For many, the turning of a new year is a time for resolution and envisioning changes we wish to see in our lives. Then comes the difficult work of changing our daily habits in support of these visions. Some such attempts take root over time and flourish. Others never break the shell of their aspirational seed.
However, this is not a reflection about resolutions: it’s a reflection about how we accompany each other in navigating our burdens and our hopes.
Each December, my Unitarian Universalist church holds a service in celebration of the Winter Solstice: the day of maximum darkness and minimum daylight. After this day, the number of minutes we spend in daylight will increase until we reach the Summer Solstice, the day of maximum daylight and minimum darkness.
The Winter Solstice service draws on pagan and earth-centered spiritual traditions. We greet and thank the four cardinal directions: north, east, south, and west. We reflect on the generative mysteries of darkness and the returning of light. We sing one of my very favorite hymns, “Dark Of Winter.”
But for the me, the most meaningful ritual involves the yule log, which is wrapped in twine and ribbon and sits at the center of the gathering. Each person receives a small slip of paper and is encouraged to reflect on this question: what do you want to let go of in the coming year? The paper represents this burden, whether symbolically or through writing upon it. This is a simple but powerful idea that even young children understand: from a very young age, each of my own children has earnestly considered what burdens each wants to release.
When ready, each person with something to let go of slips their piece of paper under the twine and ribbon that encircles the log. These burdens are not spoken aloud, but each of us can see the others adding their papers to the log. Once all who wish to do this have done so, the group moves and sings through the sanctuary space, proceeding from inside to outside and gathering again about a fire pit that waits to receive the yule log.
Then we burn the log, along with the burdens we wish to release.
The burning of the log and the burdens it carries is very moving in itself, and the simple act of gathering with others about a fire is an elemental joy that resonates well beyond the capacity of language to express.
But what moves me most about this ritual is how it makes transparent that everyone has burdens they wish to let go of. This truth is usually lost in the atomized hustle of everyday life: it’s easy for each of us to be consumed by our own struggles and imagine we are alone with them.
Powerful rituals disclose, through collective action, truths and connections that lay hidden beneath the crust of habit and hustle. And one of the truths disclosed by the burning of the yule log is this: we are never alone in struggle, and we accompany each other in our journeys.
May we be healthy, may we be well, and may we know the grace and the joy of becoming more fully ourselves in the company of others.