For keeping faith in the longest dark
Keeping Vigil
- 1 Light a candle or fire before sunset. This is your vigil flame. It will burn through the longest night. If it must go out, relight it before dawn.
- 2 Sit with the dark. Do not fill the silence. Do not rush toward the light. The longest night asks you to stay—not to fix, not to brighten, just to remain.
- 3 Name what you're carrying through. What have you held all year? What are you still holding? Speak it to the flame. The fire will keep it with you.
- 4 Wait for the turn. At midnight, or whenever you feel it: the still point. The sun has reached its lowest. Say: The dark has reached its depth. From here, the light returns.
- 5 Keep the flame until morning. When the sun rises, blow out the candle. Carry the warmth. You made it through.
Keeping Vigil
Yule is the winter solstice—the longest night, the shortest day. The sun reaches its lowest point in the sky and stands still. The word "solstice" means exactly this: sun standing still. And then, almost imperceptibly, it begins to climb again.
In the old practice, the Yule log was lit at sunset and kept burning through the night—a vigil flame to carry the household through the dark. Evergreens were brought inside as proof that green survives, that life persists even when the world is cold and bare. Holly, ivy, pine: the plants that do not surrender.
Yule asks you to keep vigil. Not to celebrate—that comes later. Not to pretend the dark isn't dark. But to stay. To tend the flame. To trust that the turn will come, even when you cannot see it. The longest night ends. It always ends.
Correspondences
- Materials
- Candle or Yule log, evergreen, holly, red cloth, gold
- Plants
- Pine, fir, holly, ivy, mistletoe, juniper
- Moon
- Dark moon or new (rebirth)
- Time
- Sunset through sunrise, the full length of the longest night
- Direction
- North (stillness, midnight, the deep)
The dark has reached its depth.
I do not rush. I do not flee.
I light the flame and I stay.
I name what I carry.
I wait for the turn.
The sun stands still, and so do I.
From here, the light returns.
I made it through. I am still here.
Your intention: