Stones for the Season: Yuletide

by Sarah Lyn

Stone has a beautiful language. Anyone who has ever had a rock jump out at them has heard it. Pick me! Pick me! Before you know it, you have either slipped it into a pocket, or you find yourself holding it in your hand, uncertain of how long it has been there.

Deep stone sleeps but the closer to the surface it gets, the more connected it is to us and our life cycles. Some rocks just want to introduce themselves and have a conversation. Some rocks will bite and want to be left alone. And some rocks have been looking for you to take them on a quest to some unknown corner of the world they have only heard about in the whispers of the deepest bedrock (even if that’s just your front yard).

[ALWAYS respect places that ask you NOT to take their rocks.]

The Trio

Clear Quartz, Selenite, Citrine

Different stones I encounter have different energies to them. Each sabbat, I put together a trio of stones to focus on for the following six weeks. It’s divination to me. I reach out into the web and see where we are in the world, creating a recipe of stone allies, and then I send that energy back out into the web.

I don’t usually use the same grouping of stones every year, but a couple of times I have. I will work with these ones in my night meditations until the next sabbat, sometimes individually and sometimes as a group.

The stones I chose for Yule this year are: Clear Quartz, Citrine, and Selenite.


Quartz

If they’re familiar with crystals, most people are familiar with Quartz, a hard mineral composed of silica. It’s a crystal that everyone can tap into and connect with. It comes in a wide variety of flavors, so to speak, but I am working specifically with Clear Quartz. Many beloveds in my life right now are seeking the kind of clarity and focus that Quartz offers. I think about Quartz like this… I have a friend who went hiking on the glaciers in Alaska and on the journey they drank some of the running water from the center of a glacier. She tells me that we have not tasted real water yet… I believe her. Quartz is like that for me— a powerful crystallizer of intent. 

See clearly, it says to me.


Citrine

Another stone most people are familiar with is purple Amethyst. This year, I chose its kin Citrine, a yellow crystal. When Amethyst is exposed to extreme heat and pressure over time, it becomes Citrine. You can often find pieces of Ametrine, showing both purple and yellow coloring.

Citrine is rare in its natural form. Most Citrine on the market is heat-treated Amethyst. Still technically Citrine, and much more affordable, but not nature-made. And most heat-treated versions turn a dense yellow-brown.

As another variety of quartz, Citrine joined with Clear Quartz radiates joy and opens the mind for new beginnings. If Quartz is a focuser, then Citrine is its laser pointer. I associate it with the solar plexus chakra, and as a stone of decisiveness and courage. On the longest night of the year, it is a useful tool against the darkness.

Strike the match within, it whispers steadily.


Selenite

A favorite stone of mine is Selenite. It is made of gypsum and its structure is 70% water. And like water, it helps you with letting things go. I associate this stone with the emotional body and often use it for healing. It also looks like ice and is helpful in soothing energies associated with stressful family scenarios at the holidays. I decorate heavily with them and they feel peaceful. Even though they are constant workers, I associate them with the joyful stillness of the season.

Float with the current, it says.

Together this trio creates a peaceful clarity. They also remind me of light we carry through the darkness as we wrestle and/or dance with our shadows, and wait for the days to lengthen.

For Advanced Work

If you want to go deeper into this season? I recommend using a piece of Rutilated Quartz during vigil on the longest night of the year. There’s definitely a plethora of quartz this season, but it feels important to this year’s transition. The rutile inclusions are a mineral called Sagenite, which amplifies the Quartz energy. It’s an excellent stone for divination and for peering into the unknown while planning the next step on your path.

A Grief Balm

If your heart is heavy with grief this season, I would normally recommend keeping Rose Quartz nearby. But the holidays can be so heavy and may need something stronger. This year, I recommend Jade, a solid to translucent green silicate mineral. It can also be found in other colors but is most commonly known as green. It is a powerful heart protection stone, which fortifies your spirit at the same time as it works defensive magic.

[Notes from Sarah Lyn: I never purchase rocks from people who do not know where they are sourced from. It’s important to know where your rocks come from so you can make informed decisions about where to put your money. For those of us buying tumbled stones at rock shows, we’re picking up the chips of what has already been cut from the earth, we are not part of the demand that influences the mining world. But know where your stones come from.]

