This moonth—arriving overnight 11/30 to 12/1 with the exact moment at 1:21 am ET, time zone converter—we are invited to walk the path of Temperance, which melds opposites into a whole that draws from its constituent elements but brings forth something entirely new.
The Temperance Path
In the Tarot of the Crone Temperance, a figure walks between fire and ice on a thin green path. The situation may be perilous but the figure follows the thread of the path.

Deck creator Ellen Lorenzi-Prince shares the wisdom of the image:
Meaning is not found in the one thing or another but in the being that connects them. You. You are the one to bring beauty into life. You are the one to walk your path. You know about opposition. You know the hunger of fire and the power of ice. But you do not let their powers consume you.
We are the ones who become new when we walk this narrow path of acceptance, integration, and transformation. We balance within ourselves our hot passion and our cool reason. Our belief in the possibility of change and our despair about how far we seem from our visions now. Our feelings of cold exhaustion and our sparks of joy within. Instead of choosing between or disparaging one side as right or desired, we hold both, twine them together to make something stronger.
We’ve had to do this before. The long stretch of history and the circling of the Wheel of the Year have invited us to apprentice to Temperance over and over again. We are never done with the work of re-creating ourselves or the world we live in. We live in circles not in lines.
Eight of Wands Passage and Practice
The timing of the new moon’s arrival takes us through the passage of the Eight of Wands. In the iconic, Rider Waite Smith deck, this enigmatic card is the only one without a human or animal figure. Just the wands are shown in swift movement.

a 1909 card scanned by Holly Voley and retrieved from Sacred Texts. Deck available from US Games
Things are moving quickly. That certainly sounds like the pace of our modern, mobile, tech-enabled lifestyles. We face constant pressure to move at the same pace.
But we can’t do everything that calls our attention so how shall we make soul-tending choices?
Tarot master Rachel Pollack offers a unique take on this card as representing messages from the Divine, from Spirit, from guides. The wands after all are traveling down from the sky towards the earth, towards us. This Eight of Wands meaning invites us to make time and space in our lives to listen carefully to guidance from the Greater Than so we can discern their messages. This listening becomes the foundation for acting on the messages we receive.
As we enter the longest nights of the year here in the Northern Hemisphere and move toward the holidays of light around the Solstice, we enter the perfect time for this listening – if we can create the right balance with the holidays demands and the general pace of our lives.
Here at Soul Path Sanctuary, we wait with the dark until the Solstice comes and tilt the ears of our heart to listen to our gratitude, the ancestors, dark nurture, and the Divine. We use candles and cards in a ritual structure. Each week we light one less candle to welcome instead of fight against the dark. We receive the renewal the quiet the dark brings as a balance to the noise of the season. Then in January we are prepared to tend the returning light.
You are invited to join us. Tomorrow/Monday we start our week connecting with the ancestors. Perhaps you’d like the daily prompting of the e-retreat. Or to gather with others for a sharing circle weekly. People follow the prompts that best serve their soul and go at their own pace.
Or you might create a ritual structure for yourself. It doesn’t have to be elaborate. You could promise to sit for a few moments with a Tarot card each day or take a weekly walk without companions of cell phone to open to a message from the spirits of nature. I came to the idea of the candle wheel with one less candle each week by modifying the Advent Wreath tradition I knew from my childhood. The form is less important than your intention and your commitment to giving yourself a little listening space in this season.
How ever you do this pausing and listening, let it open you to the spark of the Greater Than glowing in these long nights.
Explorer of Fire Posture
And how will we look as we travel the Temperance path through the wands of Divine inspiration? The Gaian Tarot’s version of the Knight of Wands gives us a guide appropriate for moving through seasons of darkness. The Explorer of Fire is our brave mentor.

The source of this Explorer’s bravery is their practice and their protection. They didn’t begin the dance without preparing. They practiced safely without fire at first. Maybe practicing the movements became a little boring. They found the mask that would protect their most vulnerable parts. Perhaps its creation took longer than desired. They decided consciously when to begin the dance with fire. And then they risked the path of fire dancing.
In writing about this card, Gaian Tarot creator Joanna Powell Colbert says: She wears the mask of a fire goddess; in her trance state, perhaps she becomes one. As the flames whoosh! around her, she enters the silence at the center of the circle.
In this season of the dark descent toward the Solstice and a coming year that offers uncertainty, I hope that find the special shimmer of this time in darkness and in silence, in daylight and in singing. And may you dance in the joy of the year’s turning.
Reading of the Moonth
These questions are offered for reflection and to spark practice throughout the moonth. Pulling Tarot and oracle cards in connection to these questions is appropriate, but not absolutely necessary. You might carry a question with you on a walk for example and observe what is happening in the natural world as a way to find insight into the answer to the question.
INTEGRATING: How do you connect and integrate both the persistent challenge and joyous potential of life into your awareness?
LISTENING: How to open to the guidance you most need to keep on the path?
DANCING: What can I dance into being during the dark of year’s end?
I do offer this as an e-reading in my collaborative initiative format for $32. Sign up with Pay Pal or contact me about sending a check. When I receive notification, I’ll be in touch to let you know about when to expect to receive your reading by email. I generally have openings to do these readings on Mondays and Saturdays.