Offerings #1: Yule '23

A little ritual, five journalling prompts and a song

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I’m trying something new with this edition. I follow the Wheel of the Year, which you can read more about here and here. The Wheel contains eight festivals, one of which is Yule, the Winter Solstice, which happens to be today (well, tomorrow morning at 3.57am GMT). On each of the eight festivals, I share five seasonal journalling prompts via social media. It occurs to me: why not via this newsletter too?

Close up of an ancient Yew tree in Gloucestershire, visited in 2021

The Winter Solstice

Today is the shortest day and the longest night, when the sun stands still (the latin etymology of “solstice” means “still sun”). We rest, finding potency and nourishment in the dark. We bring evergreen plants into our homes, in place of the flowers of Spring and Summer. We use fire and candles to coax back the sun and, with it, the lengthening days.

Yule is my favourite day of the year. I drink in the thin, watery light and hear the call to notice what’s shifted in six months since the last Solstice.

A little ritual

1. Google when sunset is in your location. Take a few minutes to observe it. Say out loud: “we have turned the year”

2. Make a wheel or altar of evergreens to represent everlasting life (yew, holly, pine, mistletoe and ivy are good choices for Yule). A single sprig of holly snipped off a rogue nearby bush will do, or an image of the plant, if getting outside is unavailable to you

3. Light a candle

4. Journal with the five prompts below

5. Speak out loud the seeds you’re inviting. Place your candle in a large bowl of sand or soil and let it burn right down.

Inspired by Glennie Kindred’s The Earth’s Cycle of Celebration.

Five journalling prompts

1. What is your relationship with stillness?

2. What have the recent dark days been trying to teach you?

3. Since the last Solstice, on the 21st June 2023, what has changed for you and the larger social, global systems you’re part of?

4. Inspired by prickly, edge-dwelling holly, what boundaries are you strengthening for the new year?

5. What are you composting, what are you growing, in time for Spring?

A song for the Solstice

Something to journal to. Thanks to

Rūta Žemčugovaitė

for sharing this gorgeousness with me (I highly recommend Ruta’s incredible newsletter

Regenerative Transmissions

).

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