All photos © Sarah Lyn

Heathen Holidays: Mothers’ Night

Trey Wentworth

This is the first blog post in a series on the topic of Heathen Holidays.

The season of Yule is upon us, and though many pagans share the word yule these days, celebrations by the same name may differ widely from one tradition to the next. Here we’ll be talking about how Heathens celebrate Yule, particularly traditions practiced by the Chase Hill community in Vermont.

In Heathenry, Yule is always a multi-day celebration. (Ever hear of the twelve days of Christmas? That wasn’t a Christian innovation!) Historically, it may have been celebrated for a span of days, weeks, or even months! Many modern Heathens celebrate Yule starting at sundown the night before the winter solstice and ending at sundown on January 1st. This holiday marks the ending of one year and the beginning of the next – with the span of 12 or 13 days belonging to neither, but instead a potent in-between time for resting and setting intentions for the coming year.

The first night of Yule is often called Mothers’ Night after the Old English tradition as recorded by the Venerable Bede. This is a time when we honor all the goddesses and female ancestors – the Good Ladies – when they at last take a break from their yearly work and wander the earth, traveling from home to home during the night. As the start of the almost two-week Yule celebration, it is also the time when we bless and ward our homes to protect them from the many dangerous beings that live in the long dark nights between years.

Celebrating Mothers’ Night

Leading up to Mothers’ Night there is a flurry of house cleaning. When the host of the Good Ladies comes, we want our homes to be orderly, and it is customary to finish all fiber arts projects before they arrive. Because spinning, weaving, and other crafts are so sacred to the Good Ladies, we set them aside for the span of Yule and don’t pick up new projects until the New Year. Working on fiber arts while the Good Ladies themselves take a break from that work would be hubris indeed! All this should be done before the sun sets, signaling the start of the Yule holiday.

Once the house is clean, all your knitting projects are done for the year, and night has fallen, it is time to bless the house. We “kindle fires in every corner of the house” by turning on every light – even that rarely used closet or basement light. Light every candle and oil lamp that is out and in use (you don’t have to pull out that backup box of 20 tapers and light them all!), and turn on all your flashlights. Any woodstoves or fire places should be lit – even if only by an electric tealight. The house should be fairly glowing in contrast to the dark winter night. Then gather up some bells (yes, bells!) and step outside to recite this prayer to all the unseen beings that move through the night between years:

Come those who wish to come,
stay those who wish to stay,
and fare those who wish to fare,
harmless to me and mine.

(adapted from Our Troth, vol. II, Second Edition, compiled by Kveldulf Gundarsson)

Ring your bells and walk a circle around your house, welcoming in good luck and all kindly spirits, while driving away bad luck and any beings that mean you harm. When you are finished, your house is blessed, and you can turn off all the extra lights and blow out the candles (make sure you don’t forget any!)

For a holiday dinner, I often make dishes that fit the theme of the Good Ladies – potage bonne femme (a French leek and potato soup whose name means “soup of the good woman”) and hexenschnee (a Dutch dessert of applesauce, gelatin, and whipped egg whites called “witches’ snow”) are two of my favorites.

And beyond feeding ourselves, it is also time to feed the spirits. On Yule eve, the house spirits of the Heathen world are given their yearly pay in the form of cream porridge — with a big dollop of butter on top. The hob, tomte, nisse, or whatever regional name you use for the being that protects your home will find your offering if you place it on the hearth or the doorstep. If your house spirit isn’t particularly hungry and the bowl is still full in the morning, the contents can go to your garden via the compost.

Lastly, before bed, we lay out the Feast of the Good Ladies, because tonight they will come to the house, checking to see that all is in order and all spinning for the year is finished, and we must welcome such august guests with a meal. This food stays on the table until morning when we eat it ourselves for breakfast, taking in the blessing of all those kindly spirits as the first act on the first morning of Yule. It is important to leave the food uncovered so the Good Ladies can take part in the feast and lay their blessing on it. But be aware that some breakfast foods don’t survive well exposed to warm, drying air for hours. This is a great time for foods with rinds, peels, or crusts – fruit (a bowl of apples or clementines), cheeses (which are often stored unrefrigerated in countries outside the US), and uncut loaves of bread, pies, or pastries. There are some European recipes such as the Italian La Befana Cake that do well sitting out, as they are made for traditions just like these in their areas of origin (la Befana is an Italian witch who similarly enters homes looking for a meal, though she rides at Epiphany on January 6 — a date in common with some other Heathen versions of this practice, especially in the Urglaawe tradition).

