So this year’s Yule/winter solstice has significant meaning for me.

Its been a really rough year for me. Without going into too much detail I will simply say that its been a particularly long rough patch. What it has meant is my mental health has suffered greatly, and life has been more about surviving than actually being able to live. It may or may not be changing in the coming January but It feels like that may be changing soon.

So the symbolic nature of the winter solstice, the passing of the darkest point, means a lot to me. It’s a metaphor about hope writ large on a cosmic scale.

Of course its very easy to say bad time will pass, but for some people the bad times wont pass. The poor, the oppressed, the exploited will have lifelong struggles, and the periods of happiness are shorter than they deserve.

But that is why we need there to be there for one another. I would not have got through this year without people being there for me. The knowledge that I was not alone in facing all my hardships, that I had dear friends and a wonderful partner who all were able to lift me up when I wasn’t able to rise. I even received help from people who don’t know me at all, people I never met from across the internet were willing to help me when I needed it. Human kindness and connection was the guiding light in the darkness. And this is why we gather together in the darkest time of the year. When sunlight is scare and warmth is rare we turn to each other and take comfort and joy in each others humanity and kindness.

So this Yule, as the night is longest, I think the best thing we can do to mark it is to reach out to one another. Tell your loved ones openly and plainly how much they mean to you. Reconnect with those you haven’t talked to in a while. Even when you have so little you cant give anything, you can always give the best gift of kindness.