winter means to a witch: nature hasn't gone to sleep

Jason: Much the same. When I go to London, I, and I used to go a hell of a lot in my old business, I always just couldn't wait to get back, and that's why I'd normally cram in all 3 meetings, 4 meetings, and then hot foot it back on the same train. And, yeah, I never thought I'd be that way coming from, London. So, we're coming up to a time of the year now that feels, so fitting for your book. It's almost like it was planned this way, Rebecca, the fact it was released now. So, what, what does this time of the year mean to you, as a witch, amongst many things, this season of Frost and fire?

Rebecca: So the bit that I always, there's, over the last few years, there's been some fabulous books written about winter. So I'm thinking about Katherine May's Wintering and all sorts of books where it's all about winter and hygge and cosying up by the fire and lighting candles and all the rest of it. And I've always thought that One of the challenges with that view, that we have to hunker down in winter and avoid going out and really, Kind of get used to being inside with the heating on, and the lights on, and all of the rest of it.

But as a practicing pagan and witch, that's a really weird way to approach a season. Because, for us, At this time of year, what we're doing is really, wanting to get outside still. You know, there's nothing to say we can't still be outside in the fields and the and the hedgerows and the rest of it. Nature hasn't died, it's not gone to sleep, there's still lots of stuff going on, but you have to train your eye and your senses to seeing it, a bit like, You know, we go through psychic development to sort of train that sense. And you can still feel the energy of the season there, it's just a bit under the surface.

Jason: Well, yeah, I actually love nothing more than, a walk on a winter's day, it's almost like you need to feel like you need to seize every moment when there's a nice moment. I'm a bit of a baby, you see, Rebecca. I would like to say I'm out on the rainy days, too, because I'm actually part of a gay man's walking group, and they don't see me, really, between the months of November and April. It's a great shame, it is a great shame, but I need to embrace that more, but there's something magical, isn't there, about the way the dew is and the way the frost is. You know, it's certainly not dead out there, despite how deceiving the trees might look.

Rebecca: Exactly, and I, because my, chosen companion for most of my time is my Spaniel, she doesn't do, I don't go out in rain, darling. She's like, no, I don't care, I want to go out. So, I'm still out walking her every morning come rain or shine. And I, because I grew up on Dartmoor. I think it's, it's kind of created this sense in me where if you're not prepared to go out when the weather's cold or damp or, or any of those things, I wouldn't go out. If I, if I lived on Dartmoor as I do now, if you don't go out when it's raining, you'd never go out stay in the house all year round.

So it's, to me, I'm not worried by, those, changes in the in the outer atmosphere. I'm not worried about, is it too cold, too wet, too whatever. And I actually appreciate the fact that often when you go out at those times, you might be the only person out in the on the walk. You might not see anybody. And, Because I'm a horrendous introvert, I quite like that. I quite like not seeing other humans. It's good.

11:33Alone in nature, and singing your head off

Jason: Well, I do, it's, it's, there's this little spot near me, which is a reservoir, which you're not meant to go up to because it does have a few Do Not Enter signs, but, ignore those, I'm always, I see myself as the guardian of it. There's fishermen around there, but I go up there, and there's nothing more magical than being in nature by yourself, and almost feeling that you can sing your lungs out at the top of your voice if you wanted to. No one be, do you do that too?

Rebecca: I do! I spent my entire childhood doing that. You know, it was that was what I did as a kid, was and I would literally refer to it as singing my head off. I'd go out onto, onto Dartmoor and and literally, and it's, it's, it's a funny thing, because, when you stop doing that you realise that you're then choking your, your throat chakra's getting all blocked up, and there's something not quite right. I went to see, I have an osteopath I see for a dicky back. And one of the times I went to visit her, she also happens to be a shaman, so it's like, she's an osteopath with a side order of shamanism.

And one of the sessions, she actually said to me, you need to be expressing your throat more. Go and sing. So I was like, I know where to do that.

