Winter Solstice, Sacred Smoke, and the Art of Beginning Slowly
The Winter Solstice is my favorite High Holy Day in my honoring of the seasonal turns of the wheel. A time to honor the darkness, embrace the slowing down that our bodies naturally feel and at the same time celebrating the returning of the light. It's a period of allowing ourselves to release what is no longer serving us to make space for going into a deep dreaming and visioning time, to REALLY feel what wants to be nourished as we emerge into Spring. The magic of the Solstice is subtle...unless of course you are ready to really burn away a lot of things that don't serve you. I have done that in years past and now I am in a place where there is very little in my life that doesn't serve me and my life has moved more into how can I serve others. That is the blessing of doing this type of seasonal honoring and living within the cycles, year after year, I grow and transform, and I simplify. Through this work I have moved into a place of surrendering to the beauty of life and my experiences and a discontinuing of striving, forcing, "crushing goals" and are able to celebrate each and every step on the journey, in present time. My biggest dream in my sacred work is to see all women more towards that place of allowing and recognizing the magic in all of life, not just the huge goals.
The Winter Solstice is subtle because we intellectually know it is the first day of winter, and so we think about the "long, dark winter" because it has just begun. But the truth is, each and every day after the Solstice more daylight begins to return...and we often don't even notice. We don't start to notice the light again until we change the clock, because the light becomes much more apparent and the weather is getting warmer. I happen to love ALL the seasons in their own way, but there is something about being in the dark womb of winter that I adore. I give myself permission to slow down, to dream, to be. Although, admittedly by the end I am pretty done with winter and so very ready for Spring.
The Still Point of the Wheel
This year the Solstice occurs on December 21st, but traditionally these were celebrations that lasted over several days and even weeks.Across cultures and continents, humans have always known this moment. Long before productivity apps and electric light, our ancestors felt the pause. The inhale. The turning.
The Winter Solstice marks the longest night and the quiet rebirth of the sun—a cosmic reminder that light does not conquer darkness, it emerges from it. This is not the flashy light of high summer. This is the soft, almost imperceptible light that returns one breath at a time.
In the ancient world, this moment was not rushed past. It was kept. These are a few of the many celebrations from around the world. I encourage you to research the celebrations from the lands of your ancestors.
• In Northern Europe, Yule honored the rebirth of the Sun Child.
• In Persia, Yalda Night celebrated Mithra’s return.
• In the Andes, Inti Raymi marked the solar turning.
• And in Italy—my ancestral soil—the people honored Saturnalia.
Even though many modern cultures have let go of these seasonal honorings, Indigenous peoples of the Americas have kept them alive through living tradition—holding deep, place-based relationships with the Sun, the land, and the turning of time. Across many Nations, the Winter Solstice is understood not as something to conquer, but as a sacred pause: a moment of listening, recalibration, and collective alignment with the natural world. We honor this wisdom with respect and humility, while remembering that it is not ours to replicate, but to learn from—by doing the work of remembering our own ancestral ways of honoring the seasons. I offer this reflection in gratitude to the Arapahoe and Ute peoples, on whose lands I live and work, and whose enduring stewardship and ceremonial relationships with place continue to teach what it means to live in right relationship with Earth, time, and the unseen.
Saturnalia: Sacred Mischief & Ancestral Memory
This is one of the celebrations from my ancestry. Saturnalia was and still is a festival of inversion, rest, and radical release. Dedicated to Saturn, god of agriculture, time, and cycles, it was a ritual pause in the Roman world. Work stopped. Hierarchies softened and it is said that this was a time when the royals switched roles with the servants. Gifts were exchanged. Laughter and feasting were considered sacred acts.
But beneath the revelry was something older and deeper:
a collective exhale.
Saturn—associated with limits, bones, boundaries, and time itself—rules the wisdom that comes after effort. Saturnalia honored the truth that rest is not laziness; it is cosmic intelligence. A remembering that the soil must lie fallow for anything to grow.
If you feel this Solstice calling you into simplicity, surrender, and deep listening—you are walking an ancient Mediterranean path. Consider the wisdom you have received after this year of work, effort, and all the things that played out in your life. Celebrate who you have become. Allow yourself to go fallow in order to grow something that will blossom next year.
Plant Rituals for the Solstice: Slowing, Dreaming, Becoming
These rituals are not about manifesting harder.
They are about listening better.
Choose one. Or none. Or all of them. Let the plants lead.
Solstice Smoke Rituals: Three Pathways Through the Dark
Smoke has always been one of humanity’s oldest bridges between worlds—matter becoming spirit before our eyes. On the Winter Solstice, smoke rituals are not about banishing or forcefully clearing, but about marking a threshold. About signaling to the unseen realms: I am listening.
Choose the ritual that matches your nervous system, your season of life, and your current relationship with change.
1. The Saturnian Release
For simplification, boundary refinement, and letting go with dignity
Plants:
• Bay Laurel
• Rosemary
• Juniper
This is a smoke ritual rooted in ancestral Mediterranean and Old World practices. Bay Laurel—sacred to prophecy and Saturn—supports clarity about what truly belongs in your life now. Rosemary sharpens discernment. Juniper protects the edges of the soul.
