12/21/2025
"May the longest night shroud you in an exquisite, winter cloak woven from crow feathers, hope, and mistletoe, carefully stitched by a faithful, heathen crone who invited you to sit at her solstice fire. May you find a midnight home there, steeped in clove-and-evergreen belonging, deep in the dark and holy womb where the yet-to-come is nested.
May she bid you bless the Yule log with your breath and a rosemary sprig, and may you bring her an offering of story in return, telling her of those quiet moments from last year when joy found you and made you suddenly whole, when grief tenderized your rough and forgotten places, and when you woke with a mysterious childlike hope in your heart.
May she brew you a home-cooked remedy for your human aches from pine smoke, elder wisdom, and cinnamon, and may she sing you soft songs in a language some part of your ancient soul remembers. Together, may you dream each other into being one pagan prayer at a time, and may you make a memory so mighty it sets time and space to shake, sends the dream sensuously swelling with the primal, promising pulse of new beginnings and infinite possibilities.
May this fire-glow Yule be your initiation into a not-yet-named coven of poetry-hungry beasts and creaturely beloveds who ache like you ache, and may this dream-vision ceremony birth your wildest year yet.
And so it is."
A Wintertide Blessing by Danielle Dulsky
Image by Hannah Willow