However you celebrate it, here’s wishing you all the blessings of Yule, and all the protection of family, home, laughter, and light in this dark time of year.

Recommended Books for Yule

Recommended Books for Yule

by Sarah Rosehill

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in 2020. We decided to run it again with some additions. If you have your own titles to recommend, please drop them in the comments.

At our December Stories of the Season event, we featured some wonderful books for Yule and the winter season that focus on nature and pagan traditions, and we wanted to share that list along with a few other favorites in a way that would be easy to find later!

The Tomten by Astrid Lindgren (and the sequel, The Tomten and the Fox)
These lovely, lyrical stories are based on the poetry of Swedish Romanticist Viktor Rydberg and feature the Tomten (a little gnome-like being) going through a farm and reassuring the animals that spring will come. This one is appropriate as young as 2 and enjoyable for much longer.

Sun Bread by Elisa Kleven
This rhyming book tells about a baker who makes “sun bread: to lure the sun back to the skies after a long streak of wintery weather and includes a recipe you can try at home. (We did; it’s pretty good!) Also aimed at the preschool set, this has colorful illustrations of a town filled with animals of all types.

Grandmother Winter by Phyllis Root
This story for young children tells of Grandmother Winter, who lives alone with her flock of geese, and how she makes and then shakes a quilt to bring the snow. It has beautiful illustrations by Caldecott Medalist Beth Krommes and shows what people do when the snow happens and then how Grandmother Winter passes the winter herself.

Cozy by Jan Brett
A musk ox grows a thick winter coat and several animal friends come to shelter in it through the winter, requiring an increasing number of “house rules” that will sound familiar to any parent: quiet voices, gentle thumping, claws to yourself. This book is a little longer and aimed at the 3-5 year old set. Other Jan Brett winter favorites in my family include The Mitten, which is a shorter story about animals climbing into a mitten to keep warm (and comes in a board book for toddlers!), and The Snowy Nap featuring a hedgehog who desperately wants to stay awake to see the winter.

Owl Moon by Jane Yolen
This meditative book follows a young child on her first owling trip with her father. It’s longer — probably best for kids 5-8 — and evokes a peaceful, flexible relationship with the natural world. Sometimes there’s an owl and sometimes there’s not!

Solstice Badger by Robin McFadden
This longer book for early elementary schoolers tells the story of how the solstice and seasons came to be. The sun is lonely and finds a true friend, and then begins to spend more and more time out of the sky with his friend. When he realizes what he has done, his friend brings the problem to Grandmother Pine, who gives wise and measured advice.

The Shortest Day by Susan Cooper
This is a beautiful illustrated version of the beloved poem: “And so the shortest day came and the year died/and everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world/came people singing, dancing/to drive the dark away.” We read it every year in my family!


Added in 2022

Old Mother Frost by Jennifer Hartman
“Old Mother Frost is a Yuletide story of an ancient Norse goddess who sleeps all year long, waking only to make sure children are happy, healthy, and festive during the longest and coldest nights of the year.”

Sky Sisters by Jan Bourdeau Waboose (not properly a solstice story, this is a beautiful winter tale)
“Two Ojibway sisters set off across the frozen north country to see the SkySpirits’ midnight dance. It isn’t easy for the younger sister to be silent, but gradually she begins to treasure the stillness and the wonderful experiences it brings. After an exhilarating walk and patient waiting, the girls are rewarded by the arrival of the SkySpirits — the northern lights — dancing and shimmering in the night sky. This powerful story, with its stunning illustrations, captures the chill of a northern night, the warmth of the family circle and the radiance of a child’s wonder.”

The Shortest Day: Celebrating the Winter Solstice by Wendy Pfeffer
“Looking at both the science of the winter solstice and the history of how it has been celebrated by various cultures throughout history, this book will inspire a new understanding of this special time of year.”

The Winter Solstice by Ellen Jackson
“The beginning of winter is marked by the solstice, the shortest day of the year. Long ago, people grew afraid when each day had fewer hours of sunshine than the day before. Over time, they realized that one day each year the sun started moving toward them again. In lyrical prose and cozy illustrations, this book explains what the winter solstice is and how it has been observed by various cultures throughout history. Many contemporary holiday traditions were borrowed from ancient solstice celebrations.”


