December has a way of stripping things down. The light fades early. The mornings feel heavier. Even the air seems to move more slowly. There is no pretending in this kind of cold. No place for the usual masks or the practiced smiles we use to get through the brighter months. December asks for truth. Sometimes it asks for more truth than we feel ready to give.
As the year comes to a close, pressure builds around us. The world tells us to be cheerful, to keep moving, to stay upbeat. But nature does not do that. Nature pulls inward. The trees stand bare and unapologetic. The animals go quiet. The land rests without shame. There is a lesson in that if we let ourselves see it.
Yule comes with talk of the light returning and the sun reborn, but the older I get, the more I feel that the darkness itself is the real teacher. There is something honest about the long nights. Something uncomfortable. Something necessary. This is the time of year when all the things we tried to outrun come walking back to us. The fears. The old wounds. The choices we made and the ones we avoided. They sit with us in the quiet. They ask for recognition. They ask for honesty. They ask to be felt.
The setting sun before a Yule night near Rome. [Image credit: Stefano Ciotti
I used to try to fight that. I used to fill every December with noise and movement, so I did not have to hear what the dark was saying. Now I know better. The dark is the part of the year that tells the truth. The dark is where the real work happens. Seeds do not break open in the sunlight. They break open in the cold, black earth where no one can see them.
This month is an invitation to break open in the same way. Not in a dramatic or beautiful way. In a real way. In the way that says I am tired. In the way that says I want to set this burden down. In the way that lets the soul unclench for the first time in months.
There is a humility that comes with the solstice season. Not the kind of people who perform for social media. The kind that comes from sitting alone in the dark with a candle and admitting to yourself that some things you carried this year have splintered you a little. Some things were never yours to hold in the first place. Some things need to be released before the light returns, or they will follow you into the new year like ghosts.
This time of year is not about pretending everything is fine. It is about telling yourself the truth so that real change can begin. It is about naming what cracked you. It is about naming what healed you. It is about being honest about what you want to become as the days slowly begin to stretch again.
One thing that helps me is choosing one night near Yule and letting myself sit in the deep quiet without music, candles, or ritual. Just me. Just the dark. Just the raw honesty of whatever rises. Some years, I have cried. Some years, I have laughed. Some years, I have felt nothing at all until something inside loosened and began to breathe again. All of it matters. All of it is part of the work.
And when I feel ready, I speak a mantra into the darkness. Something small enough to hold but strong enough to anchor me through the shift into the new year. This is the one that has carried me recently.
I release what dimmed my spirit.
I keep what strengthened my heart.
I walk into the new year with open hands
and a fire that belongs only to me.
December is not gentle, but it is honest. Yule reminds us that the light will return but it never asks us to rush. The dark gives us permission to rest. To feel. To shed. To rebuild. To become the person who will step into the returning sun with a truth that is finally their own.
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