Dancing Shadows

Yuletide hope and foreboding joy

Photo by Anne Nygård on Unsplash

“There’s something about this time of year,” writes Susan Pesznecker in Yule: Rituals, Recipes, and Lore for the Winter Solstice:

something about winter and Yule that pulls deep at my heartstrings, making me want to celebrate out loud one moment and retreat to a quiet corner the next. To me, this is a most magickal time of year; it’s a time when Mother Earth goes quiet, yet if we listen really carefully, we can still hear her heart beating. It’s a profound and important time to curl up and engage in the solitary act of contemplation as we embrace what should be a natural time of sleep. It’s also time to honor the real and spiritual “dark” and to rejoice in the return of the light, celebrating and passing traditions with friends and family.¹

I love everything about this time of year. I love the sparkle of Christmas lights in the early darkness, the smell of baking cookies and fresh cut evergreen, the delicate loveliness of each unique snowflake, the building excitement of finding and hiding gifts as I imagine the pleasure of giving them to the people I love. The foods, the decorations, the music, the traditions of the season (new and ancient), even the tug-of-war between rest and celebration—I love it all. Last year I wrote in depth about Yuletide traditions and ideas for celebrating, that post newly unlocked for all readers here:

Newborn Sun

In recent years, as I’ve undertaken the work of repairing my damaged nervous system and recognizing my need for special care during the darker months, it is the “Endarkenment” of the season that I have felt most drawn to: curling up and wintering with a book, tea, a journal, a crochet project, my own thoughts and fears and dreams. This year is feeling different to me, in a way I have struggled to express even to myself. But this I know:

Few things are more terrifying than answered prayer.

On Samhain (Halloween), the beginning of the agricultural winter and the “Witch’s New Year,” I gathered up every scrap left of my faith and lit a candle. Preparation for a ritual is a time of clearing the mind and focusing the intent, and so I took my time in gathering materials and cleansing the space. Kneeling before my altar I cast a circle, banishing all negative energy—including the seeping acid of my old feelings of anger and betrayal, the residue of too many unanswered prayers—and drawing positive energy into the space around me. Casting a circle, for me, is like donning a formal robe or a crown; it elevates my words and actions, transforming each into something holy. I needed the ritual on this day, at this most magical time of year, for I had a great need to be heard. Candle lit, sage burning, I anointed myself and the little Goddess figure standing in my succulent garden, closed my eyes, spread my hands, and presented my request with all the desperation of ten years of hardship and struggle: A new job…a fresh start…PLEASE.

I wasn’t entirely sure who I was asking, or if the ritual was necessary to the request, but it felt right. I kept asking, letting my need show, letting the tears come. The position of supplicant is an uncomfortable one, even with nobody around to witness. To be “in need” feels too much like weakness, like shame, and yet I felt neither. Only children believe that good fortune comes to those who deserve it, but we’ve been through so much in the last decade that I couldn’t help feeling owed. Irrational as the thought might be, it gave me strength. Was I asking, or demanding? I didn’t care. We needed a change. We needed a chance to breathe, to relax, to thrive. It was time. I closed the circle and stood up feeling calm, empowered. It would be all right.