Merry Yule!!

May the returning light at Yule
bring you love, peace, joy and health
with all the best for the coming year.

Merry Yule!
Happy Winter Solstice!

(or Litha / Summer Solstice to my friends in the Southern hemisphere!)

artwork: Cynthia Rudzis

Today I celebrated Yule in a ritual with 3 people from the Olympia group (Marian Green studygroup) at Llwella's place. We each brought some stuff to make an altar and it looked beautiful. Obsidian had written the ritual and divided the roles by drawing lots. I got East / Air. I wrote my evocations in English, but we ended up doing the ritual in Dutch so I improvised. I brought incense and feathers.

We did a guided meditation which for me hit the nail on the head. I don't remember the exact words, but it was about your body. You may not like the way it looks, but it cares for you. It's always there, working for you. Of course I've heard those words before, but somehow it came through this time. I felt my body in a way I rarely feel it and realized I love it regardless of the way it looks. I offered my apologies to my body for the way I treated it in the past and in a way still do... My body showed me a warming light inside me that's always there; I just have to (want to) see it.

After the meditation we carved our own candle with the gift we got in the meditation. I realized the candle is the gift, symbol of the light inside me. I carved little suns in it and two sentences: "My body cares for me" and "I love my body". Together we chanted while blessing and lighting our candles.

We also had a Yule log on the altar. After the ritual we did our offerings in the garden and burned the Yule log. It wasn't a real massive log of wood, but birchwood tied together. That didn't matter though and it burned very good. Afterwards we had a late lunch and some treats.