Do you have a favorite we haven’t included here? We’d love your contributions to this list in the comments!

Yule Book Flood

Yule Book Flood

Katie LaFond

Editor’s Note: Katie LaFond began the Jolabokaflod tradition for the EarthSpirit Community in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic — when most of us were isolating and unable to see each other in person — as a way of connecting as community. She wrote this two years ago, but just recently submitted for publication. This is the third year (2022) that Katie has run an EarthSpirit Jolabokaflod. 2022’s Book Flood is underway! If you haven’t had a chance to participate and are interested in it for next year, watch the EarthSpirit Facebook Group and Page for information and sign up right around Samhain.


December 2020

This year was unlike any other, so I shared one of my family’s traditions with the community, in the hopes that it brought some joy to your homes.

Jolabokaflod (Yule Book Flood) started in Iceland during World War II, a time of rationing for many people. Paper was one of the few things that wasn’t rationed, so people gave each other books. Today, the tradition as I understand it, is that people give each other gift-wrapped books and on Christmas Eve they stay up all night reading them and eating chocolate. This is definitely a tradition I can get behind. If you’re interested in learning more about the Icelandic tradition, there are many wonderful resources available.

My ancestry is from all over, but the grandparent I was closest to (and who survived long enough for me to have deep conversations with) was Scandinavian. While my family identifies as American, I have always been fond of Scandinavian traditions, and they’ve made my winter seasons so much happier and fulfilling living in the Hills of Western Massachusetts.

I’m a fan of traditions and have built many with my young family. We have a prayer we say at each meal, we have an annual Dumb Supper at Samhain, and we love Jolabokaflod. Simply put, we give each other books on Yule eve and sit by the woodstove in our jammies, eating chocolate and reading them late into the night. We wake up in puppy piles, kindle a Yule fire, and sing up the sun eating cinnamon buns and drinking spiced coffee.

This year it was my pleasure to extend our tradition to all of you. We each found a book in our homes that we had read and enjoyed and were ready to send on to someone else who might enjoy it. We signed up with a google form, I organized an exchange, and sent out names, addresses, and genre requests to each person. Despite some shipping delays, most people ended up with a book to tuck into, with a mug of hot chocolate perhaps, and a quiet evening of enjoying a good book.

Here are the books that we sent each other this year, in alphabetical order. 

Title. Author (genre, if listed)

  • Assassin’s Apprentice. Robin Hobb (fantasy)
  • Beggars in Spain. Nancy Kress (sci fi)
  • Blink. Malcolm Gladwell (nonfiction/science)
  • Blood Heir (Kate Daniels series). Ilona Andrews (fantasy/romance)
  • Braiding Sweetgrass. Robin Wall Kimmerer (nonfiction/spiritual)
  • Caste: the origins of Our Discontents. Isabel Wilkerson (non fiction)
  • Chronicles of Chrestomanci Volume I. Diana Wynne Jones (fantasy)
  • Code Talker. Chester Nez
  • Do What You Want: the story of Bad Religion. Jim Ruland (non fiction/memoir)
  • Dreamblood: The Killing Moon. N.K. Jemisin (fantasy)
  • Dreamblood: The Shadowed Sun. N.K. Jemisin (fantasy)
  • Fledgling.Sharon Lee and Steve Miller
  • Flesh and Fire. Laura Anne Gilman (fantasy)
  • Free Play. Stephen Nachmanovitch (nonfiction/art)
  • Hex Appeal. PN Elrod (anthology)
  • How To Be ultra Spiritual. JP Sears (comedy)
  • Howl’s Moving Castle. Diana Wynne Jones (fantasy)
  • Love the World. Todd Parr (board book for ages 0-3)
  • Mind of the Raven. Bernd Heinrich (science)
  • Minecraft Dungeons: The Rise of the Arch-Illager. Matt Forbeck (young adult/fan fic)
  • My Abuelita. Tony Johnson (kids book)
  • Norse Mythology According to Uncle Einar. Jane Sibley (comedy, Norse mythology)
  • Pagan Consent Culture. Edited by Christine Hoff Kraemer and Yvonne Aburrow (non fiction)
  • Press Here. Herve Tullet (board book for ages 0-3)
  • Prodigal Summer. Barbara Kingsolver
  • Quarantine and Constellations. Katie LaFond (kindle book, memoir)
  • Rosemary and Rue. Seanan McGuire (fantasy)
  • Songs of the Seven Gelfling Clans. J.M. Lee (fantasy)
  • The Buried Giant. Kazuo Ishiguro
  • The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge. Jeremy Narby, Ph.D. (nonfiction/science)
  • The Divine Thunderbolt. Jane Sibley (nonfiction/spiritual)
  • The Hammer of the Smith. Jane Sibley (historical fiction)
  • The Lies of Locke Lamora. Scott Lunch (fantasy)
  • The Long Lasting Love of Lady and Lord: The Bonding. Darrell A Roberts
  • The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. Agatha Christie (Mystery)
  • The Mystery of Mercy Close. Marian Keyes (mystery)
  • The Night Circus. Erin Morgenstern (fantasy)
  • The Night Fairy. Laura Amy Schmitz (children’s fantasy)
  • The Rakess. Scarlet Peckham (romance)
  • The Shortest Day. Susan Cooper (picture book/poetry)
  • The Way of the Wise. Jane Sibley (nonfiction/spiritual)
  • The Wishing Spell. Chris Colfer (fantasy)
  • The Word for World is Forest. Ursula K Le Guin
  • Tigana. Guy Gavriel Kay (fantasy)
  • Trace: memory, history, race and the American landscape. Lauret Savoy (memoir/travelogue/science)
  • Twelfth Night. Shakespeare (drama)
  • Wild. Cheryl Strayed (non-fiction memoir, semi-spiritual)

