Exploring the Energy of Yule
Wintering. Dreaming. Returning to the Light. Tending the Roots.
Stillness. Inner Hearth. Starry Skies. Hibernation. Frost.
Sacred Pause. Shadow Cradling. Deep Roots. Rest. Sacred Mystery.
Yule: The Longest Night
Blessings on your Winter, Friends…here we are invited to deepen in listening, observation and being with the energies of Winter in and around us.
This is the Season when the Earth rests, guiding us into our own restorative time of being in the fertile darkness of Winter.
We are asked to tend our roots here. To eat warm nourishing foods, to court our dreams and visions, to establish practices of repair and rejuvenation and to feed the inner flame of Being that lights our way in the heart of darkness.
Before we dive in, feel free to tune into my latest YouTube video, The Season of Yule:
Let's weave these ancient energies and apply them to our modern-day experience, and receive these invitations to enliven them as our life experience. In this article, you can find the Herbs of Yule, a seasonal recipe, and a ritual to deepen the medicine of this holiday. To learn more about this holy day, and walk the wheel with me, access my instant download course, Wheel Walkers.
You’re also invited to join me for Selah: Solstice Mysterium, LIVE on Sunday, December 21 at 3pm eastern.
In this mysterium, you will receive teachings and experience around:
Seasonal Wisdom & Medicine of the North
Winter Body Temple Care
Sleep, Dreaming & Visioning
Herbs of the Season
Re-embracing Convalescence
Sleep Hygiene Practices
Power of Rest
Tending the Roots: Nervous System Care
Visioning Experience
BONUS! 12 Nights of Dreaming & Renewal of Creative Path & Seasonal Playlist
May these rhythms, recipes and rituals craft a doorway for deep reclamation and remembrance of who you truly are. Blessings.
The Herbs of Yule
Rosemary
Clove
Sweetgrass
Thyme
Cinnamon
Nutmeg
Allspice
Juniper
Learn more about the herbs of Yule in Wheel Walkers!
Samhain Ritual Practice
Longest Night Vigil
Solstice falls on December 21, and this is a ceremony for you to be with the depth and the dark and to gift ourselves with the beauty and the wisdom of staying up in the dark. Traditionally a vigil was done in community, with lit candles and fire, and we would tell stories to reflect on our place in the greater cycle.
There’s an observation of this that is also akin to experiencing the gifts, the energetic metaphorical and literal physical gifts of the winter season. So done with others or done alone, setting up your space, your winter cave, making a warm bone broth or a vegetable broth, building a fire, lighting a candle, and as light fades that evening from the twilight, refrain from turning on electricity.
State your intention out loud. What is it that you’re sitting for? Perhaps it’s to learn about the gifts of the dark or the night. Reflecting on the unknown, the mystery. The gifts of the unknown, the mysteries of life and death, the birthing of our life including our actual birth, our birth of projects, our birth if we have birthed children, birthing ideas, birthing relationships, tuning in with our relationship to trust, trusting the mystery.
How available are we to letting things go?
What are some of the main questions in your life right now?
What are your main contemplations?
What’s calling you forward?
What is your blessing that you’re holding for yourself and for the world?
How are you called to contribute?
In the morning at the first sign of light – feel, be in the energetic experiencing, feel the relighting of the world, the continuity, the flow, the promise, the renewal, the return. What does the return of the light inspire?
Another modified version of this would be to get up in the pre-dawn hours between 3am and 5am. The yogic philosophy teaches us – and also scientifically – that the tilt of the earth at that time and the flow, the direction of the gamma rays hitting the earth creates the greatest availability for higher consciousness. It’s a powerful time to get up and to do a practice, about 4am or 5am, and move into this experience of contemplation and welcoming the return of the light.
Yule Recipe
Delicious Hot Chocolate
This recipe I have tweaked over the past few years...highly recommend! I change the recipe depending on what I have....you can use water, add a teaspoon of maca, take out the tumeric and black pepper - all according to your taste.
I like this drink in the morning for a little boost.
INGREDIENTS
1 cup milk of choice
1 tablespoon raw cacao powder
1 tablespoon coconut oil
1/4 tsp vanilla
Splash of maple syrup to taste
Pinch of sea salt
dash of cinnamon
*Optional: smidge of nutmeg for flavor or cayenne for extra warming kick
Warm it all up on the stove, run through the blender and heat back up if necessary.