Jason: Well, it's interesting, isn't it? And you are, you are, I guess if you're not doing things like that you are suppressing yourself. Because the internal voice in your head is saying something to the effect of I don't want to be silly, what if someone's going to judge me, what will that person think of me? But, it's funny, one day I was doing it not so long ago, and I was bursting out in one of my favourite songs at the time, and then I saw a man that was just to the right of me, and I suddenly, I did feel a bit silly then, and I thought, no, there's something there that you need to address and identify and work with and he did give me a big smile, actually.

So, I get that. So this, what does this time of the year, then, if it's not meaning sort of bunkering down for you, you're getting out and about. How, what's the feelings of energy that you feel? And let's go into some of these amazing rituals in the book, because I'm seeing many things that I know, well, sparkly crystals, Rebecca, I tell you, if I, I've got many of them. Too many, where they're not sparkly through dust. That's very bad when it gets to that point, isn't it?

14:07Three winters in the making: how the rituals came about

Rebecca: Aww. Just take them outside and let the wind blow the dust off, it'll be fine. But it's, it is that kind of I think, I think we do need an element of the resting and the hunkering down, but, I think in the whole book, I've done one chapter on that. Everything else is about getting outside and seeing things, and when I was researching this book, I lived it the first winter. It's taken, so this will be the third winter of this book, in terms of its inception. So the first winter, I was out experiencing the things, keeping a diary actually living the season as it was happening, and noticing what was going on for me in that.

And then, the second winter, we were editing, so I was going through the editing process with the team at my publishers, so I was living it again. I was redoing all of the exercises and the rituals, making sure that they worked, and And talking it through with people. And then, the third winter will be this winter as it's, as it's going out into the world. So, it's been a nice, kind of gentle process for me. It's been hard work, because any book is but, It's felt like it's emerged in its own time, and that it's, It's being nurtured into the world rather than beaten with a stick. Which is quite good.

Jason: Obviously, with it being your third winter coming up to doing these rituals, how do you feel, now compared to doing, not doing the rituals before? You know, what impact has it had on you?

Rebecca: So, for me, I think, it's, it's really opened my eyes to some of the things that that The first, the first season, I was getting to know the landscape I'm living in now, because I'd just moved house with my partner, and we were getting to know a new landscape again. Although it's in my home turf, it's still, was a new landscape. So I was getting to know the shape of the land, and what's there, and who's there, and what spirits and entities are there. And it feels like, for me it's a bit like when I did Wheel of the Year.

I've been practicing the Wheel of the Year for about 25 years, and each time I experience a festival or a Sabbat, you just go deeper each time, so each time I do these rituals now through the winters, I'm learning a different aspect of it, and a different nuance to it, and I think, You know, you can't, you can't necessarily identify favourites, because it's a bit like saying, who's your favourite child? But there were certain chapters in there that I really resonated with like the winter skies, and the lost goddesses, and rediscovering Who the deities of this land would have been, and then connecting to them.

17:13A ritual for deep rest, the Hermit card and a storm in a jar

Jason: That's beautiful. I was very much drawn to the ritual for deep rest, and I. I absolutely love the idea, because you never do this kind of thing, do you? I know I've got my box of incense and all those things, yes, but actually going out and getting natural greenery, and using the holly, the bay, the rosemary, these things, it's magical. Talk us through, even some of these, rituals that are your favourites and the ones that resonated with you, because You know, I have to say, I even love the Hermit card, using that within this deep, rest ritual. It's, yeah, it's beautiful.

Rebecca: I love the Hermit card, it's one of my favourite cards, because whenever I see it, I just think, oh, yes, I need a rest, please, let me Hermit for a while. I think there were all sorts of things I loved creating, I mean, I'm a creative bunny, so I love, getting my hands mucky. I was out in the garden this morning with my stepson planting things, and I said to him, oh, this is my favourite thing, because it's like making mud pies. So, sparkly mud pies are even better. So, I loved things like the Winter Storms chapter.

I've given a recipe for Making a storm in a jar, so that you can harness the energy of a winter storm whenever you need to. That feeling of needing to shake things up a bit and then let them settle. And to make it work, I had my best friend, myself, and And my editor, all making these winter jars, making sure that they worked, so we all had to go and experiment with them, and it gets everybody playing then. So, it gives you that opportunity to connect to your playful side a bit.

