The winter solstice (21st Dec) or Yule marks the longest night of the year and the shortest day. My children and I really feel tired at this time of year in the, first slow and then fast descent to the solstice, when every morning it seems a drag to get out of bed, and we feel intrinsically in our bones that we need rest!
So we often tell a story from the book: ‘Circle Round’ by Starhawk, given to me by a dear friend. This book is packed full of songs, stories and rituals you can use with your family to mark key points in the calendar which have always been part of our psyche: the Spring and Autumn Equinoxes (when day and night are of equal length), the Summer Solstice and Winter Solstice (Yule), the end of Winter, the blooming of Spring, harvest time, and the night of the dead.
Tuning into where we are in this cycle; to our relationship with the earth and its creatures and what is happening in nature gives a sense of calm often missing in this season. Here is an extract from a story about the Winter Solstice in ‘Circle Round’ by Starhawk. The story is called: ‘The Rebirth of the Sun’ and tells the story of a tired sun. Night feels sorry for the sun and wraps her in his great arms so that she can rest and in the morning be reborn:
‘Circle round, and I’ll tell you a story about when the sun was born again… It was the middle of winter, and the sun had grown very old. All year long the sun had fed everybody on earth, shining and shining, giving energy to the trees and the flowers and the grasses so they could grow and feed the animals and birds and insects and people. All year the sun’s gravity held tight to the spinning ball of the earth and the twirling ball of the moon and the eight other whirling planets as they traveled around and around and around, until the poor sun could barely make it up in the morning…’
‘Why does the dark go on so long?’ asked children all over the earth.
It seems sometimes that this is the darkest time of the year in more ways than one. It is the time when many people are affected by SAD. It is a time when we burrow deeper into ourselves. We’d rather stay in and bake and keep our slippers on. It feels natural to slow down; we need to find the warmth and the light within. Yet it can be a time of fear; it can feel uncomfortable to have our patterns and habits disrupted; in winter, water can be held and frozen and sometimes not released until Spring. We have to trust that the darkness will end; that the sun will come back, and the frozen waters will melt; that we will be free to dance again. We have to trust that this is a necessary part of the process.
And so in the story, on the longest night of the year, the children sing to the sun; they sing to remember their need for the light and all that is good which comes from the sun’s warmth and rays: our food, our breath; our life. And on this longest night of the year, finally, when they feel like they can’t go on any longer in this darkness, the circle turns and the ascent begins; the sun is born again.
Related Workshops & Classes
Friday 17th Dec 2021 (7.30-9.30pm) £15: Yoga on the Winter Solstice
Saturday 1st Jan 2022 (9.30am-12.30pm) £30: 1/2 Day New Year’s Women’s Yoga Workshop: Setting our intentions
Further Reading
Circle Round: Raising Children in Goddess Traditions by Starhawk