Yule and the Dark Goddess: A Solstice Guide to Reclaiming Your Shadow

A gay ex-Mormon’s love affair with darkness and shadow work—and the sacred wholeness it brings.

I’ve always struggled with winter.

My Ayurvedic constitution is very heavy in Pitta dosha (fire energy), and so I just tend to gravitate to the warm and the sunny—and run away from the dark and cold like I would run from a sports bar during playoffs!

It also means that, until this year, I have defied standard, stereotypical gay practice by lighting up the whole house after dark with every light and lamp just to keep it “bright and sunny” as long as possible. (And any other gay man reading this likely just gasped and pulled a blanket over his head.)

This winter, however, my Gay Card has been upgraded to the “Low-Lit House After Dark” version. (You can now breathe a sign of relief, gurls). Not only has this made my husband very happy, but I’m actually REALLY vibing with the changes I’m noticing in my body from this relatively simple seasonal shift.

For years, I’ve known the importance of better aligning our bodies with circadian rhythm, which is a fancy way of saying that our bodies are wired to function with the natural sunlight cycles. Health and wellness folks are always preaching the power of low-lit homes at night with minimal blue light exposure from devices, etc. And while I’ve tried to incorporate the latter, I just haven’t been able to fully adopt low-lit living at night.

Turns out, though, my obsession with keeping things bright wasn’t just about my Pitta. It was about control—specifically, controlling what parts of myself I was willing to see. And that realization became the doorway into the deeper work I’ve been called into.

Embracing Divine Darkness

This past year, my Spirit Guides and Ancestors have been moving me through some pretty intense healing and transformative work. (And actually, now that I think of it, when am I NOT being moved through some kind of deep, transformative work these days?)

What has been different this year, though, is that my Guides have been teaching me how to engage in “shadow work”—confronting deep, hidden fears and rejected parts of myself. This has been scary, difficult, and excruciating work at times. But on the other side of it, I have emerged in coming to see tremendous power and beauty in my “shadow side”—so much so that I embracing it as my own Divine Darkness. (And yes, discovering my Divine Darkness absolutely included accepting why leather harnesses show up in my Instagram ads. The algorithm knows, honey.)

Interestingly, this has corresponded to changes in my physical space by yearning for more sexy, sensual, low-light ambiance and even deep, rich colors in our home decor. In the past, not only have I gravitated towards light and warmth because of my body constitution, but I also realize I have gravitated towards it because I was taught to associate darkness with evil, malevolence, danger, badness, and, above all, “Satan.” Whereas “light” was associated with goodness, benevolence, safety, and, of course, “God.” So, naturally, in that context, why would I find any kind of resonance, let alone sacredness, with the dark? (Even as a young child, I remember my mom saying that painting our home’s interior bright white would help us to feel like we lived inside a Mormon temple…That impacted me. But thankfully, homegirl eventually came to realize that God was okay with colorful walls!).

The Judeo-Christian binarism of light versus darkness, good versus evil, etc., did not just influence the way I, personally, saw the world, but it has impacted Western culture at large for over 2,000 years. (And 2,000+ years is a long time to be in a group chat with someone who only knows two emojis: 😇 and 😈.)

And that binary has consequences. Such a rigid framework necessitates that we categorize everything into “good” or “bad.” And because of our deep yearning to be seen as “good,” we label, other, and reject anything that (we think) lands in the category of “bad” or “darkness.” And for this essay, when referencing darkness, I’m not talking about actual harmful, evil, malevolence. Rather, I’m talking about things we have rejected and labeled as “bad and wrong” simply because of social constructs that stemmed from the ideas of those in power (political, familial, religious, or otherwise).

What also happens as a result of this learned, self-policed, binary filtering system is that in our desperate attempt to be seen as “good” by those around us (and even, perhaps, by the Judeo-Christian “God” himself), we end up rejecting, othering, and dismissing parts of our whole, sacred selves.

You can feel this sorting system somatically in your body—that subtle tightening when something true about you threatens your “good person” badge.

And the parts most likely to threaten that “good person badge”? They’re often the most human ones: aspects of our personalities; our sexualities (including our sexual desires and fantasies); our genuine interests, dreams, and curiosities; innate love for our bodies; our anger, rage, and frustrations; our worries and fears; our innate self-love and acceptance; our intuitive knowing; experienced traumas; hurtful and heartbreaking memories; our boundaries, sovereignty, and “Sacred No”, and the list continues…

We take these so-called “bad, dark, terrible” parts of ourselves and outcast them—sentencing them to a life of exile in the deep, dark abyss of our soul and psyche. And we want desperately to forget about them. Oh, how we want to forget them! We don’t want to remember what we’ve locked away “down there.”

And yet, if we step away from the misguided constructs and harmful beliefs, all of these parts are valid, sacred, amazing, and necessary to completing the whole, complex, messy, beautiful puzzle that is our full Self moving through a sacred incarnate school of experience! (Yes, even embracing leather harnesses and other hot, kinky realness!)

But this isn’t always easy to remember, and it is still often terrifying to confront the rejected “shadow” parts of our Self.

And what I found in my own journey is that even though I expected to find the Devil in the dark abyss of my soul, what I actually found was a beautiful, wild, loving, sensual, and, at times, stern Goddess holding all of my rejected parts on her lap as if she were comforting and consoling scared, abandoned, orphaned children.

This Goddess, known by many names, is “Divine Darkness”, and she lives in all of us. She is the part of us that can hold what we were told was unacceptable—not to indulge harm, but to reclaim wholeness.

She is the sacred container where grief, desire, rage, tenderness, and truth can exist without being put on trial.

And once you’ve met Her inside your own psyche, you start recognizing Her everywhere: in the quiet of night, in the womb-dark caverns of the Earth, in the cold, frigid hush that Winter breathes upon the land. Which is exactly why this season—and the ancestral traditions that honor it—have so much to teach us.

So while I’ve been busy learning to love the dark—both in my living room AND my psyche—my Celtic ancestors were WAY ahead of me in embracing Darkness and Winter like the hot girls they are! Turns out, I’m not reinventing the wheel. I’m just stepping onto it better.

Yule, Winter & The Wheel of the Year

I know you know this, but stay with me: it’s winter in the northern hemisphere, and the sun’s light leaves us early in the afternoon/evening. And it’s cold... Then, for many us, we’re still reeling from somatic distortion of unnecessary clock changes (and I obviously don’t have an opinion about that. But I digress…)

And while I have a past tendency to moan and complain about these predictable seasonal shifts, I’m learning more and more each year how to see and surrender into the beauty of Winter.

In the Indigenous European cultures of my ancestors (and many other cultures across the globe as well), the year was divided into two primary halves—the light and the dark; Summer and Winter. But here’s where these ancient cultural frameworks differ from Judeo-Christian binarism. In these ancient traditions, darkness or Winter weren’t “bad” or “evil.” There wasn’t an “othering” or a rejection of them, but rather an acknowledgment of their rightful and necessary place in the context of wholeness. Summer and Winter both held their unique and respective gifts and magic. BOTH are necessary parts of the cycle of life. Take away one and the other becomes too much, too overbearing, and too intense for the sustaining of life.

In Celtic tradition (following the Wheel of the Year), Winter begins with Samhain (pronounced Sow-wain) around October 31st; and not only ushers in the dark half of the year (for the Northern Hemisphere), but Samhain is also the start of a new year altogether. And I find this such a beautiful teaching in and of itself—that life, beginnings, newness, etc., start IN the darkness! Seeds only germinate after time in cool, dark, damp soils; tiny infants are birthed from the darkness of their mother’s womb; ideas emerge from the dark, cosmic realm of Divine consciousness, etc.

Then from Samhain, we are moved deeper into the darkness of the year in Yule (aka the Winter Solstice on December 21st), and from here we will continue to be nurtured along our path of (incrementally) returning light—onto Imbolc (February 1st), Ostara/Spring Equinox (March 21st), and ultimately Beltane (May 1st) when Summer returns in its full radiance and glory!

This is why I love working with the Wheel of the Year so much in my spiritual practice! When we attune to the natural cycles of the Earth, the great Goddess shows us how these same cycles show up in nearly every other part of our lives. They are built into the fabric of sacred, natural law. Darkness and death make way for the birth of light and new life. Grief, loss, and loneliness pave the pathway to love, joy, and connection. Youthfulness transitions to elderhood. Growth, speed, and intensity must be followed by decay, slowness, and softness. And so on. And this is where seasonal wisdom becomes life wisdom: when we bow and surrender to Divine, cosmic law (aka flow), we allow ourselves to fully embrace our inner magick, our dharma, and step into the world as a radiant expression of pure Divine Love!

Winter’s Healing Magick

For our personal growth, Winter is a truly magical time for deepened healing and renewal. And year after year, I continue to learn this lesson more deeply. Taking advantage of darker days naturally beckons us to slow down, to pause, to say no more, and to listen inward. Then, by slowing down, turning our attention downward and inward, the Goddess appears to show us the rejected, unhealed parts of our sacred selves that are ready to be tended, nurtured, called forth, and rewoven back into wholeness.

Yule brings us the opportunity to fully allow ourselves to surrender more deeply into the Goddess’s realm—the underworld, the abyss, the womb-space.

Just as growing infants, we have no choice but to surrender to the growing conditions of our mother (and in this case, the Great Mother). No amount of force (naturally, that is), can call the Sun back, move the trees into bloom, cause the runoff to refill the rivers and lakes, or beckon the birds and the butterflies to return. No. These must happen when, and only when, the Great Mother knows the conditions are ready for new life to birth.

Likewise, as we confront the parts of ourselves that have been rejected and cast into our darkness, we learn to see the sacredness of all of it—the whole, complete, messy, and beautiful context of us. All of our experiences, all of our desires, all of our dislikes, all of our joy, all of our pain, all of our kinky-taboo-curiosities, all of our anger, all of our rage, all of our love—all of it.

This isn’t just aesthetic. It’s apprenticeship—letting the Dark Goddess re-parent the parts of us that were exiled.

So this winter, I’m keeping the lights low, the ambiance sexy, and my relationship with darkness—both literal and Divine—finally balanced. My husband’s thrilled. The Ancestors are thrilled. My Deity Guides are thrilled. And honestly? I’m kind of thrilled with my hot, shadowy-integrated self, too! And while I’m definitely more accepting of Winter’s darkness and cold than before, me and my Pitta energy still won’t say no to a future home in the tropics…

AND I want to hear from you!

• What rejected shadow parts of yourself are calling to you to confront?

• Is Winter calling you to any practices that you sense will support your personal growth and healing?

Please share in the comments below or reply to the email. I’d love to hear from you!