Grianstad an Gheimhridh

Winter Solstice

✨This is a post for my paid community, and it speaks of baby loss and grief, so please go gently with yourself if you read.

I am holding you all, so so tenderly today. And always.

This is my final post of the year. I want to listen to my body, and to the midwinter winds, which are each telling me to rest. I can’t wait to be back here with you all next year, in the newly born light.

Thanks for being here✨

Friends, here we are, at the wildest, vastest, most tender moment of our year.

Above us, a rainbow bridge, where all the souls waiting to join us here below are gathered, in old lore.

And here we are below, closer to them than all other days. Closer to our own selves too, and to the things we may have drifted away from.

Things that matter a tremendous amount.

Winter solstice.

The long, long night.

The stopping.

The standing still.

I have spent many years writing about this part of our year, this unknowable, quiet shift, but this year it all feels so different. Unspeakably so.

I’ve spent much time, in this here life, pondering soft, silent things; the like of which take us so by surprise at this time of year.

I’ve spent much time with the idea of all being so unknown, on this liminal day most of all.

But it all feels so new this year; it’s very own kind of unknown…

These last days I’ve been making things, the last weeks really, but the objects these last few days have felt important.

Transformative.

I’ve been sitting with my hands in the darkness. I’ve been leaning into the dark in ways I had never quite realised were so fully, so deeply, beautiful.

I’ve been stamping hares for those I love. Hare is my spirit animal and the one who draws close when I am close to birth. When I lost our baby, I was shocked that one of the first thoughts that crossed my mind was that I was not going to