Jason: It's certainly a new take on the snow globe for this time of year, isn't it? And one that sounds like it's got a hell of a lot more power. It doesn't need any, shaking about that your one, does it?

19:16Tarot without fear: the Star, the Six of Swords and the word supernatural

Jason: Mmm, it's, do you know what? It's even looking at the tarot cards in this way, it's, they're so universal, and they can be used in so many ways, and I remember being, particularly almost overwhelmed by them when I first picked up a pack of tarot cards, thinking, oh, there's too much, to them, because they can be read on so many different levels, how they tie in but I really like the way that you've kind of encapsulated the energy of them within each, different part of this season. Because I must admit, the Star is a card that for a long time, I never really understood what that card was. Yeah. And it sort of come up, and I think, well, what is that? What am I not seeing?

Rebecca: Yeah, absolutely. And I think what I've tried to do as well, because, a lot of people were expecting me to only use the Major Arcana, and I was kind of like, yeah, but the Majors don't always express what you're trying to to say. So there are times when I'm using, like, one of my, again, one of my other favourite tarot cards is the Six of Swords, because it's such a an expression of liminality and an expression of big change going on, but through gentler energies. So the idea that you're having, it's a it's a journey across water, but it's also an initiatory journey, and and it's, It's a it's a way of connecting to the cards in a non-threatening, but also what I was trying to get across to people is you don't have to see the tarot as being this scary occult force that you're using, because it really isn't.

But that's one of the accusations we get, isn't it? That we're dabbling with occult forces, and and actually for me, when people say that I'll often say to them, you could say we're dabbling with supernatural forces, but when we say supernatural, what I do is break that down and say it's super and it's natural, so yes, but not in a scary, kind of evil doing.

Jason: It has an undercurrent of fear, doesn't it? It's something that's out of the ordinary, it's something that could potentially harm us. It could be a force for good, Rebecca, but it could be a force for bad, and there's fear attached to that and it's also, when you call something supernatural, you're also, stripping away from that that it's accessible, it only comes about, it's only, attainable by certain people. Yeah. So, well, it's even the spirit world, when people used to say you know, my understanding of the spirit world for a very long time was it was up somewhere.

I knew I was reaching for it, and yes, okay, I would bring through evidence, but I was reaching for that evidence, rather than sitting, allowing, and being present.

22:17The divine all around us, and when the Tower and the Devil keep appearing

Rebecca: Absolutely. So I think, I think that we, one of the one of the challenges when you're not living a conventional, monotheistic lifestyle, shall we say, is that a lot of our cultural framing comes through the monotheistic faiths, particularly Christianity. If you don't identify as a Christian. Then, you've got to kind of start to imagine that the world is different. Heaven isn't something up there. We're not going, the divine isn't something that created the world and then left it. It's all around us. It's all around, I think.

Jason: Well, I agree, I identified as an atheist for a very long time. I knew that I, It's an interesting one, isn't it? Because I kind of never really felt like I resonated with that word, so I would normally, even on, you get these intrusive forms that ask you these questions, I would, put, I don't want to answer it, then I would put atheist, but I knew I wasn't an atheist, because I believed in something, I just didn't believe in what, Christianity was telling me. But had I maybe sat with the Bible and studied it over many years in my own space, I think I would, have come to the realisation that it was wrote in such a way, symbolically, and it's been taken out of context, but, I didn't do that exercise because I wasn't the sort of person to sit there and study the Bible, so I've got a different view on it now, but, You know, I can understand that.

I have to say, because I think another thing that comes up, even in and you make this point in the book, in the chapter of Facing the Storm, last year, I kept getting, And I knew big change was coming in my life, because I was getting the Tower card, and I was getting the Devil card, and I, and I, and instantly, it makes you sort of jolt up, doesn't it? It's, it's, and there's a lot of fear in that card, and I knew that this wasn't all bad. I knew that there was going to be a lot of changes, some not good, but the lion's share of them for the positive.