How:
Burn the plants gently on charcoal or as a small bundle. Allow the smoke to move around your body, especially the back of the neck, the heart, and the feet.
Speak softly or inwardly:
“I release what has completed its purpose. I keep only what is essential.”
This ritual is ideal if you are already in a place of alignment and simply want to travel lighter into the next cycle.
2. The Resin of the Wise Ones
For devotion, deep dreaming, and ancestral remembrance
Plants:
• Frankincense
• Myrrh
Long before the Christian story of the Wise Men, Frankincense and Myrrh were among the most sacred substances on earth. Burned in temples, used in burial rites, and carried across deserts as offerings to gods and stars, these resins were understood as plants of liminality—bridging life and death, body and spirit, time and eternity.
At the Winter Solstice, they honor the quiet holiness of this turning point.
How:
Burn small tears of resin on charcoal. Sit still. Let the scent do the work—this is not an active ritual.
You may offer a simple intention:
“May wisdom older than my mind guide my dreaming.”
This ritual is especially potent at night, before sleep, or during a Solstice vigil. Expect dreams, memories, and subtle insights rather than big emotional releases.
3. The Ancestral Hearth
For grounding, protection, and tending the inner fire
Plants:
• Cedar or Pine
• Sage (culinary or wild)
• A touch of Myrrh or Juniper (optional)
This smoke blend echoes the ancient hearth fires kept burning through the darkest nights of winter. Evergreen plants remind us that life persists even when hidden, and that the soul, too, has seasons of quiet endurance.
How:
Let the smoke fill your home gently, especially near doorways and windows. This is less about clearing and more about blessing the space you will be resting in over the winter months.
You might say:
“May this home hold me as I slow, dream, and become.”
This is a beautiful ritual to do with family, chosen family, or alone with a cup of warm tea nearby.
A Final Note on Solstice Smoke
None of these rituals need to be dramatic. The Winter Solstice does not ask us to prove anything. It asks us to notice. To sit long enough for the subtle magic to reveal itself.
Smoke rises whether or not we demand it to.
Light returns whether or not we hurry it along.
Let the plants teach you that kind of trust.
Altar Placement: Honoring the Dark Womb
Plants: Evergreen boughs, dried roses, pomegranate, holly berries
Objects: One black candle, one white candle
Create a simple altar—nothing ornate. Place the black candle to honor what is composting. The white candle for the light returning quietly in the background.
Evergreens remind us that life persists even when hidden.
Holly provides protection, prosperity, and making good choices on your path.
Sit. Don’t do. Let the altar work on you.
Do some journaling to honor who you have become, what you have done, what you are composting, and what you would like to make space for in your life.
Solstice Food: Feeding the Future Gently
Foods: Root vegetables, grains, beans, olive oil, honey
Herbs: Sage, thyme, bay
Cook slowly. Eat slowly. This is not a feast for impressing anyone. This is food that says: You are safe to rest.
As you eat, ask yourself:
What feels nourishing now—not aspirational, not productive, but true?
The answer may surprise you.
Dreaming Tea: Listening Forward
Plants: Mugwort (small amount), Linden, Chamomile, Rose, Blue Lotus
(Optional: a sprig of Lavender)
Drink this tea in the evening, by candlelight. Mugwort opens the dream gate; linden softens the heart; rose reminds us that longing is sacred, Blue Lotus helps us get out of our own way and access our innate creativity.
Do not journal immediately.
Let the dreams come first.
Dreams are the language of winter.
The Subtle Return
The brilliance of the Solstice is that nothing looks different the next morning—and yet everything is.
The light returns quietly. Incrementally. Almost shy.
This is a profound teaching for our time. We are conditioned to notice only what is loud, visible, and measurable. But the deepest transformations—the ones you are yearning for—happen beneath the surface, where striving dissolves and presence takes root.
To live this way, year after year, is to choose enchantment over exhaustion.
To choose cycles over conquest.
To choose becoming over arriving.
And perhaps that is the true gift of the Winter Solstice:
not the promise of Spring—but the permission to rest inside the dark, trusting that life already knows what it’s doing.
Blessed Solstice.
May your dreams be slow, your tea warm, and your light return exactly as gently as it needs to.
To purchase your herbs for these rituals please visit us here and for resins, incense and resin burners and pre-blended loose incense go here
A Solstice Blessing
May you remember
that the light returns quietly,
without asking for witnesses.
May you trust
that what is meant for you
does not require forcing.
May Saturn teach you the beauty of simplicity,
the Wise Ones remind you of ancient roads,
and the plants keep you company
in the long, holy night.
May you rest deeply in the dark womb of winter,
dream boldly without rushing the dream,
and welcome the returning light
one subtle breath at a time.
Blessed Winter Solstice.
May your slowing be sacred
and your becoming gentle.
From Dreaming to Seeding
As the dark womb of winter completes her quiet work, there comes a moment when what has been dreamed begins to ask for form.
