This week we published a gathering of rituals, songs, podcast episodes, witchcrafts, and offerings for moving through the solstice season — with chosen family, with the land, or quietly alone.
As ever, this is an anti-capitalist, nature-loving approach to the wreaths of twisting light and dark, gift and greed, presence and grief. Not a performance. Not a purchase. An orientation.
We hope you feel our love in it.
Bright solstice, friends.
Reflection
The solstice does not ask us to be radiant.
It asks us to be attentive.
Across most of human history, winter was a season of listening — to the body, to the dark, to the stories held by firelight and breath. These practices are not about transcendence or escape. They are about staying. About keeping company with what is alive when the lights go out.
What follows are rituals of orientation. They help us trace ourselves toward one another, toward the land, and toward the quiet where something older than productivity can still speak.
Rituals for the Longest Night
Take a breath. Let the weight of consumption and perfectionism fall from your shoulders. These are invitations to play with the sacred.
A Simmer Pot for Health and Good Spirits
Fill a pot with water and add citrus peels, spices, and respectful plant matter. Let it simmer, filling your home with scent and warmth. This is practical, ancestral magic: tending air, mood, and attention.
Sit in the Dark
Turn off lights, screens, and background noise. Let darkness become a space of attention.
99.9% of humanity lived this way. Firelight, moonlight, starlight — darkness isn’t empty; it carries texture, sound, and presence. Black isn’t evil; it’s alive. A twist in the spiral. Stay long enough to feel yourself dissolve into it. You are not required to perform.
Candle and Witness
Light one candle. Watch how light behaves in the dark. Notice the interplay of shadow and illumination. This is not about banishing darkness, but keeping company with it.
Writing and Mark-Making Without Looking
With a beloved pen or drawing tool and a large sheet of paper, work in the dark or by a single candle. Using your non-dominant hand, trace, write, or draw without aiming for meaning. Set the page where you will see it in the morning. Free-write about what you notice as you imagine and feel the light returning.
Sound as Seasonal Orientation
Sing carols or galdr — chant, hum, or yell — into a glass of water. Drum, rattle, or use breath and hands. Let sound move through the dark without structure. Sound has always helped humans find one another in winter. Say I am here. Mark presence.
Walk a Spiral
In a yard or park, in snow or sand, make a large spiral. Walk slowly to the centre. Speak to it. Leave what you need to leave. Walk back out just as slowly.
→ You can find the full collection of rituals, songs, and practices here:
Winter Solstice Rituals and Yule Practices for the Longest Nights
✺ Solstice Offerings
2025 Solstice Special (Click HERE on Sunday!)
A dedicated space to name what makes this year’s solstice different — the threshold we’re crossing together, and what we’re carrying forward.
The Missing Witches Yule Carol
A seasonal offering — a song for dark kitchens, long walks, and voices joining without rehearsal.
(These sit here as living offerings — to be returned to across the season, not consumed once and set aside.)
Prescription
Turn something off.
Light something small.
Make a sound that says I am still here.
Let the dark keep you company without asking it to explain itself.
Closing Blessing
May you be held by the longest night.
May you feel the slow certainty of the return.
May what you offer be enough — because it already is.
Bright solstice.
