Mooney’s Mythic Podcast - Show Notes
Episode: Winter Solstice Songs & Sacred Rest with Ted Waters
Host: Sarah Mooney, Storyteller
Episode Overview
A cozy fireside conversation about wintertime, rest, and the lost arts of singing, dancing, and storytelling. Sarah welcomes farmer, seasonal celebrant, and singer Ted Waters to the sofa for an intimate exploration of what it means to truly winter well. Ted shares original solstice songs, teaches call-and-response singing, and tells the story behind her album Earthline - a collection of songs born from a friend’s pilgrimage along the Mary Ley Line.
Sponsored by: Winter. By the retreating of our energy deep into our bodies. By the remembering of our self-care, of our quietness.
Featured Guest: Ted Waters
Ted Waters is a farmer, seasonal celebrant, singer, and composer living just north of Chew Valley Lake. She runs a small organic farm (nine acres, two of no-dig veg) with chickens, a beautiful roundhouse in the woods for kids’ groups and retreats, and an ongoing battle with deer who eat the trees they’re trying to plant.
Ted is also a Natural Voice Network trained choir leader who believes passionately in reclaiming singing as a normal practice of expression and connection. She co-runs the farm with her partner, homeschools her kids, and creates music that weaves together environmental awareness, seasonal wisdom, and deep rest.
Connect with Ted Waters:
* Spotify: Ted Waters Music
* Instagram: @tedwatersmusic
* Bandcamp: Search “Earthline” album
* TikTok: Ted Waters Music
Songs Featured
1. “Winter Solstice” (Original)
Written in a lay-by after being treated to a spa day by a friend following four exhausting years of farm setup. The song emerged quickly - as creativity does when we finally rest.
Key lyrics: “Oh, winter solstice, I’m glad you have come / My body is tired from all that I’ve done / I’ll rest here a while in your deep winter’s night / Revived and renewed and awake with the light”
2. “The Holly King” (Traditional poem, spoken)
“’Twas the night before yuletide and all through the glen...”
A magical tale of the Holly King arriving to remind the Fae folk that they’ve forgotten to celebrate - no hearth fires, no music, no bells, no rich fragrant smells. He teaches them to play again: to gather mistletoe, light bonfires, dance, sing, string lights on trees, and build snowmen. A reminder that rest isn’t just lying down - it’s also making spiced mulled cider, having hearty times, being creative, and playing.
3. Call & Response: Haymaking Song
Ted teaches a traditional call-and-response work song, imagining tossing hay with old-fashioned pitchforks. When your body is doing something, you get out of your own head. We’ve been copycats from birth - this is how we learned to speak.
Invitation: Bring singing into your daily tasks - making the bed, doing the dishes, whatever repetitive work you do.
4. “Time for Home” (from Earthline album)
A song about bringing Oski the horse home after 100 days of pilgrimage along the Michael and Mary Ley Lines.
Key lyrics: “Wide daylines, rains on night / Early mornings, something to find / Come, Oski, turn with me / I’ll hold your end, move your main / You and me, I know / Time for home”
The Story Behind Earthline
Artist Sophie White embarked on a solo pilgrimage on horseback along the ancient Mary Ley Line - the sacred energy line that runs through Cornwall, Avebury, Stonehenge, Glastonbury Tor, and other ancient sites across England. She was commissioned by the Royal Western Academy to draw a picture every day of her journey.
Her friend Michael Canning (a vet, not a poet - though Ted disagrees!) began writing poems in response to Sophie’s drawings, capturing the feeling of each day without ever speaking to her. Ted discovered the pictures and poems one evening with a glass of wine, kids in bed, and accidentally put about 20 of them to music.
The result: Earthline, an accidental album recorded in Glastonbury to honor the ley line energy.
Now available: Four remastered tracks on Spotify, full album on Bandcamp, more coming spring 2026.
Key Themes & Conversations
On Wintering Well
* The contrast of winter: Dark/light, hot/cold, constant adjustment rather than summer’s steady build
* Winter reduces things down until the sun goes very still on the horizon for three days at solstice
* Rest isn’t just lying down - it’s making spiced cider, having hearty times, being creative, playing
* Creating from what you have rather than buying beyond your means
* Ted’s practice: “Each winter, I try and winter harder and better”
On Reclaiming Singing
* We’ve lost dancing, singing, and storytelling as normal practices (Madonna quote)
* The church stole singing and made it theirs, then broke down the churches so there’s nowhere for us to sing (Sarah’s theory, “based in no fact at all”)
* If you speak, you can sing - there’s so much culture that dumbs us down
* Even professional singers are terrified - fear doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it
* Women’s voices have been taken from us - culturally, historically, deeply
* Ted’s song: “Imagine if the birds were scared to sing / Imagine if you’d never heard their chirping / Can you hear the silence it would bring / The emptiness I fear would be deafening”
On Seasonal Celebration
As a seasonal celebrant, Ted creates ceremonies around the Celtic wheel of the year, holding women’s circles where she can bring her “full me” - including:
* Bare-boned elements (branches, bones, berries)
* Greenery (ivy, evergreens that push through winter)
* Songs and poems
* Reminders that trees never stop - they just rest, with buds already waiting for spring
On Creative Accidents
* Art is the thing that nobody asks you to do (sign in Ted’s kitchen)
* One creative act sparks another and another
* The Earthline album was completely unplanned - “if we’d planned it, we would have killed over”
* Collaboration and play rather than pressure and production
On Horses & Healing
Sarah shares about her car accident where the car flew in the air, rolled three times, and landed upside down. She was advised to spend time with horses.
She expected horses to be grounding (four feet on the ground) but discovered they’re in constant adjustment, constant flow, constant movement - never keeping all four feet still. Through allowing that constant movement in her body, she began to heal.
Ted on Oski (the horse in “Time for Home”): “The most beautiful soul. I love that horse very deeply.”
Ritual & Guided Journey
Deep inside all of us is a cave. We find ourselves at the mouth of that cave, ready to go deeper inwards. We call for good company - whether that’s a scent or a person or an animal or a guide. We walk deeper into this cave, into our winter, into our soul, into our safe place. We see who’s there, what is feeding us, where we’re getting our warmth from, our joy, our delight, our deep rest. We find a place to lay down... body drops down, neck letting go, shoulders melting, resting back, resting back, resting back. Breathing, resting, deepening into winter.
Sarah Mooney:
* Support on Patreon: Mooney’s Mythic Podcast
* “Buy her a cup of coffee” (or hydration - she’s given up coffee, two weeks and counting!)
* Share the podcast with friends who need wintering wisdom
Closing Reflection
This episode is a deep exhale. Two women by the fire, sharing songs and stories about what it means to truly rest. About reclaiming our voices. About the magic that happens when we stop planning and start playing. About how one creative act sparks another. About horses and healing. About the Holly King reminding us to celebrate. About coming home - to ourselves, to winter, to the deep cave inside where the fires burn and we are safe.
As Ted sings: “Time for home. Always coming home.”
Tagline: Myth as a doorway, story as soul retrieval, folklore as a friend
Listen to this episode when you need permission to rest, when you’ve forgotten how to sing, or when you need to remember that creativity flows easiest when we stop trying so hard.