And then, after that those cards coming up several times. I had my dad pass away. I had certain things involve my brother. We then had to relocate him to a new area. I then went, bold as brass into exiting my business to have a radical change of life positive, positive. Then all of a sudden, oh, you'd love me at the moment, Rebecca, I've gone right up your street. I've honestly suddenly started reorganising the whole house. As soon as I left my company, I was like. Right, I'm going to the dump, so I thought, I can't even sit in this office until I've done that because it doesn't feel energetically like my workplace.

It feels like a room where I'd have books dumped in one corner, creative stuff, and I thought, I have to sort out the energy in the whole house. So, these are, let's talk about this, because even the Devil card in itself. And these sorts of cards, there is an undercurrent of fear which follows on from, what we were just discussing.

25:18Carrying the Death card through grief: the Tower, the Devil and the Star

Rebecca: Absolutely. I think, when I learnt the tarot, so when I was a wee emerging witch 26-ish years ago, 25 years ago, I studied tarot with somebody who's now a great friend of mine who, taught us the Major Arcana by getting us to carry them for a week and reflect back. At the end of the week, we'd come into class, and he'd say, how was your week? Tell me about what happened. And, What we'd find is there's that sense of as above, so below, that happens when you're on a spiritual path, that what you're, thinking about on the inside gets projected outside, and there's this kind of interplay between your spiritual life and what's happening in the rest of the world.

So we'd come in every week going, oh my god, this happened, and I just so happened to have in my pocket this card. When we got to And at that point, I'd just lost my mum, so I was really deeply, deeply grieving. And, and every tarot reading I had for a period of about 3 years always had the Death card. Every time, it was there. And rather than be scared of it after a while. I started to welcome it, because it was like a yep, we're still going through that process, yeah, it's okay, it's part of a process, it's still going on, it's all okay, this is a natural, it's okay that I'm feeling like this, because it's part of the process.

And then when we got to there was one week in particular that I will always remember, and it was the week where, Our teacher said to us, I want you to carry Tower, the Devil, and the Death card all together, because if you're gonna have 3 terrible weeks, carrying them individually, may as well contract it all into one week. Just have one bad week, and then come back and report. So we had these cards, That, you'd put them under your pillow, I'd have them on my desk, I would carry them in my pocket.

They were just with me for that whole fortnight, that whole week. And all hell broke loose, however, When you've got something like the Tower happening, There's an element of It's out of your control, because it's the world doing this thing, and encouraging this change. And the reason that the Star card is so significant is that it's the far-off hope that appears after Death, the Tower, and the Devil have done their work. And I think that each one of those cards has another interpretation that makes it slightly less scary. So, the Devil card, is often talked about in terms of addictions and being enslaved to something.

And then you realise that certainly on the Rider-Waite-Smith deck that the chains that are around the necks of the two people are big enough that they can just lift them off. They're not in chains, it's not a tight chain. And then, excuse me, you get to the Tower card. You might like this one. A friend of mine who's a tarot reader says to me, that's, an indication that your sex life is about to get better. Very literal, the Tower. And then the Death card, we've got the idea that it's death and it's an ending, but it's also a beginning.

So there are ways that you can frame each of those scary cards to make them slightly less scary, but I also think there's something in Our ability as spiritual beings to Approach the hard bits of life, like grief, like endings, like, ending a job, ending a career, ending a relationship, whatever it is. I've never encountered an ending yet that didn't lead to something better afterwards. So. There's part of me that thinks, Yeah, winter's dark, it's cold, it's whatever, but there's also that process of allowing, Those endings to happen, and those new beginnings to start coming through. At the end of winter.

30:01Letting go: endings that make way for something better

Jason: It's, you're right, because I very much feel that from the Tower card. These things can be very uncomfortable for us, when these cards come up, or these moments in our life, they're not just moments, that we can sometimes control, that we can make any better, we just have to ride through it, but I've become a firm believer that It's the things that really stretch us, and the things that really test us, and the things that are just absolutely horrible in our lives, but do also, a lot of the time, make way for things that are better.