Recommended Books for Yule

by Sarah Rosehill

At our December Stories of the Season event, we featured some wonderful books for Yule and the winter season that focus on nature and pagan traditions, and we wanted to share that list along with a few other favorites in a way that would be easy to find later!

Photo by Leah Kelly from Pexels

The Tomten by Astrid Lindgren (and the sequel, The Tomten and the Fox)
These lovely, lyrical stories are based on the poetry of Swedish Romanticist Viktor Rydberg and feature the Tomten (a little gnome-like being) going through a farm and reassuring the animals that spring will come. This one is appropriate as young as 2 and enjoyable for much longer.

Sun Bread by Elisa Kleven
This rhyming book tells about a baker who makes “sun bread: to lure the sun back to the skies after a long streak of wintery weather and includes a recipe you can try at home. (We did; it’s pretty good!) Also aimed at the preschool set, this has colorful illustrations of a town filled with animals of all types.

Grandmother Winter by Phyllis Root
This story for young children tells of Grandmother Winter, who lives alone with her flock of geese, and how she makes and then shakes a quilt to bring the snow. It has beautiful illustrations by Caldecott Medalist Beth Krommes and shows what people do when the snow happens and then how Grandmother Winter passes the winter herself.

Cozy by Jan Brett
A musk ox grows a thick winter coat and several animal friends come to shelter in it through the winter, requiring an increasing number of “house rules” that will sound familiar to any parent: quiet voices, gentle thumping, claws to yourself. This book is a little longer and aimed at the 3-5 year old set. Other Jan Brett winter favorites in my family include The Mitten, which is a shorter story about animals climbing into a mitten to keep warm (and comes in a board book for toddlers!), and The Snowy Nap featuring a hedgehog who desperately wants to stay awake to see the winter.

Owl Moon by Jane Yolen
This meditative book follows a young child on her first owling trip with her father. It’s longer — probably best for kids 5-8 — and evokes a peaceful, flexible relationship with the natural world. Sometimes there’s an owl and sometimes there’s not!

Solstice Badger by Robin McFadden
This longer book for early elementary schoolers tells the story of how the solstice and seasons came to be. The sun is lonely and finds a true friend, and then begins to spend more and more time out of the sky with his friend. When he realizes what he has done, his friend brings the problem to Grandmother Pine, who gives wise and measured advice.

The Shortest Day by Susan Cooper
This is a beautiful illustrated version of the beloved poem: “And so the shortest day came and the year died/and everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world/came people singing, dancing/to drive the dark away.” We read it every year in my family!

Do you have a favorite we haven’t included here? We’d love your contributions to this list in the comments!