How to create a personal Winter Solstice ritual
The Winter Solstice marks the shortest day of sunlight and longest night in the Northern Hemisphere. It’s also the official beginning of winter! This day and the surrounding days are marked by celebrations around the world, reflected in the traditions of many cultures. Christmas is, of course, just one of the many celebrations that center around honoring light, nourishing ourselves, and being with loved ones. The strings of lights and candles that fill our homes are beautiful reminders that even in the darkest times, we each carry a light within ourselves.
From an Ayurvedic perspective, the Winter Solstice is the height of Vata season. Vata energy, which is cold, dry and erratic like a biting winter wind, starts to accumulate in the fall and reaches a peak around this time of year. As with any dosha, Vata energy brings some gifts we can make use of, but can also easily throw us off balance. This time of year has an intense and potent energy; it’s not always an easy season to navigate, but if we approach it mindfully we have an opportunity for powerful growth.
Like the chilly winter wind making the trees outside my window dance with a frenetic sway as I write this, Vata energy can make us feel scattered, anxious and depleted. We may be full of energy one day and crashing the next. It is unpredictable and irregular, and challenges us to find our inner calm. To counter this energy, it’s important to lean into our routines. It’s no coincidence that this time of year is so filled with holiday traditions – these are things that keep us grounded, steady and hopeful during the coldest, darkest time of the year.
But Vata energy isn’t all bad! It also presents us with incredible creativity and opportunities to connect to the spiritual realms. Because Vata is a combination of the air and space elements, it carries a potent energy for visualization, meditation and manifestation. Many of the holidays and celebrations around this time of year are focused on community and family, but I think it’s important to take some time for solitude and personal reflection as well. The solstice is a perfect opportunity to create a ritual of looking inward, doing some journaling, meditation, or anything that helps you feel connected to your inner light.
When we can balance Vata with grounding routines, we can harness that creative energy of air and space without losing our connection to earth. This is our challenge in this season! Here are some ideas for planning a Winter Solstice Celebration that both keeps you grounded and opens a portal to higher realms.
1. Honor all of the elements
To balance the air and space elements that make up Vata, take care to bring the elements of fire, earth, and water into your space. A solstice ritual should include plenty of light, so gather your candles, or make a fire if you have the means. Surround yourself with warmth and light.
To honor earth, you could bring some pine branches, pine cones, winter squashes, or other seasonal elements into your space. And to honor the water element, include a warm bath by candlelight in your solstice ritual, and be sure to nourish your inner water with plenty of hydrating and warming teas. Try the recipe below!
2. Brew a warming solstice chai
A warm, spicy chai is the perfect drink for this time of year. Filled with spices that balance Vata in the body and mind, and the sweetness and grounding of milk and honey, this is a needed treat for your solstice ritual! Traditionally made with black tea, I like to substitute rooibos, because caffeine can exacerbate stress and anxiety during Vata season. This chai should be all about chilling out! A “chill chai” if you will… Choose from the elements below to create your perfect blend:
Spices: Ginger, cardamom, star anise, cinnamon, clove, black pepper, fennel – Choose as many spices as you’d like! Use about 1/2 tsp of powdered spice, or 1 tsp of whole spice. Boil in 4 cups of water for at least 10 minutes.
Tea: If you’re not sensitive to caffeine, you can use the traditional black tea. Otherwise, rooibos or red raspberry leaf make great substitutes! Add 2 teabags the spice and water mixture, remove from heat, and let steep for about 5 minutes.
Milk: Choose your favorite! Whole milk, soy, oat or nut milk are all delicious. Add 2 cups milk to the pot. You may need to heat it up again after adding the milk until it reaches your preferred temperature.
Magical add-ons: These are some of my favorite herbs for chilling out and calming Vata! Try adding 1/4 tsp of any of these to your mug of chai for some extra love: shatavari, ashwagandha, skullcap, saffron.
Sweetener: Finally, add a little sweetener to taste once you have your mug of chai. I like honey, maple syrup, or coconut sugar best!
3. Find stillness
Whether it’s through meditation, pranayama, or some slow-moving restorative yoga, take the time to find stillness. Ideally, December should be a month of slowing down, bringing projects to a close, and creating lots of time for relaxation and restoration. Unfortunately, it’s often quite the opposite as we rush to buy holiday gifts, attend parties and events, and work extra hard so that we can “earn” our Christmas vacations.
While a lot of this outer business may be unavoidable, I encourage you to make time for yourself to be still within it all. The solstice is the perfect opportunity to claim a day for yourself. Create a ritual that includes journaling, meditation, perhaps a warm bath or restorative yoga, and plenty of time for introspection and reflection.
4. Look back before you look ahead
As the New Year approaches, many of us have the tendency to rush toward new goals and resolutions before taking the time to look back at where we’ve been. That seductive Vata energy will pull you in a dozen different directions, and if you’re not careful you might find yourself starting the new year with a bunch of projects on your plate that aren’t really in line with what you want in your life! To set more grounded and heart-centered goals, it’s important to reflect on the past year before planning for the next.
My favorite Winter Solstice activity is a journaling ritual that I do every year. It includes looking back on the year and identifying some of the most magical moments, as well as some struggles, and lessons I learned. I’ll look back through my old journals and my planner to remind myself of everything that happened in the year. Taking time to digest life in this way helps me understand what’s most important to me, and where I need to make shifts.
After this period of reflection, I’ll look ahead to the New Year and think about what I most want to create. I’ll write down some visions for the future, and I’ll come up with three words that encapsulate how I want to feel, what I want to call into my life, or how I want to show up in the next year. These words become powerful reminders that I revisit throughout my year.
5. Welcome all the emotions
Finally, I think it’s important to acknowledge the feelings of sadness and grief that can come up during this time of year. When we do take the time to slow down, sometimes we’ll notice things below the surface that need a little tending to. Plus, the process of reflecting on the year can bring up not only fond memories, but some painful ones too.
When we allow an emotion to bubble up within us, without trying to hide it, push it away, or attach a lot of thoughts to it, it takes about 90 seconds for the emotions to move through our bodies. I encourage you to investigate this and see if it feels true! I often find that I feel the worst when I’m holding a particular feeling in. When I allow myself to cry, yell or just feel the experience of the emotion in my body, in a safe space, I am surprised at how quickly it really does pass.
The Winter Solstice can provide a powerful opportunity for letting go of what we no longer want in our lives. You can perform a simple releasing ritual by taking a sheet of paper and writing down everything from the past year you want to let go of. This could be negative thoughts, limiting beliefs, habits, experiences, relationships, etc. After you’ve written this list, destroy it! You can either tear it up, or burn it if you have a fireplace or a safe way to burn your paper. You can also allow your body to release the old by putting on some music, dancing, shaking, and moving all the old energy out!
In closing…
Ayurveda encourages us to find times to pause within our lives. There is a quote from Maya Tawari that I love: “With practice in the art of pausing, you will learn to skillfully do nothing, the best antidote to fear, anger, and other debilitating emotions.” Ideally, we would take small pauses at the end of each day, larger pauses at the end of each week, and even larger monthly pauses, perhaps at the time of the new moon. The Winter Solstice is one nature’s greatest “pauses” in the year, and is an opportunity for us to be still, reflect, and reimagine our lives. Truly, the intentions that we set at this time will grow with the returning light.