Today we are celebrating the Winter Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere, and also the beginning of the 12 days of Yule, which begins on the eve of the Solstice and ends on New Years Day.
It is a time of deepening into the dark, with the knowing that as the wheel turns, the light returns.
Everything is always changing – this is the most unarguable rule of life. Those who are grieving a loss know this without any illusion otherwise.
So can we just be in the dark for a moment, knowing it will change?
So many critical life processes unfold in the dark – the germination of seeds, conception & gestation of new life, dreaming… to name just a few.
In a society that focuses primarily on light, growth and progress, we have somewhat lost track of the critical nature of darkness.
I don’t think it’s too bold to say that we are afraid of it.
And yet like many things we fear, (such as grief & death) when we can actually allow ourselves to experience darkness, it can be the exact medicine that we need.
This Christmas, our family is doing something really unconventional and heading up into the high alpine backcountry. We will go with nothing but snowshoes and backpacks, to a small cabin in the wilderness that has only wood heat, no electricity and definitely no Wifi.
I know, it sounds a little nuts.
You have to go to quite the extremes these days to find real darkness, and to get teenagers off their phones. Or if I’m being really honest, to get ALL of us off our phones!!
I am so deeply looking forward to being away from artificial lighting and in the stillness of the mountains.
Many traditions have recognized that there are opportune times of the year to rest deeply and also to send out our prayers. Times when the Earth supports our deep rest, manifesting or releasing.
The mountains are a good place to pray, but so is where ever you are.
Winter is a particularly potent time for grief work as nature embraces us in darkness, and the earth is covered in water (rain and snow).
In the darkness and with the support of community and nature, we may more easily be able to connect to our grief & to share and release what we have long held in our hearts.
For centuries our ancestors gathered together against the cold, gathered around the hearth to tend to one another. This is the time when we are designed to pull our loved ones close, and yet so many are living in isolation.
It’s so important to remember that others are yearning for connection at this time also, and to find little glimmers of this where you can, even if you may feel mostly very isolated.
It’s also key that we find ways to slow down, feel and integrate all that you have been through this year.
🔥 If you are seeking a small ritual to mark the solstice, and have access to fire, writing down things you would like to release, and then burning the paper in the fire is a really beautiful & potent practice. Then, write down what you wish to call in this year, and place it on your altar or somewhere you will see it regularly.
Alternatively, you can light a candle and speak what you wish to release into the flame, and then speak what you wish to call in. (This is a great alternative if you don’t have access to somewhere you can actually burn stuff!)
Remember to thank the fire when you are finished for either ritual! 🔥
After any ritual or process, I love to dance (and I highly recommend it. So…
✨✨My Yuletide gift to you. ✨✨
This is the playlist I created for us to dance and move energy through during our Winter Solstice Releasing Ritual last week. Dance/movement is a really wonderful way to move grief and trauma energy through the body and transform it into something more nourishing. I hope it is supportive for you through this time. xx
Lastly, I’d like to leave you with these beautiful words from writer & herbalist, Brigit Anna McNiel:
“In the dark and invisible world, life thrums.
Deep under the earth, the seeds, covered and fed by all that has been let go of, all that has been given up in offering, are held,
Forming, rooting, opening and shaping.
Within the blackened transformat matter, life begins.
In the death of the old, medicine is born.
All beginnings start in the darkness, in the fecund earth, in the pulsing womb.
It is not spring where life suddenly appears out of nowhere, but now, in these inward months.
Spring is not a saviour of winter days, it is birthed from winter, born because of winter.”
Warmly,
Josea & the Dark Woods Team
https://darkwoodsofgrief.com
Image by Selchauni “Amanita Moons”
