The new year is often launched with joy, exuberance, and fresh resolutions.  We’re inspired to become a “new and improved” version of ourselves. Yet the rhythms of nature, and winter itself, teach us that winter is also a time of rest, stillness, and reflection.  This piece by an unknown author invites us to light a candle and reflect upon the many threads of life we have woven together in the previous year.

Warp and Weft: Spinning Strength from Winter’s Shadows

The eighth day of Yule belongs to the loom—the place where strength is woven from what seems fragile, frayed, or broken. Winter is not just a season of stillness; it is a master weaver, pulling threads from the frostbitten earth, from the roots gripping frozen soil, from the branches that do not shatter under snow but bend and bow, enduring.

Strength is not born in a blaze of glory. It is spun quietly, in the dark corners of hardship, in the deliberate movements of hands pulling thread through tension. It’s the weft that holds the warp together, the connective tissue that turns the disparate strands into something whole. On this day, we honor the weavers of strength, the ones who create when there seems to be nothing left, the ones who understand that resilience is not a single act of defiance but a long, patient process of repair.

In the old stories, the loom was a sacred tool, a portal between worlds. The Norns wove the fates of gods and mortals alike, their hands moving into time with the pulse of life and death. Skadi, goddess of winter and the wild, embodies this weaving of strength from starkness. She stalks the snow-covered mountains, carving her path in ice, spinning survival from the sharp edges of the earth.

Today, the loom is also yours. Think of the threads you’ve carried through this year—some vibrant, some worn thin, some tangled beyond recognition. Strength is not in discarding them but in weaving them together. Take what the year has given you, even its broken strands, and find the pattern within the chaos.

This is a day to light candles for the unseen weavers—your ancestors, whose strength you carry in your bones; the earth, whose roots weave life beneath the frost; the wild ones who taught us that strength is not in domination but in adaptation. Offer your gratitude. Whisper your blessings. Watch as the light flickers, illuminating the threads you might have missed.

And don’t forget: no loom is solitary. Strength is shared. It is spun between neighbors, braided between friends, threaded through acts of care. It is the quilt you wrap around a loved one, the meal you share, the kind word offered when the world feels barren. Today, give something of yourself to the weaving of others.

The loom of winter teaches us that strength is not a straight line but a web, a network of resilience. On this eighth day of Yule, take your place at the loom. Add your thread. Spin strength from the shadows. What you weave now will carry you forward, through the dark, and into the light.

(with gratitude to the unknown author)