Today’s last new moon of 2025 is followed by the longest night of the year. It’s Winter Solstice in the northern hemisphere. The season is changing. It’s dark outside. Both literally and metaphorically; it’s hard to see the contours of a turbulent world in deep transition. Some things are ending and some things are beginning anew: That much is, and has always been true.
For as long as I can remember, this time of year has felt like a big deal to me. Transitions are a big deal to me, and I generally need a lot of time to process changes. That’s why New Year’s Eve has often felt like an anxious and uncomfortable event to my nervous system. How do I process an entire year of experiences, and welcome a whole new one, in a frantic fraction of a second, surrounded by the intensity of loud fireworks and mad drunkenness? The pressure seemed too high to be carried by this singular moment. Ten, nine, eight, seven….
I’ve been trying, for the past decade, to stretch the transition period between two years a little wider. To honor my need for reflection, and to set meaningful intentions. Strangely, December often shapes up to be even more unhinged than all the other months of the year. Even now I have managed to situate myself on the periphery of the so called “system,” I still feel the holiday stress precipitating all over this season’s well-intended decorations.
Where nature urges us to hibernate, to rest and turn inward – our social agenda seems to push for an absurd number of appointments, extraversion, and consumerism. Get-togethers that rarely feel as cozy and festive as the Christmas movies of our youth portrayed them to be. With climate change disenchanting Northern Europe with increasingly grey, rainy, and muddy winters, I have often felt depleted and disillusioned in December, looking for feasible escape routes from the insanity…
Who is in charge of my experience?
I am.
Can I implement rituals to slow down the process and to command more stillness and presence during this time of year?
Yes. Always.
This is what I’ve been doing in recent years, and what many people have done throughout history in an effort to honor the profundity of existence, the changing seasons, the mystery and the magic of it:
Now is the time to leave the rational mind by the door and to enter the field of the numinous. No need for your very understandable cynicism, your disappointment, your disillusionment and frustration. We can all concur: It’s an absolutely ridiculous time to be alive. There seems to be nothing we can do to fix a world that no longer adheres to any moral principles or basic sense of justice. Perhaps we are here exactly to experience these utterly ridiculous times. Perhaps all of our ancestors thought the same of their temporal predicament. This period, between Christmas and Three Kings Day, also known as Epiphany, is an invitation to remove your focus from everything that’s wrong with the outer world that’s beyond our sphere of influence and to turn inward. Not out of carelessness, but from the wisdom that we can’t care for our surroundings when we are pouring from an empty cup. This is a period to feel into what actually wants to move through you into this world. What wants to be born from your hands? What wants to spring up from the garden of your heart? What gifts will you offer the new cycle of seasons?
The days between December 24th and January 6th are sometimes referred to as the 13 Holy Nights. This period stretches from Christmas Eve to Epiphany. In the northern hemisphere, the darkest night of the year has passed, but time seems to be standing still for a while, as mere seconds of light are added to each day. And during this darkness, we dream. We recollect. We spell our desires out on paper and set them on fire. We breathe slowly and tune into the mystery. We hold space for what has passed and make space for what’s emerging.
These rituals are old, nobody owns them, they have been modified and adapted for the times throughout the centuries. You too may adapt them to suit your own life. The magic doesn’t come from following the rules perfectly, it comes from honoring your lived experience with presence and attention. No matter what has happened this past year or what is still to come, no matter how jolly or painful these days are for you, you can always grant the moment your presence and attention.
The 13 Holy Nights Ritual
During the 13 nights between December 24th and January 6th, we take information from the dream-realm to inform us about the coming year. In the evenings, we set an intention to dream towards the months ahead. The night becomes a portal to the oracle within you. Find a notebook that feels special to you. Each morning, you will write down the dreams you had that night. Whatever you can remember, write it down. What feelings are you waking up with? What colors were in your dream? What themes did you notice and who showed up for an astral visitation? Write down as much as you can.
If you like, and you have oracle cards or a tarot deck on hand, you can draw a card every morning to further inform the contents of your dream.
The first night represents the entire year. Each consecutive night represents a particular month ahead.
The night of:
24th – 25th represents 2026 entirely
25th – 26th represents January
26th – 27th represents February
27th – 28th represents March
28th – 29th represents April
29th – 30th represents May
30th – 31st represents June
31st – 1st represents July
1st – 2nd represents August
2nd – 3rd represents September
3rd – 4th represents October
4th – 5th represents November
5th – 6th represents December
On January 6th you have a map of the year to come: A collection of dream imagery and oracle card readings that set the tone for 2026.
This ritual is less about fortune telling, and more about tapping into the intuitive powers within you. The process allows you to take time to truly welcome the year that’s coming. From my experience, looking back at the dreams and the card readings throughout the year can be a helpful anchor to my intentions and a reminder to be present in my experience of time. It also helps me to consciously connect to the creative well-spring that our dream-life offers us.
13 Wishes Ritual
This ritual can co-exist with the previous one as an additional practice, or it can be done on its own. The ritual uses the same period of time to divinate our desires. It invites you to write down 13 wishes in the days before December 25th. These can be deep desires you carry for the new year, secret longings, or things you have been wanting to do for ages that you keep postponing. It should be a wish that, with some effort, could totally take shape in your reality. (World Peace? Might not happen with your two bare hands this year. Inner Peace? That’s something you can definitely work on.) Even just the practice of writing down what you really want to experience or become in the new year can be illuminating.
You collect your wishes on 13 identical looking pieces of paper. Fold them up so that you can no longer see what’s written on them. You collect these papers in a little bowl. During the 13 Holy Nights, you take one wish from the bowl each morning without reading it. You burn the wish carefully in a candle, firesafe bowl, or fireplace. Each morning you set one wish on fire. Send it your blessings as the wish goes up in smoke and is offered to the Universe to deal with on your behalf. You do this for 12 mornings. On the 13th morning (on January 6th) you take the last remaining paper from the bowl. This time, you do not burn it – you open it. Whatever wish you find in your hands is now your responsibility for the coming year. You are directly in charge of making that one come true. The other ones may very well still also come true, and you can certainly continue making an effort towards their unfolding, but they are placed in the jurisdiction of fate, spelled out in smoke for spirit aid. The one in your hand? That’s your special task for the year to come.
Take Your Time
You can work with these rituals as a way to slow down your perception of time and to stretch the transition between past and future. These practices are old and they can offer us messages from the Spirit of Attention. You can change them to your liking, but it helps if they inconvenience you a little bit; to ruffle your habitual feathers, to shake up your engrained routine.
We have no idea what our world has in store for us in the coming year. A lot of it will be out of our control. What we can control is our own relationship to our lived experiences, and the manner in which, even when it seems utterly pointless, we keep our hearts open to the mysterious nature of our existence.
May your nights be filled with luminous dreams. May you dance gracefully with your deepest desires. May your holidays be holy and present and expansive.
Metaphysical Mulch 