And you've got to make space, and it can be very difficult as well, and I think that's where, especially the Devil card catches people out, because a lot of the time, I found myself that that card will come up when it's, right, you need to let this thing go in your life. No longer serving you, to allow better things to come in. But sometimes, and quite often in our lives, we can struggle to want to make those changes. We might be scared, we might feel, that we have sort of beliefs in ourself of doubt, about how capable we are.

And until you follow, there's something about just stepping into something as well, and owning it. And that's, what I've done with my mediumship in Recent times, and as soon as I've stepped in and just said, right, I'm doing this now, the universe responds! It's almost like energy follows thought! Who would have guessed? It's funny. Yes, it is!

Rebecca: In a similar way, when I left London, I, about 6 years ago now it was a big deal for me. Everything that I had in my life that was significantly tied to London started to fall away. So my marriage ended, my, my PhD studies came to an end, and then COVID happened. And it was like, oh my god, no yoga classes anymore, can't go out, I'm in lockdown on my own in Zone 5, so I can't even walk into central London. And, Yeah, and that felt quite a scary step, actually, saying, right, it's time to go home, it's time to step back from the city and go, go home to my soul home.

And yet, when I did the writing career that I'd stayed in London because I thought if I'm going to be a writer, I have to live in London, that only took off when I left London and went home. So there are things that you sort of are afraid of things happening, but if you just let the energy go, when I, when I studied, NLP at one point, neuro-linguistic programming, and it was at the same time I was studying neuro-linguistic programming, hypnosis, and going to the College of Psychic Studies, so I had, like, 3 levels of energy work going on, and with my NLP teacher two things happened.

One was I went to him one day and said, I'm a bit confused, because this feels like witchcraft, and he was like, yes it is but don't tell anyone else, because they'll get scared. But he was basically saying, yes, this is the same energy work that you're doing when you do psychic mediumship, when you do magical working, it's all the same energy work. And he always said that his favourite part of teaching people was the moment when they were gripping on. By their fingernails. And he said, the best part is when you just see the relief when they let go.

And that moment that you let go and you let the energy take you, Where it's gonna go anyway. So it's, it's one of the hardest things, isn't it, having faith. But, Nothing bad has ever happened from following that.

Jason: Even when I look at my own life, and some of the times I've been most uncomfortable, I had a particular time in my life where, oh my goodness, I was in the police, my life just felt horrible, I was unhappy. And then, I stepped up, well, what happened, without going into a massive long story, I was very unhappy in the police, I wanted to leave. I then, the only job that I really knew I needed to take was a job that was on two-thirds of a pay cut. Going in again as a trainee, thinking, I almost feel like I'm going backwards in so many senses.

Could have been more uncomfortable if I tried, with income and everything, but, it was the it was the making of me, and eventually what catapulted me in to start my own company, but my goodness, I was uncomfortable at the time. But then I've also had other times in my life where you describe it exactly right. I am hanging on by my fingernails, and it's almost like it's, I'm clinging on, and There's even an aspect of that. I feel at the moment, with my decision to go in this direction. One thing that I knew would happen would be my mediumship would become more vivid, but I, if anyone could have told me I'd be where I am now, 8 weeks, 12 weeks on, with my mediumship you know, it's almost like people are looking at me going, where the hell have you been the last 3 months, and what have you been drinking?

You know, it's like, well, I've just been drinking the juice of the present moment. That's what I've been drinking, and you know, it's, we laugh about it because it takes us sometimes a long time to get there. To these places, and now I'm looking back at my life with a pair of glasses on, where it looks like there's a lot more synchronicities than I, it makes sense why I am where I am right now.

35:45Stop battling who you think you should be: what you need to thrive

Rebecca: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that for me, the point of life, I'm 53 now. So, I'm no spring chicken, and the bit that I have discovered as I get older is that things get better, and they only get better if you stop battling who you think you should be. So, let go of who you think you should be, just be who you are. And embrace that and do more of it. And then it gets easier, I think. You know, life is always hard, there are always challenges, but, I think if you're constantly battling this barrage of what you think you should be doing, it's, it's never gonna end well, is it?

