Almanac Entry: The Solstice Wheel Turns
Scrying Season Reflections & Warm Wishes
The Almanac Entries Series follow the turning of the wheel of the year. This is my last entry in this series for the year! Incredible. For more information on the wheel of the year, I invite you to check out this link and this link (writing at these links not my own). These almanac entries are intended to be energetic snapshots and they begin as notes-to-self I capture at a particular moment in the year. Thank you for turning the wheel of the year with me.
If you’d like to get on my early-bird art & craft commission list for 2026, the link is here and at the bottom of this article.
Hello dear patient readers. Can you believe this is the last almanac entry of the year? When I started this project a little over a year ago, I wasn’t sure I could finish two entries, let alone see it through a full wheel turn. What a blessing it is to see the first pink fingers of dawn of a new sun-wheel of the year! If you’ve been here turning the wheel with me from the beginning, thank you! Your readership means so much to my artist heart. If you’ve joined along they way, welcome! Thank you so much for being here and observing the turning of this season with me.
In my hemisphere of the world, it is the Winter Solstice. Light has returned to the center of Newgrange! It is almost the Gregorian New Year. In my tradition, it's time to scry into the year ahead in order to make soft and nourishing bedding for intention seeds planted for the new year.
For the past few years, I have adapted the Rauhnächte framework to scry into the year before me, and it has been a steadying and grounding experience for me, both while I am peering into possible futures and also looking back at the signs and symbols I’ve collected in the liminal threshold between the years.
The Rauhnächte “rough nights” or “smoke nights” is a NorthWest Ruropean tradition of observing the space between Solstice or Christmas and Epiphany as a time for protection when the veil between the worlds was thin, the Wild Hunt was at large in the woods, and scrying into the future was not only possible, but prudent. Legends say animals could speak during these nights, and that dreams are prophetic or particularly important at this time. There are many traditions surrounding these nights, many unknown to me due to my non-proficiency in German and the neglect of my German-American ancestors in teaching me their traditions. As a teacher, I always have this time off, and it has always felt like special liminal time to me, going back as long as I can remember. As a child, I loved opening the windows on advent calendars and lighting the advent candles leading up to Christmas, and this tradition of observing the time in-between Saint Thomas’s Day (Dec 20/21) and Epiphany (January 6th) extended the magic of the season into my adulthood.
I first learned this specific seasonal practice from taking a workshop from Laura Veleda Vesta, and my learning deepened with my tutelage from my Dutch Seidr teacher Namoi Mirkrida, who has a gorgeous and in-depth digital workbook on the subject, which I highly recommend (not an ad, just love and admire her work). The etymology is Raunacht is disputed. According to one view, it derives from the Middle High German word rûch ‘hairy’, [which is still used today in this sense in furriery as ‘Rauware’ or ‘ Rauchware ‘ for fur goods.
Another derivation of the word Raunacht stems from the traditional fumigation of barns to protect the livestock with incense by a priest or the farmer themselves. This interpretation is the one my teacher Naomi Mirkrida taught me, and she also taught me that general cleaning tasks as well as fumigating one’s home with incense and plant smoke is an important act to both protect and cleanse your living space and to open the doors of possibility and good fortune in the year ahead. She advised deep-cleaning the house and burning incense not only because the whirling hungry ghosts of Odin’s Wild Hunt hate sweet-smelling things, but the smoke would protect the inhabitants from ill luck and misfortune in the upcoming year. She emphasized that these practices were the ancestors way of self-reflecting but also self-regulating during a hard time of year.
By cleansing and tidying and being extra sensitive to the environment, you lay the spiritual and energetic framework for your next solar ride on the wheel of fortune.
She helped me understand the importance of using this time off to cleanse the energetic detritus of the year from my mental and physical spaces, and I am deeply grateful for her lessons and perspective.
The first year I observed these days, I fumigated my home and wrote down what I observed about the weather and events of each of the 12 days. That year, 2021, I looked back on my notes and was delighted and frankly baffled how the signs and symbols I had recorded had remarkably salient meaning to me months after I had written them. This initial experiment convinced me to keep it up, and I am now entering my 4th year in this practice, and I thought I’d share my interpretation of these 12 Nights with you both as an invitation to self-reflect and cleanse yourself in whatever ways feel good and resonant for you now, and also as a mark of the energetics of the season, which this series has tried to capture and record for posterity.
My Rauhnächte Practice
In the days and nights leading up to the Winter Solstice, I clean my spaces as much as possible. I even do some deep-cleaning tasks I often put off or dread. I know that this will never be perfect or totally complete, as the run-up to Solstice is finals week in my world, but it feels good to shift and scrub some physical and energetic residue before observing the longest night. I also give myself a good cleanse, usually with a salt or sugar scrub in an extra long shower, which always feels like the most delicious luxury after dusting and hauling trash or donatables or whatever unsavory gunk I was getting into and clear of. At the end of my scrubbing I burn incense. Lately I’ve liked cedar and juniper-based blends, and I walk with the smoking plants from room to room in my house with the windows open and plenty of fire-safety in mind. While I walk, I bring to mind what I am clearing and cleansing my space of.
On Solstice night, I like to light a fire. While the fire crackles, I sit down with my favorite pen and an offering of more incense to write out what I have done and observed that day and what the weather was like before I pull my tarot card and rune of the day. I write first things that come to mind when I see their symbols.
Traditionally, each of the 12 days correlates to a year of the month ahead, so from December 21st through 24th I use these card and rune pulls as present-time and past-year reflective prompts, then from the 25th-January 6th I correlate each day with the months ahead. Then, as the year progresses, at the start of each month I look back at the symbols and signs I captured during these liminal nights and reflect on how I can interpret the meanings into my present experiences. It’s not traditional to incorporate tarot into this, but I choose to because a) I’m afraid I’m a bit of a maximalist when it comes to symbolism and anything visual-art adjacent and b) tarot archetypal language speaks to me so clearly and directly. Runes are ancient, potent oracles, but the cards are more chatty. I like to hang out with them both when I get the chance.
I think this practice is particularly potent and special to me because it’s one of the most loving things I do for myself each year. Last year at the solstice, I wrote about how I like to write letters to future versions of myself as an act of self-trust and self-love. This practice feels like that too. Future-me trusts present-me to listen to the signs of the day, and interpret the key words of the oracles I consult. Future-me thanks past me for giving her symbols and signs for the trying times she’s in, and present-me gets to smile about all the self-loving time-traveling communication I get to practice with myself.
My point is, however you choose to mark the threshold between this year and the next one, let it be self-loving and affirming. Let it be a love-letter to your future self, who surely deserves it as much as your present self. We’ve been through TOO MUCH as a collective to not extend ourselves as much loving-kindness as possible whenever we get a chance to catch our breaths.
So happy breath-catching season, patient, magical reader. I wish you peace. For, in desperate & painful times, it is the memory and dream of peace that gets the pendulum to swing again. Happy Solstice. Happy Gregorian New Year. May you be happy and free from harm, and may you receive all the boundless compassion you need to thrive in the months ahead. Thank you for being here. May your light burn brightly in the darkness and illuminate your path forward.
Thank you for reading this article and supporting my work with your attention and time. If you’d like to get onto my custom art piece commission list next year (2026), please fill out this form. This form is an interest list only-there is not obligation to purchase custom art from me if you fill out this form. First come, first made. There are 12 slots total for 2026, depending on complexity of project requests. I’ll be in touch about your piece by the end of January. Please be aware that my commission process is slow and handmade; your interest and patience is deeply appreciated.
Sources & Links
https://germangirlinamerica.com/what-is-rauhnacht/