Yesterday I participated in a sacred circle dance where we honored Yule and the winter solstice.

The sun set at 4:16pm yesterday so we lit a fire in our fireplace in the evening. I had a memory of how much we really wanted a fireplace when we were house hunting. (Our first house did not have one.) We only use our fireplace occasionally, but it IS special to have an an indoor fire on these longest, darkest nights of the year.

As the embers burned down, I made myself two s’mores for dessert.

And now, on Winter Solstice morning (December 21) it is still pitch black at 6:30am and I’m awaiting the replay of the livestream of the ancient chamber at Newgrange in Ireland, which we visited in June. (I wasn’t up at at 3:40am to watch it live.) We saw a demonstration of how the sun lights up the inner chamber on the solstice when we were there, but I want to see the real version.

Finally, if you missed this year’s Lucia Morning broadcast from Visby, Sweden on St. Lucia Day (December 13), it’s a great thing to experience during these dark long nights. I watch it every year. The second children’s choir (the younger kids in the adorable wool coats and sweaters) are particularly enchanting.

Wishing all of my fellow Northern Hemisphere dwellers a light in the darkness this December solstice day. It only gets brighter from here.

🔥