Jason: It's not, because what you're also doing in that very moment of trying to be someone else is well, even the clue is in the title. You're trying to be someone else. Yeah. And as soon as you step into who you truly are, and what you should be doing, and what you feel called towards, there starts becoming a flow to life, a rhythm to life, and things just seem to come to you in your awareness, and I'm even noticing that at the moment. If anything my to-do list every day just gets bigger rather than shorter, because inspiration is coming to me, because I'm doing what I should be doing.

And I think it's a pretty good barometer, if you're someone at home. And you're feeling that you're not in the right environment, you're not surrounded by the right people, perhaps you're feeling weighted down by someone, perhaps you're feeling someone's like an anchor hauling you down by your ankle, then, you need to address that. It's like a plant, you know? You put a plant, my cactus doesn't want to be where my orchid is and my orchid doesn't want to be where, You know, the other bigger tree is they all have their place and their conditions that they need in order to grow and thrive.

Yeah. And orchids are a plant that annoy me as well. They've taken me a long time to understand. Normally, I get them, I used to get them years ago. Four days on the countertop, and that's it, the petals have gone, only to ever be a green leaf again. Yeah. But now I understand them. They like humidity, they like to be made a fuss of they like the moss in the top. Yeah. A high maintenance.

Rebecca: No, it's a good metaphor, isn't it, for working out what it is we need in order to thrive. I think that's the key thing, is When you start to understand what you individually need in order to not just survive, but thrive then we're on the right track. And I think that for me, this whole book was about, deciding what do you need in order to thrive in the winter environment? What do you need in order to not only get yourself through winter, but actually to make it an enjoyable process?

38:49Everyday rituals: altars, intention and slowing down

Jason: Mmm, it's beautiful. So, I couldn't not ask you this question, being on here. What are the rituals you do in your day-to-day life that you couldn't live without? If I came into your house right now and took, for instance, your frankincense, we'd never talk again.

Rebecca: Yeah, absolutely. So, as we're talking, I've got. Atmosphere, because I'm burning incense in my. All the time. I've got a little altar to my left, which is my money altar, which I've been burning candles on, and I've got a little Ganesh statue that's holding out a little plate of coins. I've got, behind me, I've got my ancestor altar as well, behind the over this way. So I've got those spaces that I recognise connect me to the sacred. But, rituals can be as simple as, Every morning, I start my day with a bit of writing.

Every day, I start my day with going out for a walk with my dog. Every day, I need to be out in nature, and that's before I even start my working day. I'm kind of like, okay, some writing time, some walking time, and then I go to work. So it's, it's, those are the rituals, I think. That, for me they're quite simple, they're not kind of I'm not casting a witch's circle and doing all of that stuff. It's, and I will do that as well, that's another aspect of ritual, but for me, it's the simple ones, it's the day-to-day things that remind me that I am who I am, and I'm doing what I love doing.

They remind me that I live in the place that I live in that I love. They remind me that I've chosen to write books, because that's what I love. So I think that's probably the thing.

Jason: I love, what I love about rituals is and I think the more, bigger the act, the offering, it's the power of intention. You know, even as you were talking there about, I need to get a money, one for sure, and I can see the perfect pair of hands in front of me that's, doing that kind of. You know, I don't know what you would call that the begging, or the grateful, or the please give me some pose with the hands. Yeah. But, mine's currently got about a million lip balms in it, so, I need to Clear it out, clear it out, get some coins in there, or something.

I need to. Do you know what, though? It's the power of intention, and I think I even love the winter jar, and all these different ones, because it's making space, you're putting your thought into something, and I really believe in energy follows thoughts. I almost feel like I can smell what you're burning there. I feel like it's coming through the screen to me. And so I love that and I think you've come onto the Soul Sync at a really interesting time for me personally, because I was only saying that from a week today, I'm going to start getting down to business, so to speak, and I want to create a timetable, but a timetable that has these practices in a timetable that allows me time to sit in the morning, connect with my spirit team do more of that because normally, my old life, it was rush, rush, rush, rush, rush, constantly always going everywhere.

