Yule: Renew Your Inner Light

The Winter Solstice/Yule, the longest night of the year, falls in the northern hemisphere on December 21, 2014. During this Dark Night of the Soul, you can draw upon ancient and modern traditions to bring forth your inner light and coax sunlight back into the wintry sky.

Chase Away Your Inner Darkness

Light and dark like good and evil spar unendingly in cyclical battles. As the nights grow longer and the Winter Solstice approaches, darkness reaches it full power. Allow it a moment of victory. Extinguish all candles and turn off all the lights in your room or home. Shift your thoughts inward. Meditate on your losses. Who among your loved ones died this year? What grudges or resentments do you nurse? What habit or relationship do you endure, though it does not serve your highest good?

What are you willing to release?

Identify the darkness you do not wish to carry into the next year. Then ignite a candlewick, burn a Yule log, and/or turn on your house lights. Do so with the intention that you will shed the darkness within you. Write what you wish to release on a slip of paper ¾ flash paper if possible ¾ and burn it in the fire. To enhance candlelight, place the candle(s) beside a mirror or bowl of water. Sprinkle gold glitter to represent the return of the sun.

Bring Forth the Rebirth of the Sun

On the Winter Solstice/Yule a new cycle begins. The Goddess, in her role as the Great Mother, gives birth to the Sun, the Divine Child. The Wheel of the Year turns from death to life. Dance, drum, sing, and feast to encourage the sun’s return. You can also:

1. Create an evergreen wreath to represent the circle of life. (Dates back to the Roman Saturnalia festival held on the winter solstice. The Romans used rosemary, a fragrant plant with magical protective properties.)

2. Hang mistletoe. (Dates back to the druid solstice celebration, Alban Arthan (Light of Winter) or Nuadhulig (New All Heal), when the Chief Druid would use a golden knife to cut the sacred mistletoe from an oak. Two white bulls would be sacrificed, and then the mistletoe would be used in a religious service. After feasting and merrymaking, the mistletoe was hung inside homes or above doors to ward off evil.)
3. Carve from wood a figure or face of an old woman, the Cailleach Nollaich, to represent winter and death. To drive away winter, place the carving on a fire to be fully consumed. (In an ancient Celtic tale, Beira, a blue-faced, slave owning, one-eyed Goddess of Winter, created
   

   Photo Credit: rjshiflet

   the mountains and valleys of northern Scotland. Each year she tried to hold back spring by hammering down green shoots and whacking new buds with a sharp switch. The tradition of creating and destroying the symbolic Cailleach Nollaich figure comes from the Scottish highlands. Traditionally the Cailleach Nollaich or “Christmas Old Wife,” was thrown on the fire on Christmas Eve. A separate Scottish tradition was to burn rowan on Christmas to burn away mistrust and jealousy.)

Lighten your mind, body, and spirit during the Winter Solstice by casting aside the darkness within. Brighten your spirit through merrymaking. Then reach into history’s rich past and adopt a Yule tradition that celebrates renewal, the beginning of a new cycle, and the return of the sun.

©Ariella Moon 2014