🕯️Yule is a season, not a deadline

All the other living things are resting at this time of year.

Trees have withdrawn their sap. Animals conserve their energy. Seeds wait underground, wrapped in darkness, doing work we cannot see.

And somehow, we created a system that does exactly the opposite.

We light everything brighter. We move faster. We demand cheer, productivity, presence, performance.

So here’s the real question: what does it tell us, that our bodies resist this pace every December?

This isn’t about rejecting celebration. And it’s certainly not about calling for some dramatic overthrow of modern life. This is a quieter revolution — the kind that happens when we stop calling our instincts flaws.

Christmas is a day. Yule is a season.

Christmas is a moment on the calendar. A ritualised pause, beautifully symbolic, emotionally charged.

Yule is something else entirely.

Yule is the long arc of deep winter — the days before and after the solstice, when the light is scarce and precious, when nothing is meant to bloom yet.

Historically, Yule was never about constant joy. It was about endurance, protection, and trust. You didn’t rush winter. You survived it by respecting it.

Somewhere along the way, we collapsed a whole season into a single day — and then asked ourselves why we feel depleted when it’s over.

Not wanting to go out is not a moral failure

Let’s say this clearly, because many of us need to hear it:

• Wanting to stay home is not laziness.

• Needing more sleep is not weakness.

• Cancelling plans is not antisocial behaviour.

• Moving inward is not depression by default.

Sometimes it’s simply hibernation.

The body recognises the season even when the calendar app doesn’t. There is a pull toward warmth, enclosure, repetition, quiet. Toward fewer words and more blankets.

When we pathologise this pull, we create unnecessary shame. When we honour it, something softens.

The quiet work of Yule

Yule doesn’t ask us to transform. It asks us to hold.

To tend the inner flame — not make it bigger, not show it off, just keep it alive.

This is a season for:

• Rest that isn’t earned

• Stillness that isn’t explained

• Protection of fragile ideas and feelings

• Letting the unfinished remain unfinished

The work of Yule is invisible by design. Like seeds underground, like embers under ash.

If nothing seems to be happening, you’re probably doing it right.

A small, personal revolution

The revolution here isn’t loud.

It’s choosing not to override your body when it asks for less. It’s refusing the narrative that constant availability equals worth. It’s allowing winter to be winter — inside you as much as outside.

That’s not withdrawal from life. That’s participation in the cycle.

Yule reminds us that light does not disappear when we rest. It returns because we gave it time.

So if you’re feeling the urge to slow down, to stay in, to wrap yourself in warmth and familiarity — you’re not failing the season.

You’re answering it.

And if you need a reminder (because let’s be honest, we all do), the Yule pieces from Lau’s Wheel of the Year collection are here too — quiet visual anchors for the season. Not instructions, not answers, just small painted reminders that Yule is not a moment to get through, but a season to inhabit.

Let Christmas be a day — and let Yule be the time around it. A slower time, made for rest, protection, and listening. 🕯️

Lau***