On the Longest Night: Stillness, Solstice, and the Beauty of Just Being

There’s something about the Winter Solstice that feels… ancient.

Before December 21st became just another calendar square between holiday stress and New Year’s plans, it was a sacred pause. The turning of the wheel. A moment marked by ancient cultures with fire, reflection, and the quiet knowing that light always returns.

Yule — as it was once called — celebrated the rebirth of the sun after the longest night. A time to gather, feast, honour nature, and feel the deep shift from darkness to light, both outside and within.

And in our home, we’ve claimed it as ours too — our soft rebellion against the pressure to perform holiday joy. A tradition of slowness, stillness, and love.

A season of contradictions

This fall taught me a lot.

I’ve been raising a teething toddler through sleepless nights and daylight chaos — while also launching a business, attending my first markets, and slowly watching this dream of mine take form in real life. Somewhere in there, I became someone new. Someone I’ve been learning to meet.

I discovered I can be resilient and soft.
Focused and tired.
Patient and wildly emotional.
Messy and enough.

Lately, I’ve been living in that in-between space — the one where you’re not the person you were before, but not quite sure who you’re becoming.
The one where you're so deep in the day-to-day of parenting and building and trying, you forget to realize you’re growing.
But you are.

And this season — with its bare trees, long shadows, and quieter pace — reminds me to look. To listen. To pause.

Light, intentional and warm

Recently, my partner Cédric and I decided to invest in better ambient lighting for our living room and mezzanine — a literal effort to make the dark season feel a little gentler.
And like everything in my life lately, even the lamps became metaphors.

Because I, too, have become a creature of the night again. Between regressions and colds and teething, I’ve spent many evenings holding Rosalie in the dark, awake while the world sleeps.
And in those still hours, something shifted. Quiet realizations showed up. Thoughts. Wishes.
The kind that only visit when the rest of the world is quiet.

The Solstice, to me, is an honoring of those thoughts. Of that slowness. Of the wisdom in darkness.

Our Solstice celebration (non-religious, non-capitalist, fully intentional)

A few years ago, Cédric and I started rethinking the traditions we wanted to keep — and which ones we wanted to gently let go of.

No Santa Claus. No tree. No frantic gift-buying.
Instead, we chose something slower. More tender.
We made the Solstice our celebration.

This year, we’ll:

• Go on a family walk and admire the lights

• Bake a cranberry black forest cake

• Share a festive brunch

• Decorate with pine branches, dried oranges, and cranberries

• Light candles and drink something warm

We’ll celebrate the season itself — the beauty of gathering in the dark, telling each other we love each other, and choosing to honour this turning point with joy.

I didn’t finish the handmade advent calendar I wanted to sew for Rosalie.
We didn’t do everything on the Pinterest list.
But what we did do is create space.
And for us, that’s everything.

What I’m nurturing into winter

I’m letting go of the overwhelm — the juggling act, the pressure, the illusion that I must be everything to everyone at once.

Instead, I’m choosing to nurture something new:
A version of myself that is both softer and stronger.
More organized, more focused — even if the form changes.

Because let’s be real: both my business and my daughter are growing quickly, and unpredictably.
Their needs evolve constantly.
And so must I.

But I’m learning not to rush. Not to cling. Not to lose myself in trying to keep up.

Instead, I’m making room.
For presence.
For ritual.
For the kind of clarity that only winter brings.

Solstice Inspiration

If you do one thing this solstice, let it be this:

Step outside.

Feel the cold on your nose, the winter air in your lungs.
Listen to the sound of the snow crunching under your boots.
Notice the light — or the lack of it — and ask yourself what it’s trying to show you.

Let this season ask questions of you.

• What do you want to nurture in yourself?

• What feeling have you been avoiding that deserves attention?

• What are you afraid of accepting — and how could that truth set you free?

This winter, I’m choosing to welcome all my feelings.
Even the ones I’ve been taught to keep quiet — like anger.
Because Rosalie, my toddler, is learning to feel big things too. And in helping her regulate those waves, I’ve been reflecting on my own.

Winter, to me, is a meditative season.
Its stillness holds space for introspection, art, slowness, and truth.
Not the loud kind — but the kind that whispers quietly in the dark.

So I leave you with this:

Journaling prompt:
What are you afraid of accepting about yourself?
What is the one thing you could bring to the light about you, that makes you so human?

Ritual card whisper:
Bathe in the light you bring others.

To you, on the longest night

You don’t need to “be better” right now.
You don’t need to have a plan, or clarity, or energy.

You’re allowed to just be.

This night — this longest night — is a page in your story.
Let it hold you.

With gratitude and candlelight,
Sarah B.
Founder, Atelier scriptural Writuals