Even, I'd go to the gym and feel that I'm rushing then to work, and it would just, You know, it's not the way to start the day with that level of tension and tenseness to you.

Rebecca: Absolutely, and the thing that I've, I went for a walk with my sister the other morning, and it was really funny, because we were in a really, well, it wasn't funny at all, but we were in a beautiful woodland area, going for a walk, and I was aware, after about 10 minutes of this walk, I was going, And I was the energy was just so manic, because I was thinking about, I've got to do this, and I've got to do that and And my sister said to me, just remember, you're writing books about being calm and finding yourself in nature.

When you're in nature, could you leave your phone in the car and just, just remember to connect, because we don't all have to doesn't have to be about to-do lists, you can just stop. And I thought, yep, that's what I needed, was somebody to remind me that that's, that's good for me as well. Because, like I, like I said, I often say, we teach what we need to learn.

Jason: Mmm, I believe that.

Rebecca: We do, we write what we need to read, you know. There's that sense of we're often drawn to the people that have the same challenges, aren't we? And we're often, drawn to reminding ourselves that yes, if I'm gonna write about being at one with nature and finding that space and that calm, I have to remember to do that for myself as well. The bit that I've done recently is making my garden a space that I can really rest in. So, I've bought myself a really lovely chair that I can go, just go and sit in the garden and read, or just go in the garden and look at the sky and look at the clouds, because that's often my measure of am I stopping enough? Am I slowing down?

Jason: Yes. Yeah, so does your garden chair have cobwebs on it, because it's not been sat on for however long, and we can all be guilty of that. And I'm just the same. And you're right, even with teachers, I found that the teachers I'm most drawn to are the ones that really mirror the qualities in myself that I look for you know? Even in my mediumship journey, there's, at the very beginning, I was sort of finding my feet with who I resonated with and there's some teachers that are very hard, and they sort of there's a way of teaching through the ego, and I didn't like that.

I knew that I always wanted to be, and I resonated with someone that really taught through nurturing, and love, and practiced the words that they preach, what it's all about, and authenticity, that was always something that really stands out to me, and if I feel someone, in their energy, they, what they're saying doesn't align with their actions, then instantly I'm, not feeling, well, with that type of person, I might be feeling like I want to run the other way. I don't know, but you know, I know my energy is important, and it's to be protected.

I'm looking forward to doing The Season of Frost and Fire, and as I said at the beginning, it's such a bloody powerful book, I will say that because just when I hold it, I love it, and it makes me want to burn some incense. Yeah. It is. So, in Soul Sync tradition, leave us on a final thought to take us into the autumn, then. Rebecca.

45:44A final thought: slow down, and have compassion for where you are

Rebecca: Lovely. So, the bit that I feel, if there was one thing that I could leave everyone with I would actually say it's two things. One is to slow down enough that you can hear yourself thinking. Because one of the things that and I'm saying this so I can hear it myself, one of the things that I've learned over the last few years through hard life lessons is that things tend to go wrong when I'm too fast and too manic, and too, busy to actually stop and listen to my own inner voice and what it's telling me.

So I think a lot of this book is about slow down, connect to nature, and connect to yourself. And the other thing is have a bit of compassion for where you are, because, There's so much in the world that's gonna be challenging that we deserve to have, our own inner voice is being nice and nurturing and compassionate, and not the kind of hit you with a stick because you're not working hard enough, or, whatever it is that you're pushing yourself to. Just slow it down and have a bit of compassion for where you are.

Jason: Push that brake pedal and take, take, a real lens of love, and really give yourself that time, because, we could be so, a lot of the time, we don't even allow ourselves to even do one ritual, ever, because we're always in such a rush, and I think a lot of the time it's about, being kind to yourself, and giving yourself permission to stop, to do things that are putting you as number one, and I think that's so important. So, it's been lovely. Thank you for coming on The Soul Sync again. Thanks for having me. Oh, it's a pleasure and a delight, any time.