Roots, Memory, and the Quiet Turning Toward Light

Yule always feels like a softer doorway into winter.

The Solstice is the deep night, the ancient turning,

and Yule is the warm breath that follows.

It is the moment when the world is still dark,

but something inside you knows a shift has already begun.

I always feel it in small ways.

In the way the morning light sits a little different on the floor.

In the way my body loosens just enough to notice it.

In the remembering that my ancestors watched this same slow return of sun

long before I ever learned the word for it.

Yule carries the feeling of an old memory.

Not one you can name,

just one you recognize.

A sense of gathering close.

A sense of tending the quiet.

A sense of holding warmth in a time the world wants to rush past.

Sometimes the most important work of this season

is simply allowing yourself to soften.

To lean into the things that steady you.

To let the small rituals hold you in ways words cannot.

A candle lit on a quiet morning.

A familiar song playing in the kitchen.

A cup of something warm in your hands

while the day decides how it wants to unfold.

These tiny moments root you.

They remind you that you belong not just to this life,

but to a long, unbroken line of people

who learned to survive winter with heart and intention.

This is not the season of grand change.

It is the season of gentle turning.

One breath.

One steadying thought.

One quiet act of care that says,

I am still here,

and I am still becoming.

As the light returns one minute at a time,

you are returning too.

Not in a loud way.

Not in a rushed way.

Just in the simple, honest way a person does

when they finally give themselves permission

to rest and rise at the same time.

Tonight, I am choosing to honor the small things that anchor me.

The roots I came from.

The memory of what it means to turn toward the light

even when I cannot feel it yet.

And the quiet truth that healing often begins

in the dark,

long before the world notices the glow.