Winter Solstice 2025: The Sacred Circle

Greetings to you on this, the Winter Solstice!

The cats were restless this morning and in their own way, insisted that I wake up long before it seemed advisable, certainly well before the sun made her appearance. I obeyed them because cats do not easily give up.

Once I fed them, I stepped outside into the darkness, and as fortune would have it, right into a conversation between two owls. While they exchanged information, I sensed that I was in a sacred circle with two magnificent beings, the huge pines they perched in, scurrying rabbits, and every other insomniac within earshot. I immediately rested in the rarity and awe of the moment.

I took time to breathe–inhaling the great gift of the encounter and exhaling the need to understand their foreign codes. Inhaling, I felt gratitude. Exhaling, I surrendered to the Great Mystery. I took the moment to rest in the darkness and notice the exquisite stillness. Slowing down and being intentional with my breath was healing and regenerative.

Did they sense me in my silence and reverence? Did my presence offer them a gift?

I’m currently reading Francis Weller’s new book In the Absence of the Ordinary: Soul Work for Times of Uncertainty (2025). In one essay, he explores an idea from Irish poet John O’Donohue’s book Beauty, The Invisible Embrace, where he writes, “What you encounter, recognize, or discover depends to a large degree on the quality of your approach…When we approach with reverence, great things decide to approach us.”

In many traditions, the winter solstice is celebrated by gathering around a bonfire and feeding it all through the night as a way to call forth and honor the light. This reverence of approach, connects us to the natural wildness of our roots and the ancestors who lived by the patterns and seasonal changes. The opportunity to remember opens to us in these moments and we can receive great gifts where we thought there was only darkness.

In the absence of a roaring bonfire, we can create our own simple practice, which is really just a pause in our frantic lives, to find our way back to the supportive metaphoric circle to call in the light. What does a simple practice look like? Depending on where you live and the weather of the day, try to get outside to glimpse Beauty for as long as time allows. You might pause to appreciate a fallen log covered in moss, a migrating bird, a floating snowflake, a rainbow connecting land and ocean, the splash of a fish, the roar of a river, the caw-caw of crows, and even a friendly exchange with a stranger. These moments of reverence are practices in themselves, a reset and an opportunity to lift the heart from the weight of challenging times.

Many of you take time to respond to these essays with words of encouragement and examples of your own and I’m so appreciative. Some of you share the essays with others. Thank you. I want you to know that I feel you as part of this sacred circle. You are not alone. Even without responding to each other, we are connected by the nature of our common human experiences and the resonance of our stories. This circle is part of the sacred geometry that makes up our lives. I bet you are part of many circles with family, community and work. However intricate and complex, we are also part of the sacred circle with all the more-than-human beings, like my intergalactic cats! And don’t forget that you belong to the eternal circle with your ancestors and the newly departed.